Page 27 of A Map to Paradise

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Melanie drove down the hill as one might navigate the densest London fog. Curves that had been familiar before seemed completely foreign now. Usual landmarks she’d relied on in the past to anticipate turns in the road had been swallowed up in a cloak of smoke. Her hands were aching as she at last reached the bottom of the hill and realized her grip on the steering wheel was tighter than tight.

An exodus of other vehicles was already in place when they reached the coastal highway. Some trucks had horse trailers attached, some cars had suitcases strapped haphazardly to their roofs. All were heading south in a caravan of anxious movement. The bilious smoke was less concentrated here, giving Melanie and Eva a better view of the blaze headed their way. The flames were not yet visible on the hillsides but the sienna-hued canopy of smoke that was the inferno’s headdress was immense, filling the sky over the mountains and canyons that separated Malibu from the San Fernando Valley and the rest of Los Angeles.

In the five years she’d been in California, Melanie had not seen such a menacing sight.

Horns blared, though no one could drive any faster than the next vehicle in front of them. It could take an hour or more, Melanie guessed, at the speed they were traveling, to cover the miles to Highway 10—an hour to get away from the mountains and their ample kindling of dry brush and scrub.

It wasn’t until they were finally heading east toward LA and the heavy caul of smoke began to lessen that Melanie began to feel safe again.

She and Eva had said little to each other as she drove. Melanie was imagining what was happening at that moment in June’s backyard, and knew Eva no doubt was, too. And then there were the unwanted images of what Eva may or may not have done before. Maybe someday she’d ask Eva what she’d done, but today was not that day. When they were at last turning into the driveway of Max’s spacious home in Westwood, it was nearly eleven in the morning and the monstrous fire was just an immense copper swath on the western horizon behind them.

They were welcomed into the house by a relieved June and a clingy Nicky. Melanie had never had a child grip her neck the way Nicky was holding on to her now. She held him tight but sought June’s gaze. Max wasn’t in the house.

“He’s on his way to Palm Springs,” June said tonelessly, as though answering a question.

“When did he leave?”

“A while ago. I suppose he’s getting there right about now.” June’s words seemed simple, but all three of them knew they weren’t simple at all.

Eva shot Melanie a glance and June noticed it.

“What?” June said.

“It’s nothing,” Melanie said. “Nothing you need to think about right now.”

“Is it the house?” June pressed. “Has the fire reached it? Tell me the fire hasn’t reached it.”

“It hasn’t.”

“I don’t like the fire,” Nicky said into her neck.

“I don’t, either.” Melanie moved from the entryway to Max’s living room and folded herself onto a leather couch with the little boy still wrapped around her middle.

Eva and June followed her into the room.

“I guess we just wait now,” June said.

Any other person besides Eva might have thought June meant wait for the fire to be put out so they could return home. But Melanie knew June meant wait for the phone to ring with Max on the other end.

The call came twenty minutes later, a few minutes after Nicky fell asleep in Melanie’s lap. June reached for the receiver on the end table next to her.

Melanie listened to the only words she and Eva could hear—June’s—but from them they could easily guess what Max was saying.

“Yes, Melanie and Eva are here now,” June said. “…What do you mean Elwood is missing?…” She closed her eyes—perhaps against the performance she was giving. “What note?…I don’t understand what you’re saying…Yes, he owns a gun…”

The tears that were suddenly tracking down June’s face, Melanie had not expected to see, nor did she expect to feel them on her own cheeks at this moment. She’d known for five days that Elwood was dead.

June’s tears looked as authentic as her own. There was nothing artificial about them, and Melanie would know. She’d produced plenty of false tears for casting directors who needed an actress who could summon them on cue. She realized that for the near-week Elwood’s death had been a secret to be kept, it had seemed like make-believe. A fiction. A dream. But not now. Now word of his demise was coming from the outside world. The world that was real.

“Tell me again what the note says.” June’s voice broke even though she already knew what the note said. “Oh, God, Max…I’m coming. I’m leaving right now…I can’t just wait here. I need to help look. I need to be there…”

Several seconds of silence hovered in the room as Max said something Melanie could not hear.

“I’ll be fine…I need to be there, Max,” June said. “Don’t tell me I can’t be. I’m coming.”

She hung up the phone and reached for a tissue in her pants pocket to wipe her tears. Melanie palmed away the wetness on her own face with the hand that wasn’t encircled around the sleeping boy.

“Max has already called the police,” June said. “And I need to go up there. It’s what I would’ve done.”

June was trembling all over.

“Maybe I should go with you,” Melanie said on impulse. “Eva can stay here with Nicky.”

“Yes,” Eva chimed in. “Please take Melanie with you.”

June shook her head. “I don’t want you to have to pretend any more than you have to.”

“I’m an actress, June.”

“I mean, I don’t want you to have to pile on lie after lie. For me. Max won’t care if you all stay here until the fire’s out. Call a cab if you don’t want to wait for me and you’ve found out the fire department will let you back in. I’ll pay for it.”

“You’re not paying for anyone’s cab,” Melanie said. “Eva and Nicky can wait here. But I’m coming with you. It will look better if I’m behind the wheel when we get there anyway. You need to look too worried to drive.”

June let out a long breath, perhaps of resignation, perhaps of gratitude. She stood. “Let’s go, then.”

Melanie transferred the sleeping boy to Eva’s arms.

Melanie and June were silent as they traveled the urban sprawl of Los Angeles to reach the quieter highway that headed east, toward the desert a hundred miles away.

When they were out of the city, June let out a long breath.

“You all right?” Melanie asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“This day had to come, June. You couldn’t have pretended forever that Elwood was still alive.”

“I know. It’s just…I feel like it’s all slipping away from me now. My home, my work, my life. I feel like I am losing everything.”

Melanie gripped the wheel a little harder. “Forgive me for saying so, but I think it’s cruel that Elwood hasn’t left you a thing in his will. I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear. But honestly, June. How could he have left you nothing?”

June shrugged. “He paid me to be his assistant and caregiver after Frank died. I have most of that in savings still. I didn’t have a lot of expenses. He knew that.”

Melanie cast a glance toward June. “I’m not talking about what you have in your own bank account. I’m talking about what he had in his. And that house? Your home? To give it to strangers? You’re family. I get that he felt bad about what happened to Ruthie, but still. You say he knew you had most of your earnings in your savings but he also knew that’s all you had. Your own husband left you nothing. Isn’t that right? Frank left you nothing?”

June startled as if struck.

“Okay. I’m sorry,” Melanie said quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just trying to…” Her voice trailed off. Elwood had been a good friend to her, and a wise one, but she was becoming increasingly perplexed about this side of him. This side he never showed to anyone. The side he kept hidden from everyone. This side that she now found so self-focused and unkind.

“I’m just trying to understand why…” Melanie couldn’t ask the question; it seemed far too harsh.

“Why I loved him anyway?” June said.

“Yes.”

June was quiet for a moment as both of them stared at the road ahead, a stretch of asphalt and white dividing lines that stretched far into the horizon. “It was a million little things, I guess,” June finally said. “Or…or maybe for no reason at all. It was the same with Frank. I can’t list reasons why I loved either one of them. I don’t think true love is like that.”

“Of course it is. Those reasons are how we know it’s love.”

June shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. Reasons might explain why you’re attracted to someone or enjoy being with them or why you like them. But love is…it’s deeper than that. Higher. Elwood had fallen in love with Ruthie just because she was Ruthie. And if he’d married her, those boys would have been his stepsons. He would have been their stepfather. He would have helped raise them. Loved them. Of course he’d want to provide for them. You understand that, don’t you?”

Melanie let June’s words sink in. They explained a lot. Still…

“His love for Ruthie didn’t mean he couldn’t love you, too, as the widow of his brother,” Melanie said. “He could’ve provided for you, too, June. You actually were his family.”

June let out a long breath. “Maybe a healthy person would have seen how to do both. He wasn’t, though, was he? He wasn’t a healthy person. That’s probably my fault. Maybe I should have insisted he try other doctors. Other treatments. But those were things he didn’t want to do. If I had insisted, I think he would’ve asked me to leave, and that’s something I didn’t want to do.”

They were quiet then, and Melanie turned on the radio for Christmas music, but there were only news updates of the inferno to the west.