All of it to feed a fire that might’ve stolen something infinitely more precious to me.
The heat scalded my skin even from this distance out, my arm rising instinctively in an effort to shield my face as I moved toward Diya’s beloved car in the vain hope that she was sitting shell-shocked behind the wheel. Of course it was empty—and it was parked behindher brother’s black Mercedes-Benz SUV and her father’s cream-colored Lexus.
“Call the fire department!” I screamed at the neighbors who’d raced down the drive behind me.
I’d seen the building that housed the Lake Tarawera Fire Station, a curve of black with huge barn-style doors on the lake side of the road, knew it wasn’t far. Diya had told me it was a volunteer-run station—I didn’t know what that meant, whether it was staffed twenty-four seven or not.
If we had to wait for help from Rotorua…
“We already called! But I’ll call again and tell them how bad it is!” the neighbors’ teenage son yelled, while I and the dad—I couldn’t remember the stocky man’s name—ran toward the fire.
The mother, in shorts and a tank top too lightweight for the chill morning air, her feet bare and her ash-blond hair falling out of a loose bun, turned to shout at her son. “Bring the phone back with you!”
Already some distance away, I barely heard her.
Grit in my throat, a stinging in my eyes. I began to cough well before we reached the wider periphery of the house, the smoke was so noxious. Lifting my forearm to my nose, I blinked rapidly in an effort to see the front door through my watering eyes.
Even though Diya and I lived in the apartment above the garage, I knew she’d be in the main part of the house. She was a creature of family, loved being involved, wouldn’t have been able to bear being out of the mix when she saw that her brother and sister-in-law had come to visit.
Especially today. The morning after the party.
She’d have been so excited to discuss the night with her sister-in-law, who happened to be her best friend. And all the while, she’d have been keeping an ear open for the sound of the forest green AlfaRomeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio I’d borrowed from her mother for my run into the city, since my long legs weren’t as comfortable in the Mini.
Truth was, I just liked driving the high-performance vehicle Dr.Sarita Prasad called her “midlife noncrisis” car.
“After working my tail off all these years,” she’d said to me when I admired it, “I decided I deserved this ridiculously gorgeous thing even if it gives me palpitations that it’s worth more than our first house!” Then she’d handed me the key. “Go, have fun. Give it a workout.”
This morning, she’d already been for her morning run when I popped my head into the main house. Still in her running gear, her curly hair up in a ponytail, she’d lobbed the key at me before I could ask to borrow the vehicle, her smile wide enough to carve grooves in her cheeks. She loved that I loved the car as much as she did—it had been our first conversation about the Alfa Romeo that had taken our relationship from awkward acquaintances to the beginnings of true family.
“No, man! You can’t go in!” The neighbor’s breathless voice from behind me, his hand gripping the back of the long-sleeved gray T-shirt I’d thrown on for the drive into Rotorua. “The fire’s too strong! The front door’s collapsed!”
He was right, but I wasn’t about to abandon Diya. Given the presence of the Lexus and the Mercedes, I knew four other people must’ve been inside the house when it went up in flame, but helping them would be a thing automatic, a thing I’d do for any human.
Saving Diya was my reason for being.
“Go around to the right!” I yelled at the neighbor. “I’ll go left! See if you can find a way in!”
The other man didn’t argue, just took off in a wide arc around the burning house while I did the same on the other side. I stayed closer,though, close enough that soot and ash landed on my T-shirt and the heat blazed against one side of my face.
Sweat pooled under my armpits, beaded along my brow.
Please, baby, please.
It was a mantra inside my head as I searched frantically for any possible entrance into the house. I knew where Diya would’ve most likely been—in the large central living room filled with comfortable sofas and the biggest wall-mounted television I’d ever seen. That living room flowed off the kitchen so that it was all one huge area separated only by furniture, plants, and clever placement of artwork.
I could get to that space from the glass door on this side—it was segmented into panels, a line of black demarking each panel, and could be folded back to open up this entire side of the house. The same could be done at the back, to create an indoor-outdoor flow from the lounge to the back patio with its sweeping views of the lake.
But when I turned the corner, it was to see shards of glass scattered across the lush green grass that was Dr.Rajesh Prasad’s pride and joy. “This lawn eats better than I do!” Diya’s father had joked last week while fertilizing it with the special organic lawn fertilizer he had shipped from a supplier all the way in Dunedin.
Flames poured out of the empty maws of the door panels, hot orange tongues that threatened to lick at my clothing.
My chest spasmed, the coughs I’d barely been managing to control turning into a hacking akin to that of an old man with a four-pack-a-day habit. “Diya!” I screamed when I could catch enough breath to make sound.
The fire’s roar, the crash of timber inside, was the only reply.
A small flame carried on a tiny piece of paper landed on my T-shirt, burning a hole in it. Brushing it off, I continued on around to the back of the house even though I knew that it was too late—evenif I somehow managed to get in, there was no way anyone inside that house had survived.
Tears streamed down my face, but they were from the grit and smoke. Not grief. Because I wasn’t done yet. The lawn led directly down to the lake, the distance a matter of seconds to cover at a run. If Diya had managed to stumble out in that direction, she could’ve taken refuge in the chilly water.
