I can’t say I blame her. The fire is out, and the smoke has cleared, but with the stench of ash and the particles in the air, I wouldn’t let my baby go inside that place either.
She looks down at her bare toes and lets one side of the blanket fall open. “Will you take her?” she asks, her eyes wide and her voice unsteady. “I’ll be quick. My purse should be on the counter in the kitchen. I think my phone was on the charger in the kitchen too. I won’t be long.”
The kitchen is at the front of the little house, and the bathroom is all the way at the back. Not that that means a whole hell of a lot now, but at least she won’t have to try to sift through the point of origin.
I reach out my arms, and Eden manages to slip Juniper into my hold without jostling her too much. She sets her in my arms like a baby, not upright against my shoulder like she was sleeping on her mom, which is good because I would rather not have her face against my filthy turnout gear.
Eden tucks the blanket tightly around her daughter, then meets my eyes. “Thank you,” she says, then starts to walk away from me toward the wide-open front door.
The captain sees her leaving my side and, taking note of the kid in my arms, nods at me and follows after her to make sure she gets in and out quickly.
“Property owner’s been notified.” Chief stands beside me and watches as Eden tiptoes past the dark entryway of the house.
“Owner?” I echo. “This place is a rental?”
Chief nods. “Tenant moved in just a couple days ago, sounds like. I told the property owner they didn’t need to come out, but Bob Horton owns this place. He panicked and said he’s on his way.”
“Horton owns this place? The electronics guy? Since when does he own rental property?” As I talk with Chief, I can’t help but watch Juniper sleep. She looks so peaceful and so, so beautiful. Like her mom.
Chief laughs, but he softens his voice a bit when the baby squirms. “Yeah, Horton is apparently branching out. I told him he’d need to take a closer look at his cleaning and maintenance protocol before he rents a place again.”
I shake my head. “How long did Bob own this place before he rented it? Five minutes?” A low burn of anger builds in my chest. “This is the shit that lights me up,” I say, trying hard not to pace in place and wake Juniper. “Bob bought this house, probably on the cheap, did nothing to fix it up, and rented to a single mother with a baby. Horton have insurance? She’s going to lose everything.”
He nods. “She has renters, and he has insurance on the place. It’ll take some time, but she’ll be all right.”
Little Juniper shivers as though she’s having a terrible nightmare.
I rock her lightly in my arms and watch as the captain follows Eden back through the front door. She is wearing a pair of sneakers and the knee-length robe. She has the same diaper bag I saw at my parents’ slung over her arm, and she looks far from all right.
I make a vow to myself there and then to make it my business to see that she and Juniper come through this better than just okay.
4
EDEN
When they sayyou don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone… Well, I’m living that now.
I know everything I lost in that damn house fire. My clothes, my kid’s clothes. Junie’s toys, my books. Talk about taking stock of your life. No matter how much stuff I lost, none of that mattered.
Not as long as I have my baby and myself.
We can make it through anything.
Within a few days of the fire, the house was officially taken over by the insurance company, and I had to make an inventory and say goodbye to everything I’d just paid to move across the country.
But the simple fact is, every day I wake up thankful that Junie and I were awake when it started. Thankful that I had renters insurance. Thankful that I had a caring local agent who stood by me when the company grilled me about the claim. That was no fun.
I gave recorded statements about how long I left the bathroom fan on. What I did, where I was, what I was wearing. Even what I had to drink. As if I’d get so plastered as a single mom that I’d burn down a house with my kid in it.
It all happened so fast.
I was going to take a shower before bed, so I turned on the bathroom light and the exhaust fan so the steam wouldn’t fog up the bathroom. Just before I was about to step into the shower, I decided to take a bath instead. I left the bathroom to get a book, heard Junie calling for me from her crib, and I went in and checked on her. I changed her wet diaper, but before I could put her back to sleep, I smelled smoke.
And then, the scariest few hours of my life happened. I thought I’d been through some rough stuff up until then. And while I’m not proud of how I got the money, I have the means to replace what we lost. We have insurance. I have a little nest egg. And pretty darn soon, Junie and I might actually have our own house.
The extended-stay hotel the insurance company put us up in is comfortable, and Aunt Sassy has visited us every day—in fact, she’s pestered me to stay with her while we get through this whole mess. But my aunt has a small one-bedroom unit.
She’s in her sixties and still working on her feet as a waitress. She has a great life, but she’s done a lot already, and just welcoming me and Juniper into her life is generous enough.
