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THE DAY AFTER THE SOLSTICE

IT’S GETTING LIGHT. THE SMOKE is clearing now and beyond it there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Everyone’s sitting on the lawn, mostly wrapped in foil blankets from the paramedics, even though it’s already warm. But like, I get it. After the shock, all of that.

My back is killing me. My shoulders feel like they’ve been ripped out of the sockets. It still hurts to breathe. They’re calling me a hero, because of how many people I got out of The Manor before it burned to the ground. When I looked up and saw the building, totally swallowed by fire, I didn’t stop to think. Like I was on autopilot I ran to help. Grabbed hold of people as they emerged from inside. Some of them were totally out of it—I don’t know if was the cider or the smoke or what. I dragged one of them after another across the lawns to safety, away from pieces of falling stone and glass. I went in again and again.

I hear the crackle of a walkie-talkie. A couple of police—one in uniform and one in ordinary clothes—are standing a few feet away having a murmured conversation. But I catch the words: “So it’s a question of the sequence of events. How she ended up a mile away from here at the bottom of the cliffs while this place burned—”

“Oh my God, Eddie,” Ruby says, stumbling toward me, and I lose track of what the policemen are saying.

“You all right Ruby?”

She just shakes her head, lost for words. I get up and she steps into my arms for a hug and maybe I hug a little too long or a little too tight because she pulls back a bit and looks at me.

“Are you all right, Eds?”

I open my mouth but I can’t find the words to answer her. I can’t work out where I would even start.

“You were amazing, Eds. What is it? That there were two people you didn’t get out? You can’t let yourself feel guilty. You couldn’t know there was anyone else inside. I can see it in your face, that it’s eating you up.”

It’s true that I wanted to save as many people as possible. That’s why I ran back into the burning building so many times. Not really caring what happened to me.

There were the two I didn’t manage to get out. We’ve all seen the body bags in the back of the ambulance. But I don’t feel guilty about that. I know there was probably nothing I could do. I guess Ruby does know me pretty well. And I suppose she can read me, too. But what she thinks she sees isn’t quite the whole picture.