Tossing the covers back, I grabbed at clothes in a rush to dress.
“I’m on my way,” I said into the phone before disconnecting the call.
Slamming my drawers shut as I rushed accidentally woke Lilly up. She came to the door yawning and scratching the side of her face.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Where’s the fire?”
I paused at her choice of words, feeling like my entire world was falling apart around me.
“At my grandmother’s house,” I said.
Her face paled. “Oh, my God. I’m sorry, Shannon. Give me two minutes to put some clothes on and I’ll go with you.”
The interstate was empty, the long black asphalt looking like a highway of death, so the hour-long trip to Somersby was no match for my ninety miles per hour. Lilly gripped the little handle above the door the entire time with a stiff spine and a fear-frozen expression. Forty minutes after leaving my house, I made it to the small quiet town.
When I pulled into the trailer park, I could barely get through since so many firetrucks occupied such a small space. Instead of trying, I parked on the side of the dirt road at the entrance and hopped out of my car. Lilly was right behind me as I ran toward my grammy’s trailer, and when I got there, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It was gone.
All of it.
Apart from the metal frame and the concrete blocks holding that frame, everything else was burned and dripping with water from where the firemen had tried to put the fire out. Loud crackling noises from the stuff still burning beneath her trailer filled the night air, and the smells of burnt aluminum stung my nose.
All my childhood memories.
Everything my pop and grammy ever owned.
It was gone.
And then I remembered Pop’s ring Grammy had given me earlier in the night, and the tears slammed into me so hard I moaned in pain.
I’d left it on her bedside table.
It was as if fate had pushed her to give me the ring on this night to keep it safe from the impending fire, and I had left it there to burn.
My future.
My precious moment.
Our lives.
Completely charred and turned to ash.
My eyes scanned the area until they landed on Grammy. She was sitting inside the ambulance with an oxygen mask covering her face.
I rushed to her, jumping into the back of the ambulance and taking her soot-covered hand.
“Grammy, what happened?” I asked, my voice sounding small and unsure.
She was my mother. She had raised me, and I had almost lost her.
She looked over at me, her aged eyes dazed and chaotic.
“Find my Shannon,” she said in a panic. “She was sleeping in her room, and they can’t find her.”
I pulled away, confused by her words.
“She’s only ten years old. She’s still in there.” Tears sprang to her eyes.
I pulled her to me and cupped the back of her head.
She wasn’t okay.
She hadn’t been okay for a long time, but I no longer had time to figure out my next move. I had to move now.
“Shh,” I soothed her. “Don’t you worry about Shannon. She’s perfectly safe.”
Lilly drove my car to the hospital, so I could ride in the back of the ambulance with Grammy. She cried the entire trip and worried about her husband and ten-year-old me. It hurt to watch her in the state she was in, but all I could do was hold her close and reassure her that everything would be fine. I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell her the truth that Pop and ten-year-old Shannon were long gone.
I had to wait in the hall while they gave Grammy a checkup, taking her blood pressure and measuring her oxygen levels. Once they finished examining her, the doctor came out and called me over to the side of the waiting room.
“How is she?” I asked.
I was stressed. My hair was piled on top of my head, and I was wearing a nice work top with skull-covered pajama bottoms and fuzzy boots. Needless to say, I looked a bit on the crazy side. I was in such a rush that I hadn’t paid attention to the clothes I grabbed.
“As far as the fire goes, she’s fine. I assume she left before the fire was large enough to cause any physical damage to her. No smoke inhalation. No burns. There is a problem, however.”
I paused, knowing exactly what he was going to say and dreading the moments that would follow from that point on.
Nodding, I said, “I know.”
“I’m afraid your grandmother is suffering from dementia. As I’m sure you’re aware, it’s usually a symptom of a more serious condition. Your grandmother can no longer live alone. I’m sorry, but you should consider having her put into a facility where she can receive proper care. I know it’s a lot, but it’s simply too dangerous for her to be alone anymore.”
Tears rushed to my eyes, and I blinked them away. I had known, but I hadn’t realized how bad it was. I thought I still had time, but apparently, I was wrong.
“Thank you,” I said, swiping at a wayward tear before he could see it.
He nodded, patted my arm, and walked away, leaving me with one of the hardest decisions I would ever have to make. I had to put my grammy in a nursing home. I had no way to afford it, and I knew it would break my heart, but I had to do it. It was for her own good. I couldn’t risk losing her.
FOUR
MATTHEW
“I THINK YOU NEED TO GET LAID, MAN,” Jonathan said. “Look at your shoulders. You’re uptight, and the muscles in your right arm are bigger than your left.” He waved his finger at my body. “You’re jerking off too much.”
Jonathan and I had been best friends for three years. We met at a charity event where my mother and his father were the ringleaders. We spent the night drinking his dad’s expensive scotch while our parents partied and rubbed elbows with some of the world’s richest. We had been inseparable ever since. When you saw one of us, the other wasn’t usually far behind.
He was my wingman, my sidekick—the brother I never had—and when my back was against the wall, he was the one in front of me holding off the fight until I was loose again.
We got into a lot of shit over the years. My indiscretions were not nearly as bad as his were, though. Where you might find me speeding or gambling, his vice of choice was guns. If an AK-47 was anywhere on the streets of Charleston, you could be sure Jonathan’s fingerprints were on it somewhere. I never understood why he sold guns because it wasn’t like he needed the money, but then I’d remember the rush I got when I placed a large bet, and I understood.
He was reclining in a deck chair sipping scotch from a crystal glass in a seven-hundred-dollar pair of Thom Browne swim shorts and Cartier sunglasses. Swept back from his face, his long blond hair was wet from a dip in the deck-top pool on his father’s two-hundred-foot yacht. If Jonathan was nothing else, he was definitely over the top. But the one thing he wasn’t was wrong.