Page 29

Teeth gritted, she tossed the wood down in the brick corner and cut away the plastic wrapping with her penknife.

She’d read plenty of articles about wilderness survival but nothing specific about the proper way to start a fire in the middle of a volcanic eruption.

In a suitable spot she laid down a latticework of small pieces of wood and lit a match from the waterproof canister.

It fizzed and flickered and flamed out before it caught the wood.

She added a few pine needles and tried a second match, but they did not ignite either.

A third and fourth attempt reduced her to eight matches, which she was terrified to waste.

Her pocket yielded nothing flammable but the map, and she couldn’t commit that to the flames.

Come on , Kit. You have something that will work.

Think. She pawed through the pack until her fingers found a crinkly bag.

Doritos. She grinned.

A bit of ridiculous information gleaned from her father rose to the top of her jumbled memories. She pulled out the Doritos they’d taken from the store in Grandlake.

“Because who doesn’t need some crunchy , salty cheesiness when you’re outrunning a volcano?” Cullen had said to Archie while they meandered through the abandoned store.

Her fingers were cold and clumsy, but she managed to rip open the bag and arrange the chips in a precarious pyramid. The waterproof match shook as she struck it.

A flame sizzled to life, and she held it to the bottom of the chip pile.

Just like the time her father had proudly done the same in their backyard barbecue, the edges of the chips blackened and sizzled and .

.. to her immense delight ... ignited.

The odor of roasting corn seeped through her mask as she crouched to protect the flame from any wayward breeze.

Quickly, she fed in the smaller sticks from Archie’s supply, and they reluctantly caught. When the fire appeared to have taken hold, she slowly added two bigger logs. The yellow flames danced in the gloom.

“Yes!” She thrust a fist into the air. “Do you see that? I did it. I made a fire out of corn chips. I am woman. Hear me roar!” The words were muffled, and there was no one around to hear them anyway, but she put her palms close to the fire and let the warmth seep in.

She’d produced heat and they could survive, at least for a while until she figured out the next step.

Tot’s thin wail carried over the sound of the crackling flames, bringing her down to earth again. The baby would need a bottle and a diaper change. And when the clean bottles and diapers ran out? The formula? She carefully rolled the top of the bag of chips and zipped it inside her pack.

“I’ll figure it out. You just keep burning, fire.” Now she was talking to flames. Swell.

Tot was working up to a painful volume when Kit returned. It was a relief to climb in and pull off the mask before she secured a premade bottle. It wasn’t warm, not even close, since it had been in an insulated pouch. Tot turned her face away from the milk when Kit offered it.

“Please try, baby. It’s all we have for now.” Kit stroked Tot’s cheeks. Cold, too cold.

Kit’s stomach lurched.

She extracted the baby from the belt, unzipped her own jacket, and nestled Tot against her chest like Annette had done.

She tucked the bottle in too, in one of her sleeves, hoping to take the chill off enough to tempt the baby.

Tot cried, but as Kit’s warmth spread, she settled into a pitiful whimper and mercifully closed her eyes.

Kit snuggled her close and kept vigil as the baby slept.

Her own body floated in and out of a doze, and she lost track of time.

Maybe it had been an hour, maybe two, when Tot started to fuss again, refusing to be placated by anything Kit could come up with.

Kit swayed on the seat, side to side, trying to create a soothing movement, but Tot’s crying intensified.

“You want your mommy, don’t you?” Kit whispered. It struck her again that Tot and Annette might not be reunited in their lifetime. Annette could already be dead. Maybe Kit and Tot and Cullen weren’t far behind. The freezing air seeped in through the taped windows.

Was Annette a good mother, she wondered?

That young woman in the pink coat who looked so small holding her baby and the duffel bag, frantically waving down Kit’s truck.

She’d been willing to risk everything to get her and her child away from Nico.

Annette doubtless knew all the tricks to comfort her child.

Kit remembered her own mother reading Bible stories and showing her funny finger plays about steeples and the people inside.

So much talk about loving and forgiving.

And so little evidence of it where her father was concerned.

Maybe some hurts were so grievous that only God could crack open the walls and let his forgiveness bathe the hearts inside. But wasn’t it then the obligation of those people to forgive others?

A thought startled her. Wasn’t it Kit’s responsibility to love her mother in the meantime?

Tot rubbed her nose against Kit’s collarbone.

Kit swayed and patted, looking in the rearview mirror at the rise and fall of Cullen’s chest.

“Cullen?” she called. “Ready to wake up?”

Silence.

Tot whimpered.

“It’s okay, baby.” She looked out the window at the small orange glow from the fire she’d kindled. A few moments before she’d been crowing her satisfaction at the skies. Now the fire seemed pitifully insignificant in the sprawling ruins.

Tot started to scream.

To prevent herself from doing the same, Kit summoned the song that popped into her addled mind.

It was the one her father had sung when they’d gone to see the local minor league team on blazing hot summer days when the bleacher seats were nearly free and they’d smuggle in their cheap bag of peanuts bought at the nearby grocery.

“We gotta spring for the ballpark sodas , though , ” her father always said. “There’s nothing like a ballpark soda.”

And there wasn’t. The cheap cups sweating in their overheated hands, the ice melting into wafer-thin particles that crunched between their teeth.

“Take me out to the ball game,” she sang softly to Tot. Tot didn’t appear to like the song much, but Kit continued on about peanuts and Cracker Jacks. When she came to the finish, the lyrics evaporated from her brain.

Tot cried, and Kit tried again to recall the words. Let me root , root , root for the home team ... But as she looked out into a day as dark as night, watched the toppled tree trunks sliding and locking together around their tiny oasis of safety, she simply couldn’t remember the next line.

Why couldn’t she finish the silly song?

Because you’re alone with a stranger’s baby and you’re cold and hungry and scared.

And no one’s coming.

No one.

And Mom will never know what happened to you.

A lump lodged in her throat, and her head began to spin.

Tot cried louder.

Tears blurred her vision, and her breathing came and went in irregular gasps. “Let me root, root, root for the home team ...” But her throat locked away the rest as despair took its place.

A rumbly baritone started up in the back seat. “If they don’t win it’s a shame...”

Her mouth dropped open, heart slamming into her ribs as she twisted to look into the back seat.

Cullen was lying on his back, arm over his head, face bruised and swollen, one brow arched as he grinned at her.

“For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game,” he finished and then coughed and groaned. “Man, I love that song.”