Ashes

I hate being poor. I hate that we’re always sleeping in homeless shelters and sometimes on the streets. I especially hate how I never had the opportunity to finish high school, let alone go to college. Thrift store clothes, cheapest of the cheap. It’s normal to me now, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay.

We pretty much walk everywhere we need to go. School for my siblings, work for me and my mom, the store every once in a while when we can afford it. Sometimes we’ll take the bus downtown for things like doctor appointments.

I'm seventeen and my name is Lizzy. I have two brothers named Charlie and Maxwell, they’re eleven-year-old twins. I also have a sister named Olivia who’s just five years old. My mom had me when she was still in high school, and then she dropped out and got her GED.

All five of us used to live together with Dad, but he left while Mom was pregnant with Olivia because he found a better job than the one he had at the time, working as the manager of a movie theater. None of us know 

We lost our apartment shortly after that. My mom didn’t have a job then because she was seven and a half months pregnant with Olivia, so we only had what little Dad didn’t take to pay rent, buy food, gas, clothes, everything. It didn’t last very long. We got to keep the apartment until Olivia was two months old, and then we moved to a smaller apartment, and then we became homeless. 

My dad didn’t help. I haven’t talked to him since I was twelve, the night he left. He completely cut off communication with us, which is weird because I remembered him being a pretty good guy. I guess I was wrong, he’s a jerk. He ruined my life, Mom’s life, and probably my siblings too.

So anyway, there was my Mom, who had recently become homeless with four kids, one of which was a newborn. Do you know how hard it is to take care of a newborn with no money? Hard. For a while, Mom considered giving Olivia up for adoption. She wanted her to grow up in a good home with a financially stable family. I remember it also being hard for Mom to take care of Charlie because he has pretty severe asthma. He used to have attacks frequently, but it’s gotten better since then. 

Ultimately Mom decided not to give Olivia up for adoption. She got a job as a waitress for a small restaurant in town that she still works at. Olivia has it okay now, I guess. She goes to school every day and gets free breakfast and lunch from there, and she has all the necessities like clothes, school supplies, and medical care. The twins are the same. School, clothes, food, and a pretty consistent place to sleep in the homeless shelter we stay at. 

I don’t go to school anymore. I dropped out as early as I could so that I could get a job and help my mom. At sixteen, I got my first full-time job as a waitress for a diner in town that was walking distance from the shelter. I also babysit late nights sometimes, people hire me from an online babysitting site. Of course, I don’t mention the fact that I’m homeless. Most adults worry about the homeless doing drugs and alcohol, even though I’ve never wanted to try either.

My job doesn’t pay much, barely over minimum wage, but it’s getting us a place to live! With Mom and me both working, we finally have enough saved and a steady enough income to get a small apartment. Since I got my job, we’ve been better than the last few years before. We spend as little as possible, saving as much as possible in cheap clothes and food. But hey, it worked!

We’re moving into a two bedroom, one bath apartment next week. Mom’ll get her own bedroom, the twins will share, and me and Olivia are going to sleep in the living room on pull out beds with curtains for privacy. I can’t wait. We’ll have a kitchen and our own bathroom for the first time in more than four years. I can sleep in a bed of my own, take long showers, maybe even get a TV at some point. I’m just really happy our life is finally turning around.

—

“Hey Mom, you got the last box?” We don’t have a ton of stuff, but enough that we had to get help from my Mom’s work friend with a truck to move it. The apartment complex we’re going to live in is less than half a mile away from the homeless shelter we stayed at, which means the guy helping us, Sam, doesn’t mind driving back and forth a few times. More importantly, it means that work and school will still be within walking distance. 

“Yup! Last one. Aren’t you excited, honey?” She lets out a long breath. “Our own home. Ours. You and me.” 

“I am so excited. I can’t wait. And, I’ll finally be able to sleep in a different room than the twins and their snoring.”

Mom laughs. “Yeah. That might just be the best part of this. Are you gonna want to go to the store with me later? I was thinking we could stock up this new pantry and grab some soap and shampoo for the bathroom.”

“Course I’ll come with you. Somebody’s got to help you carry the bags back here.”

“Thanks. Put your shoes on, I think we can go now.”

“I wanna go too!” A little voice calls from the twins' new room. Olivia speeds toward me and Mom. “I’m bored. Max and Charlie won’t let me play with them.” 

I look at Mom and she shrugs. “Sure, Olivia. Go let the twins know they’re home alone for a little bit,” she tells her.

“Yay! Thanks, Mommy! I call pushing the cart.” Olivia skips away to her brothers.

In the next couple months we got settled into the apartment. I had my friend Mia from the diner over a couple times. I’ve barely had friends since I dropped out of school, and I never had any of them over before.

Also, I have a boyfriend now. He asked me on a date less than a month after we moved into the apartment, and I said yes. His name’s Alex, and I’ve had a crush on him since I met him on my first day at work. I had no idea he liked me back. He’s super cute and smart and nerdy. He’s in all advanced classes and he has adorable glasses, and sometimes he wears science T-shirts.

Things are getting pretty serious between us. He knows all about our money situation and the fact that we live in a cheap apartment. He’s fine with me having dropped out of school, and he’s the number one person I go to to talk to about anything. 

Alex’s parents are divorced, but he still has a relationship with both of them. His Mom less so, he visits her on Saturdays but lives with his Dad. She used to be an alcoholic, which was the number one reason for the divorce. His Dad has a lot of money and is going to send Alex to a good college. The only reason he’s even working at the diner is because he wants spare cash of his own.

We did get that TV, we have a Netflix subscription and a news service app on it. It’s only 24 inches, and we got it used. It’s still awesome though because it’s the first time we’ve had any electronics since Dad left, other than phones for my mom and I and a family laptop.

I hop off the community bus and see Alex waiting for me on the bench. “Hey, Handsome.” I say, hugging him.

“Hi,” he replies and gives me a short kiss. “How was your day?”

“It was fine. There was this crazy old lady who ordered like three meals, and she ate them all plus dessert. But she tipped well, so I’m not complaining.”

He laughs in that cute way that I love. “Hey, how would you feel about a date tomorrow? I thought we could go see that new movie we were talking about the other day.”

“Sounds great. Can we go in the afternoon, though? I have a babysitting job at eight.”

“Sure thing. What time were you thinking?”

I type in my phone password and open the movie theater website. “Why don’t you come down to my place around twelve and we can eat lunch, then go to the one o’clock show? My mom is going to be at work at that time, but the twins are old enough to stay home and watch Olivia. They’ll have to eat lunch with us, though.”

“Perfect, I love your siblings. We can take my car.” He opens the front door to his fancy apartment. “C’mon in, my dad ordered chinese for dinner.

—

I put the plate of sandwich fixings and chips down on the table. Max and Charlie both steal a couple chips before I can tell them to wait until we’re all seated. “Hey! Don’t do that.”

“It’s fine. See? I do it too.” Alex pops a potato chip into his mouth also and chuckles. 

“Y’all are so annoying. Right, Olivia?”

“Yeah. They’re crazy!” 

I smile at how cute Olivia is and take my seat next to Alex. “It’s too bad Mom’s not here,” Charlie says. 

“I know! She’s always working,” Max agrees. 

I definitely agree with my brothers. Poor Mom, I think while we all start eating.

About five minutes into the meal I smell a faint hint of smoke. It’s just a wisp though, and I don’t smell it again for a few minutes. Gross, I think, assuming that it was the old man across the hall smoking cigarettes again.

Around ten minutes after that Alex says that he smells something. “It smells like smoke. Is the stove still on? Can you go check real fast?”

“Sure, but I’m pretty sure I turned it off,” I tell him while I walk to the kitchen. Sure enough the stove is completely off. So is the oven. I walk back, sit down, and take another bite of sandwich. “Do you guys smell anything?” I ask Olivia and the twins. 

“I smell you. Did you forget deodorant this morning?” Max says.

“Not funny. Do any of you guys feel light headed or bad at all? Could there be a gas leak somewhere?” I look around the small table at all of their faces. Alex nods, but everyone else is shaking their head no. The twins don’t look like they are taking this seriously at all.

Charlie announces loudly, “I don’t even smell anything. Just go to your stupid movie.”

“No, we need to find out what that smell is. You really don’t smell anything off? Alex?” 

“I definitely still smell smoke. Let's go check outside.”

It’s that second that we hear the fire alarm. I don’t know what’s going on for a second. Then I realized that we were right about the smoke smell and there must be a fire somewhere in the building. Hearing that high pitch beeping and the automated voice telling us to evacuate, I imagine the smoke smell instantly becoming stronger.

I hear Olivia talking and see her mouth moving, but I can’t tell what she said. “What?” I yell.

“What’s that sound? It hurts my ears.” She’s crying now.

I put a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. The twins stop joking around, finally, and look at me. “There’s a fire somewhere in the building. I don’t know where, but we need to get out. Preferably now.” The smoke smell is definitely really strong now. 

All five of us ran to the door. Alex throws it open and the five of us rush out into the hall.

People are running towards the stairs and elevators. The carpet of the hallway is partially on fire. On. Fire. And we’re in the middle of it.

“Stay far, far away from anything that is on fire.” I scream over tons of people who are also yelling. Our apartment is on the second floor, but there are eight floors in our apartment complex. Everyone is crowding onto the stairs and this area of the building. Does that mean the fire is downstairs or upstairs? Or are we in the worst part of the fire here on the second floor? And why isn’t the sprinkler system turning on?

I hear Charlie wheezing as he runs beside me. Then the sound stops and I look to see if he’s still there. He’s not, he’s on the floor a few feet away.

I drop to my knees beside him. “Alex, take the others and go outside. We’ll be there in a second.” I turn to Charlie. “You okay?”

“Sorry, I tripped.” He inhales and turns over, then coughs again. “I think I hurt my ankle”

I look over at his foot. It definitely looks broken, or at least twisted badly. I don’t say this, of course, but I decide that we can risk the elevators. 

I turn around to help him up, and I see Olivia running in the opposite direction. Why? What is she doing? “Olivia! Come back!” She doesn’t hear me. “Olivia!” What should I do? It’s Olivia or Charlie. But maybe somebody will tell Olivia to go the right way. Of course somebody will. I can’t abandon Charlie here. Everyone is too worried about getting themselves outside the building to help a kid with a broken ankle. It would slow them down by a lot.

We hobble to the elevators, him leaning on my shoulder. Gosh, it’s hot in here. Charlie is still coughing and having trouble breathing beside me. I press the button on the elevator what feels like a million times, and it finally opens. We step in and go down, along with about five other people.

I hope Olivia’s okay. I hope Charlie’s okay. I hope this elevator doesn’t break. I hope Max and Alex are safe. There’s a lot to worry about right now.

We finally make it out of the building. There’s more coughing from Charlie beside me. “Lizzy. Liz…”

I’m jolted back into the real, horrible world just in time to see my little brother pass out cold. “Help!” I shout. “Somebody help! Get an ambulance!” 

A paramedic from one of the ambulances comes and takes my brother away in a wheelchair. I see her setting him up with an oxygen mask. I don’t have time to worry about him now, though. I need to find Olivia.

I ran back towards the building. Some of the rooms are clearly fully on fire, I can see it through the windows. It looks like a scene from a movie. “Olivia? Olivia! Has anyone seen her? Has anyone seen my sister? Olivia!” I scream her name and ask anyone who will listen where she is, but nobody has any answers.

—

Two days later, Maxwell, Mom, me, and Alex are visiting Olivia in the hospital. Charlie has to stay a couple nights in the hospital, for treating both the asthma attack and the broken ankle. He’s feeling pretty bad, he has a breathing tube and got surgery on his ankle. I still don’t know how we’ll pay for the hospital bills.

Everyone keeps saying that I saved him. It doesn’t feel like I did anything. I might have helped him, but not Olivia. Now she’s in the critical burn unit because of me. My sister is probably going to die and it’s all my fault. What should I have done differently? 

I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

—

Olivia passed away one week after the fire. I still blame myself. Mom and I both still have to go to work every day. Charlie is still in the hospital. We lost everything we worked so hard for that day. We’re only going to get fifteen hundred dollars from our crappy insurance, not nearly enough to replace half of what we had.

As it turns out, the fire started because of bad wiring. Somebody on one of the upper floors turned on their lights one day and boom, the building was on fire.

Olivia probably thought the fire was on the first floor and, as a five year old, thought going up would be the best solution. She made it all the way to the fourth floor before she blacked out.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Lizzy,” Alex says to me while I sob in his arms. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. My sister is dead, all our stuff is burned to ashes, and we don’t have enough money to even pay for Olivia’s funeral.”

Alex looks at me and says in a soft voice, “It’s okay. Me and my Dad are going to help you. You can get another apartment and new clothes, we’ll pay for the funeral. What happened to Olivia isn’t your fault. It’s not. You can’t blame yourself. It’ll all be okay.”

Not yet, though. But maybe someday. It’ll probably be a while. But maybe someday.