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“Put out the fire first, then I’ll ... I’ll tell you everything,” she said, wiping her face with the sleeve of her shirt.
It took half an hour for Taylor to dig a hole in the old garden. He carried ash buckets of hot logs and embers out to be dumped into the pit, where Roberta hosed them down thoroughly with the garden hose. She drenched the hole with water, let it soak into the ground, then repeated the process several times to be sure she had put enough water on the embers. After the fifth time, Taylor shut the water off, put an arm around her, and steered her into the house. He sat her down on the couch before the dark and empty fireplace, then got them both a glass of whiskey.
Taylor settled himself beside her. “Okay, tell me. Why did you freak out over a fire in the fireplace?”
Staring into the amber liquid for strength, Roberta sat quietly for a few minutes before clearing her throat. “I’m afraid of fire. I have been since I was a kid.”
“Why? What happened?”
Roberta broke out into a cold sweat just thinking about that night. Her breathing became ragged as she searched for the right words to say. “When I was seven, my parents and I were asleep in our house. We lived in Milford. I don’t know how, but the house caught on fire. We didn’t have smoke detectors. By the time I woke up, I was cut off from my parents by the fire. They couldn’t reach me, and I couldn’t get out the window because I couldn’t open it.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “My parents left me. I know they couldn’t get to me, but they left me. They left me! I went back into my room, sat on the floor, and watched the fire flickering through a crack under my bedroom door. Ever since, I can’t stand fire or flames of any kind.”
Taylor’s face was ravaged, his brows creased together and his eyes full of sorrow. The sadness and pain echoed her own. “But you’re here today. You made it out,” Taylor said softly.
“Yeah, the firemen broke in through the window for me, but it was pretty smoky by then, and I must have passed out from the fumes. I can barely remember that part. They carried me out of the house. It still haunts my dreams.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands, recalling the vision of a masked fireman with flames reflecting in his face shield that still plagued her dreams. “The house was fixed up, but I could not, would not, go back in there. I moved in with my grandparents in Longmeadow. I grew up there until I left for college.”
Tipping her chin up with his finger, Taylor asked, “You never tried to face your fear?”
“I tried a few times by myself, but I would get lightheaded from hyperventilating and worry I’d pass out and the candle would catch the place on fire. So, I stopped trying.”
“Bertie, we can work on this. You and me.” He leaned his forehead against her own before planting a soft kiss on her lips.
Roberta smiled as best she could and shivered to shake off the bad memories. “I know. I’m not ready to do it now.”
Sounds of the night forest surrounded them. The smell of charred wood permeated the living room even with the fire gone.
Taking both her hands in his, Taylor asked, “What do you say we call it a night?”
“Let’s put a little more water in the hole first,” Roberta said sheepishly.
