The Deep End

It was just after 11 p.m. when the lights blinked themselves out, leaving Millie dripping wet in the dark.

   With its dying breath, the shower head cried a river of ice, bathing her in Antarctic cold from every angle. She let out a shriek even their neighbors across the way must have heard, flailing her arms as she drowned in pitch black.

   Millie shuffled into their windowless bathroom thinking a hot shower would help her catch some Zs. She was wide awake now. No one was going to sleep tonight.

   Tearing the palm tree curtains back, she cursed everything and everyone as her feet found the green pastures of their cotton bath mat.

   A chill cut through her shoulder blades as it dawned on her. The power must be out. Maybe the fire finally had reached them.

   Millie trudged to the kitchen by the light of her iPhone, holding it aloft like a torch in one hand and taming her mess of snowy hair with the other. Abe was on his cell phone, pacing a hole in the floor. She could tell from the way he was slouching in the moonlight. Bad news.

   He cradled the phone with one arm like a newborn, talking in a hushed voice like he was lulling the person on the other end to sleep. He was holding it way too close. Millie read on Facebook those things should be held an inch away from your head at least. Radiation or something, she recalled.

   Millie circled him, pointing at the phone and mouthing, “Who is it?” 

   “Anna,” Abe mouthed, placing it on the kitchen countertop and put it on speakerphone.

   “Mom. Dad. You have got to get out of there. Like, right now. The winds are seriously kicking up. I saw on Twitter the fire is coming straight for you. You have to go. NOW.”

   “Sweetie, we haven’t seen any evacuation orders yet,” Milie said, her hands clasped over her heart. “My app tells me it’s supposed to still be 13—no, 10 miles away. We’ll be okay. Your Father even cleared out all the leaves in the yard for once.”

   Abe leaned in closer.

   “We have the car all packed, honey. We’re ready to rock ‘n roll down here. CAL Fire’s work’in overtime to put this sucker out. Probably gonna be all over before anything happens here. How’s school? Seattle treating you right? When are you coming down for Thanksgiving? I got this great new flat screen—”

   Anna wasn’t pleading anymore.

   “You guys, you don’t understand. GET. IN. THE. CAR. NOW.”

   “Honey, I—“

   Abe spotted the tiny red glow on the horizon from the kitchen window the second Millie did. Dumbfounded, they watched it blossom into a riot of fiery, angry colors soaking the oak-studded foothills in flames. It was like hell on wheels and it was careening toward their house like a runaway train.

   It was time to get in the car and outrun the end of the world.

   Outside, the fall winds were tumbling downslope like a dry hurricane, breathing fire onto the Sacramento Valley.

   They're called Diablo winds in Northern California. Basically hot air blowing in from the Bay Area, flowing up and over the mountains. Deadlier than the usual variety in Silicon Valley.

   The wind chimes on the back patio threatened to fly off into the night as Millie snatched their protesting Siamese from her tree. No time to squeeze her into a carrier. She would have to wrestle with Sagwa all the way to Chico and buff out the scratches later.

   Abe had just enough time to throw on his bomber’s jacket and grab the keepsake box by the door, full of things they didn't care to see all the time: yearbooks, photo albums, a trophy or two. Irreplaceables and must-haves. The legals were sitting in a safe deposit box in Chico.

   Abe grew up in L.A. His Dad always told her, “Fill up when you get to a half tank. Pumps won’t be working after an earthquake.”

   The Saturn wailed and shuttered as it peeled out of the cul-de-sac, smoke pouring from the wheel hubs like dragon’s breath. Abe gripped the steering wheel with all ten fingers, grinding his teeth like he did in his sleep. You couldn’t hear it amid the screaming rubber. Six inches of glass and metal were all that separated them from the nightmare racing down the road.

   Dead, golden grass equaled kindling this time of year in Northern California. There was miles of it behind them. Tonight, it was no better than a lit fuse.

   Millie had nothing to grab onto but the 14 pounds of cat pounding against her chest. The old girl fell straight to the floor when Abe slammed the brakes—so hard it practically punched them both in the gut. There, lying right in front of them, was their death knell. Sprawled across State Route 99 was what used to be a grand ‘ole oak tree. No way around it.

   Abe beat the steering wheel with both hands, cursing it and stroking his thinning scalp.

   “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” Millie asked him on loop, waiting for an answer she knew they weren’t going to like.

   She buried her hands beneath her sleeves as they exchanged glances. The thought crossed their minds at the same time. Then they both said it. The pool.

   The skies were raining smoke and ash by the time they pulled back home. It was hot—as stifling as their honeymoon in Cancun. The towering inferno behind them was stampeding down the hills and doing laps around the block. Above them, the tree line was lit up like Roman candles in July.

   They moved to Valley View Drive for the quiet. The cul-de-sac of red, white, and blue ranch houses was always alive with the silence of old money. Retirees collecting their pensions, cashing in their Social Security, cracking open their nest eggs for a priceless view of the hills.

   Tonight, it was abandoned. Jan and Bobby were boating in Florida. Mike and Alice were back east watching the grand babies. Don was picking up his new heart in San Francisco.

   Millie and Abe retired to their half-acre lot of stucco and brick after Union Pacific Railroad said adieu to its eldest carmen and hello to a stock buyback. They stayed busy. He painted. She wrote her memoir. Would-be grandparents in an airport novel.

   Their L-shaped box was like their sunset years. Simple, generic. Weekend trips to Home Depot kept the place looking tidy, but it would never make the cover of Architectural Digest. It came with a flag pole, a white picket fence, garden gnomes—Hallmark Channel Americana.

   Don spent his cop pension keeping up with the Joneses. That meant building a Roman pool in his backyard for the missus, complete with checkered blue tiles and vinyl liner. Chic minimalism in the boonies.

   Sagwa leapt out of the Saturn the minute Millie swung open the door. She disappeared into the bushes before her humans could nab her.

   The flames were closing in as they raced to the 1,200 feet of submerged concrete in Don’s backyard. Behind them, theirs had already caught fire.

    “We’re going to get into the neighbors’ pool. Should we do this?” Millie asked the 911 operator as she gave the address.

   “Get anywhere safe,” the dispatcher said.

   “We’ll be in the pool,” Millie blurted out so fast the words ran together like one word. “That’s where we’ll be.”

   “Get anywhere safe, ma’am,” the dispatcher repeated.

   Abe gave Millie a leg up over the rotting fence dividing the yard from theirs before he clawed his way over the wall of boards and splinters. When he made it over to the other side, Millie was kneeling over the deep end farthest from the house, wearing only a thin tank top and pajama bottoms, her shoes and socks lying in the grass. She was breathing heavily, hands clutching her knees like she had just run a marathon.

   You’ve got to calm down, girl. You can’t go underwater and hyperventilate.

   Abe dropped his pants and threw his jacket. Wearing only a T-shirt and his boxers, he turned to Millie. “Jump!”

   “Hold up!” Millie said. “The water’s freezing. Let’s see what happens.”

   Too late. Casa Don went up in smoke and the big shade tree above them along with it. The big ‘ole oak’s brittle, brown limbs erupted in embers. Beneath it, the aging railroad ties framing the concrete steps to the pool ignited.

   Millie jumped. Jumped for her life into the ice bed bidding her good night. Feet first. Eyes shut. Fingers curled into a fist.

   The vicious cold lit her nerves on fire. Then everything went dark.

   When Millie came to, the world was out of focus. She flailed her arms like someone sinking in quick sand, swallowing mouthfuls of the Sacramento River. Two brawny arms pulled her to the edge. “I got you, I got you,” Abe said as if he needed to.

   The thick bifocals perched on her nose were drifting to the blackened bottom of the pool six feet below where a mass of soot, leaves, and oakwood was gathering.

   Don’s house was aflame like a chestnut held too long over a roaring hearth fire. Flames were traveling up the walls like a column of termites, sinking their teeth into every beam. What was left of the roof jutted from the house like oven baked ribs—broiled, blackened. Well done.

   Done was the word crossing Millie’s mind as she slapped herself awake. She wasn’t dreaming.

   A flock of embers sent them under for as long as they could hold their breath. Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Then only ten. Over and over again.

   When they surfaced, Millie huddled beneath Abe’s clothes, holding them aloft in the air above their heads like makeshift umbrellas. Millie shivered beneath the damned T-shirt Anna bought him: “Old Sure Beats Dead.”

   Millie glanced up at the moon as they treaded water, hoping for a glimpse of morning. The big round pearl just dangled in the same place against the midnight.

   How long does it take for a house to burn down?

   Off in the hills, explosions cut the air like a war zone. Propane tanks? Ammunition?

   All night long, Millie thought someone would come to get them. It was always her and Abe. Like it always had been.

   Millie shuddered as if she was coming apart, her hands and feet a dark shade of blue. She felt Abe’s eyes on her as he locked his fingers through hers.

   “Excuse me, I have a question and need a woman's advice,” he asked.

   Millie sobbed and laughed freezing tears as a ghost of a smile haunted her face.

   “Yes? What is it?”

   “Let's say I see a really cute girl. Do I go up and talk to her, or is that too direct?”

   “No, no. You should absolutely go talk to her.”

   “Hi, I’m Abe. What is it like to be the most gorgeous person in this room?” he said, handing her an imaginary microphone.

   Millie shook her head. “Stop it. I’m married.”

   “Well…that’s—that’s just great. What’s he like?”

   “He’s a real card. He’s…someone who’s always roping me into the craziest things. Things I never thought possible. Raising three daughters. Writing a book.”

   “How long have you been married?”

   “Oh, 40 years now.”

   “Why’d you say yes?”

   “Well, I didn’t. I said no. And I said it again. I said it four times until I said yes.”   “Why?”

   I was scared. I was 19. I was pregnant.

   “He made me laugh when I wanted to cry.”

   So they kept swimming in the moonlight, clutching hands. Waiting for the end.

   The Sacramento Valley met the sunrise wearing sackcloth and ashes. The woods are bare, naked. Below them were the smoldering ruins. Post-civilization.

   Legend has it the Sutter Buttes of Northern California are where life begins and ends. The Maidu and Wintun peoples tell stories of how the small mountain range gave us the world. Sometimes a falcon spirit pulled them out of the water or darkness or chaos. Other times, the Buttes were where the Earth Maker rested after shaping the world.

   The Gold Rush stripped the land bear, smothering it with concrete, asphalt, and the fumes of Winnebagos.

   Still, life finds a way. Ashen trunks reveal their secrets in the sunlight. A green leaf hangs among the burned things dangling from their outstretched arms.

   Two people pull themselves from the depths of a manmade lake—the last oasis in the valley. Their only lifelines to the outside world are a puddle of glass and plastic lying beside the deep end of the pool. No matter. The batteries would have been dead by now anyway.

   Millie and Abe walked through the ashen gray landscape of their cul-de-sac in a daze. Don’s house is a smoking crater. Their own home is a stack of elaborate twigs woven around a chimney. They’re both alive. Living the first day of their second life together.

   The silence is deafening. There are no birds, no airplanes flying overhead.

   There’s nothing to see on the horizon but ash and soot. Save for something that rises its head above the charcoal-colored rubble. It’s a crimson bauble, still cold to the touch. Its glittery metal hook shimmers in the sunlight. On it reads, “Baby’s First Christmas.”

   It finds its way into Abe’s hands. Then Millie’s. They cradle it in their hands like a new life in this wicked world. Some power’s given them another day in Paradise.