Child of God Ann Anderson Evans
I
was cutting boxes open with a box cutter, folding back the cardboard wings to look inside, then marking them by the room they belonged in. There were toys, my grandmother’s china, a KitchenAid, a tricycle that Penny had just outgrown—so much stuff I wanted to cry. Having our first house was like having a first baby, you hold it without any real idea what you’re supposed to do with it. Kevin’s got plans for renovations, but that’s only the beginning. The jelly was somewhere in a box and I couldn’t find it, so I made myself a plain peanut butter sandwich and stood at the front window to look around my new neighborhood. The houses were set on quarter acre building lots, some two floors, like ours, and some older three-story homes with big porches and carved out decorations along the roof line. Something caught my eye as I was turning away. Light pulsed and some wisps of smoke were floating up the window in the bow window of the house across the
street. At first I thought I was seeing things, but this was a live fire. I dialed 911, but realized I didn’t even know my own address yet, or couldn’t remember it anyway. I ran across the street, just to be there in case I could do something to help. The fire engines clanged up in what felt like just a few minutes and firemen jumped out. In a flash, one team hooked up the hoses and, after a few minutes, it looked like the fire was out. The window was broken, with black streaks up the side of the house and the smell of smoke everywhere. If they’d gotten there much later the whole house could have burned down. I walked back home, sat down on a cardboard box and called Kevin. I just wanted to hear his voice. This fire was so personal, so close. While the phone was ringing, I heard another siren, and went to the window in time to see an ambulance pull up. “What’s up?” Kevin said. “The neighbor’s house caught on fire. Right before my eyes. Now there’s an ambulance.”
17.
