“Is that why you don’t share the same last name?”
“Weber is my mother’s maiden name. She didn’t want me to have any connection to that man.”
“Did he find you…in the pantry, I mean?”
I shook my head. “They came into the kitchen. Mom was crying, begging for him not to take her little girl away, but he ignored her and continued calling out my name. It was like he didn’t even care about my mother. He just wanted to hurt her.” Pain and anger surged inside of me at the injustice of it all. “Had I just left with him, she would still be alive.”
Cowboy’s eyes softened. “Sweetheart, you don’t know that.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t know for certain. But I believe it’s true.” A lone tear ran down my cheek. “There was a scuffle. Glass shattered and my father cursed, then my mother released the most agonizing sound I’d ever heard. Moments later, everything went silent.”
I shivered as my mind pulled me back in time and stuffed me back into my six-year-old body. Alone and trembling, I’d sat on the floor of the dark pantry with my arms curled around my knees until smoke eventually seeped under the door. I recalled the terror and confusion, the choking and gasping for breath, the way my eyes and throat burned. I made the decision to open the pantry door and face the awful truth about what had happened.
“By the time I opened the door, the kitchen was engulfed with fire and smoke. I could barely see anything as I tried to find a way out. Only when I tripped over something, did I realize what—or rather who—it was.” I cringed at my own words.
Cowboy shook his head. “Anna, stop. You don’t have to tell me any more.”
I nodded. Of course I didn’t. Because a fireman like Cowboy knew exactly what it was like to find someone in that capacity. A gruesome body, covered in flames and melting skin, lying in a fetal position, lacking any hair, and the smell of burned flesh in the air. With one look, he would have known my mother was past saving.
But I was only six.
“I tried to get to her…so I could help her,” I admitted, barely able to hear myself over the visions of fire roaring in my head. “I tried to crawl toward her, but I never made it. A wooden beam in the ceiling had burned through and fallen on top of me, pinning my waist to the floor.”
Cowboy’s eyes narrowed and he breathed out through his nose. “That’s how you got your scars?”
I nodded slowly. “I don’t know how long I was trapped under it because I lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was being carried out by a fireman wearing a black helmet. I panicked and fought him, so he held me tighter and hummed to me all the way out to the ambulance. I guess I was in shock because I was pretty calm up until they rushed past me pushing a gurney with my mother wearing an oxygen mask.”
“Jesus. She was alive?”
“Barely. I heard them say her pulse was weak and thready and that her throat was swelling shut. They were rushing her to the ambulance to intubate her. At the time, I didn’t know what that even meant. I went wild trying to get up and go to her, but the paramedics gave me something to calm me down—a sedative, I suppose—and as I faded away, the last thing I remember was the fireman sitting next to me, humming a tune to keep me from being afraid.”
“Chief Swanson?”
“Yes. I didn’t learn his name until months later when he was called to testify in court. I wasn’t allowed to be there, but my stepdad mentioned his name and said he was the one who carried me out of the house. Before they had discovered me in the kitchen, they found my father in the living room and pulled him out. He was arrested on the spot after neighbors confirmed he showed up at our house right before all the yelling started and the fire broke out. He never admitted what he’d done. Denied it, even after they charged him with murder. My mom died en route to the hospital.”