Burn by Suzanne Phillips Page A

pictures, but the principal handed them to her and she didn’t know exactly what she was going to see, and then it was too late.
    She put the plate on Cameron’s nightstand and sat down on Robbie’s bed, her hands squeezing her knees, and tried to wait him out.
    “I like your haircut,” she said.
    The lightness in her voice was forced. He felt her eyes in his hair, sifting through the short strands, looking for what was missing.
    It’s gone, Mom.
    “I hardly recognize you,” she admitted.
    I’m gone.
    He let her sink in the silence, counting the minutes on his alarm clock. She lifted her arms and let them drop, twisted her hands beneath her legs, tapped her toes, then surfaced in a fit of coughing. Three minutes, fifty-three seconds.
    She gave Cameron’s father a lot longer before she left him. But now she knows. She knows when she’s going to lose, when to cut her losses and run. And that’s what she did.
    “I hope you’ll eat something,” she said.
    She stood up. He felt her eyes on him, but not the usual burn when she’s checking his mental health.
    Then she turned and left.
    He doesn’t eat. She made chicken, a baked potato and broccoli. She forgot to bring him a drink and after a while he gets up and goes into the bathroom, dips his head under the faucet, and drinks. He returns to bed, scoops up the remote, and watches the flickering light from the TV as it spins through programs.
    He presses the surf button on the remote and continues his mindless search for nothing in particular. Then he hits on the local news, and for a moment the screen is alive with ribbons of red and orange flame.
    The fire.
    His
fire.
    His heart jumps and kicks into drive. Well, at least he has a pulse. He pushes the return button on the remote and stares at the screen, looking for himself in there. He recognizes the landscape of trees against the darkening sky, the shape of the boulders at the lip of the forest. He ran into the woods there, seeking cover. Like a rabbit chased by a wolf.
    He’ll never know that kind of fear again.
    The camera pans out and suddenly the trees stop and smoke rises from the ground. The remaining stubs of once-towering elms and poplars still glow with flame deep inside them. It looks like a graveyard. He recognizes the heaviness in his chest as sadness and he’s not surprised. He loved those woods but knew, even before today, that their loss was coming. Like knowing the cancer that’s got your dog will soon take him. You can medicate, but it just prolongs life, puts off the inevitable.
    The image on the screen shifts.
    “The fire is contained now.” A lady reporter stands with the woods at her back; the air is hazy with smoke. “But the loss is substantial. More than seventeen acres burned this afternoon, wiping out the dense forestry as well as the jogging path and children’s park.”
    The newswoman is replaced with the scene of a melted climbing wall, the dripping plastic carcass of a slide. The only things left standing are the metal poles and chains of a swing set, now blackened by the fire.
    “Those clumps of melted plastic were once children’s toys,” the reporter’s voice continues. “All in all, officials say about two hundred thousand dollars in damage was sustained. The forest will need replanting, the park and jogging path rebuilding. And that’s just the beginning.”
    The image shifts again, this time to a split screen focusing on a man sitting at a news desk and the woman reporter, who waves away the smoke in front of her face.
    “But no one was harmed?” the man asks.
    “No. No casualties.”
    “Any word on what started the fire?” the man asks.
    “Arson, Mike. Fire department officials are very sure of that,” she answers. “Apparently started in an abandoned car.”
    The guy goes on to say what a shame it is and then the news program moves into a commercial.
    Cameron presses the continuous surf button on the remote and lies back against his pillow. He slips his