Controlled Burns

The window over the sink was larger than it needed to be, a seemingly frivolous luxury for the tiny kitchen. In a house that exuded pastoral simplicity, it seemed out of place. Maggie imagined the discussion they must have had during the construction.

“Let’s put a big, nice window here.”

“We don’t need anything like that.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t it be nice to have but one thing that we want?”

Freckled hills and hardwood forests filled the view. It could be a pretty view, she thought.

She ran her fingers down around the window’s edges, feeling the draft sneaking in. Coat after coat of paint covered the wood frame and frayed caulking lined the panes. The winter sun was finishing its short trip across the sky. For a moment, she allowed herself to look up at the distant mountains. She studied them, as they were so different from what she had known. The steep ridges seemed locked out, impenetrable in their shroud of smoke. Recesses and valleys lapped up the darkness, creating depth. Only the most exposed portions of mountain seemed able to retain the last of the light. An orange line traversed the setting, glowing vibrantly against the waning day and indicating the location of the fire.

Maggie shook against the cold, wrapping her cardigan around her. She draped plastic over the window and taped it down around the edges, muting and distorting the view. 

Alan had returned from the outside shed and looked on in his jeans and t-shirt. He seemed to her to be immune to the cold.

It had been warm briefly during the day. The last weeks of winter seemed to be doling out hope irresponsibly. There was a high point to each day and an hour-long hint of spring before a dark curtain was pulled.

Darkness vanquished the day’s bold temperatures as only the cold of an early spring night can. The same woods bursting with sound and life during the day, drifted off early to bed. The quiet of the coming night enveloped the field. If the spring’s days were being wooed by the coming summer, then its nights were still firmly in winter’s grasp.

The cold accompanying the dark seemed to sting more as well, as if the warm sun with its brief daytime reprieve charmed the body into dropping its natural defenses.

“Did you get any rest today?” Alan asked.

“Some.”

He kissed her softly on the forehead. He looked around at the moving boxes. She had piano music playing and tea on the stove.

“You will get used to it,” he said.

She wondered what he meant.

They had only been in the house for two nights and for those two nights, he slept while she tossed, turned, and paced. She read, she painted, and she put things away. Still, no sleep. And she wanted to sleep. She wanted to lay down at night, beside him and drift away. For her, but also for him.

She did not want to lose the nights with him. At first, they had been like most lovers and the whole day was theirs. But as time grew, something changed. The mornings were still as they always were, and so was bedtime. They were close, they were present. They were in each other’s words and actions. But somewhere along the line, Alan started keeping the days to himself. He focused on his work and it kept him distant. He had fewer and fewer moments with her, words for her.

“Beginnings and endings are all people are worried about,” he would say. “No one cares about the middle of the story.”

They must not now lose the night, she thought.

However, the house was always cold and she struggled to escape the scent of smoke.

He had told her he remembered them setting the same fire 15 years ago. It had lasted a week and everyone in the community came out to help. When he was a kid, the old timers would tell them the fire was a liar that would take all you had, if you did not keep an eye on it.

Each morning, he would ask how she slept.

“Fine.”

She knew he could tell.

As so, each morning Alan would kiss her on the forehead and then retreat to his work in the shed. She simply got up, had a hot shower, made hot tea, and began on the house. It had been empty for well over two years now and there was much to do. None of the kids had wanted it, including Alan, but over time his mind started to change. The more his work perplexed him, the colder the days got and the more he appealed to Maggie. She knew the lines by heart.

“It will only be a short while.”

“Promise me?”

“Yes. It will give me a chance to work.”

The family up the road had told them about the fire on their very first visit. It was scheduled for the end of the month. They called it a “burn” and she had wondered aloud if they could put the move off until after the fire. He said that would not work. They moved in the morning after the burn started.

The first day, the only thing that came was the smoke. She first noticed on trips out to the truck to unload boxes. But by nighttime, when she went to lie down in bed, she found it had made its way into the house. It was an unnatural way to rest. Even when she did doze, vivid dreams brought her bursting back from her slumber.  Alan had kissed her and held her. She wrapped herself in blankets and buried her head into his side. Yet, sleep never came.

The next morning, she rose. She showered, made tea, and turned on her music. Light piano sounds permeated the rooms and the late morning sun attempted to crest the mountaintops.

Alan had sensed her worries. He smiled and held her face in both of his hands. He grabbed her fingers and brought them to his face, kissing them. He took his coffee and left through the front door. She heard the rustling as he crossed the yard to the shed.

She painted something simple and beautiful. She took to the house and tried to finish some tasks.

Alan returned wordlessly at lunch. They ate soup facing each other across the table. Afterwards, they made coffee and endured the strain of great silence. Finally, Alan led into a talk about how the fire would actually save the farms and that it was not something to fear. He talked about how it would burn away all the dead things. He talked about how, when he was young, he heard the old timers say the fire was coming one way or another, so you either light it yourself or you simply run from it later.

“The choosing is up to you,” he said.

Then he took his coffee and went back out to the shed. Maggie did not have the work of unloading the boxes from the truck, like the first day. Therefore, without the manual work to do, the second day is where she noticed the cold. It seemed a chill entered through the wood floor, ran straight up through her feet and set up residence in her bones. She dug through boxes to find warmer sweaters and cupped her tea close in both hands.

Later after they finished dinner, darkness was on the march again and that was when they first noticed they could see the fire line. They stood at the kitchen sink, looking out as the farthest peaks assumed a volatile glow. The piano music played to their backs and boxes of kitchen supplies skirted their edges.

She could sense him turning slowly to look at her, measuring her response. She thought about what truly came to her mind.

“How can it be so damn cold in here when the world is ablaze, right out there?”

They readied for bed. Alan switched off the light and crawled in beside her. He held her. She put her hands on his chest. He was warm.

However, seeing the fire line was different for Maggie than just smelling the smoke. Again, she could not sleep. She would return to the kitchen window many times. She would look and see the orange line. She would apprehensively put the back of her hand to the pane and the cold would bite at her skin.

It seemed impossible.

The next morning, she showered. She turned the handle all the way to hot. She dressed, she put on music, and she made some tea. She looked out at the mountains and then to the windowpane, remembering the night before. She crossed to the stove and lifted the kettle. The burner glowed bright like the line snaking down the back hill. For a moment, she wondered if it was her. She slowly moved the back of her hand toward the glowing orange surface. Alan emerged from the bedroom. She moved away and poured herself a cup.

“You have it stifling in here,” he said. “Don’t worry about the house. Try to get some rest today.”

He came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. Just as quickly, he turned to go. She looked to him, not wanting him to leave but he did not notice. She said nothing. She watched him pass through the front door. He stopped on the porch to look around at the hills. He crossed the yard to the shed and disappeared inside. A moment later, she saw him crack a window.

She walked through the house, through the bedroom that his parents used to sleep in. She looked out at the truck they used to drive. She assessed the boxes, separated neatly into two piles. One pile containing the things they brought with them and one pile being the boxes left behind in the house. One was who they were trying to become and the other pile was who his parents used to be.

She went around to the doors and windows. She felt the drafts and snippets of heat escaping and being replaced by cold, smoky air. The trunk in the front hall had a thick blanket. She took to the couch and tried to sleep, with little success. Back at the window, the sun was in that fragile, daily peak again and was sending small waves of warmth through the glass.

She rifled through more boxes until she found a roll of plastic. They had used it to keep from getting paint on the carpet at their last apartment. She cut out a piece big enough for the window in the bedroom and used the tape to seal it up. When she was finished, she used her hand to feel around her work. She felt no cold air coming in.

She moved on to the next room. Finally, she moved to the kitchen and the window over the sink.

She heard him come in front door, could soon feel him looking at her. She knew what he thought.

“You can’t keep the cold air out of an old house.”

“We don’t need anything like that.”

“The fire is a liar.”