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  She wept into her hand. “Yes.” Fire moved as soon as you looked, multiplied, and split off in pieces, the desire dissolved just as secretly as it had once come and burned through. Her head dipped heavily as she took another wavering step. “Since your father died, I’ve been afraid you’d do something———” Her mouth bunched in a frown.

  The fire had to hurt her, or it would have never brought her out. I wanted her to forgive me, but not if it meant denying what I’d done.

  She sniffed and fought back more tears. “You changed your hair. I clung to the back of the chair, felt a sting in my knuckles.

  “I always thought your long hair was so pretty.” She wiped her eyes. I needed her to keep looking at me.

  “My scars aren’t so pitiful, Mother.”

  She lifted her wet face and fiercely lowered her voice. “I never said anthing about that.” I’d blamed her for this, though, for guarding the scene. Wishing so fervently that the memory fragments would vanish, she’d grown them large and distroted instead.

  THE FIRES / 243

  “You can’t use my scars as an excuse. You have to face this, Mother” I said.

  “Face what?”

  “The fires.”

  She went over to the couch, leaned against its arm, and bowed her head. “You tripped on a rake,” she said. “I just looked away for a second that day, and you were gone.”

  I took a few steps closer to her. “I always knew it was an accident.” The words felt foreign and carved by my lips and tongue and teeth. How could they have taken so many years to be forged into syllables, the simplest sounds for what had happened to us?

  She looked at me and nodded. Something unclasped painfully in my chest. A breeze thrummed in the loose windowpanes, and the curtain pull beat against the wall. When I hugged her, it was surprising to feel the mass of her body, the brush of her hair against my cheek, and just then that room seemed more distant and strange than any place I’d ever thought of traveling to. I noticed a fuchsia silk scarf on the back of a chair and the orange curled gourds she’d arranged thoughtfully on the coffee table.

  The last train was coming soon, but there would be another one in the morning. I was tired and hungry, and it occurred to me that the yellow couch might make a good enough bed, that maybe we could go out somewhere for dinner. It was almost five o’clock, but it still startled me how quickly it got dark, and the bright pieces of furniture floated up in that watery dim like rough maps of lost countries.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my editor, Betty Kelly, and my agent, Simon Green.

  For their help and encouragement at various stages of the writing of this book, I’d also like to thank Peter and Kelly Steinke, Ellen Hunnicutt, Thomas Bontly, Joanne Tangorra, Richard Maxwell, Stephanie Paulsell, Rita Signorelli-Pappas, Stacy Malin, Tina Epstein, Darcey Steinke, Kim France, Charles Aaron, Ann Powers, Maria Antifonario, and Dan Green.

  244

  About the Author

  RENÉ STEINKE was born in Richmond, Virginia, and grew up in friendswood, Texas. She holds an M.F.A from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, she teaches literature and creative writing at Queenborough Community College and lives with her husband in New York City.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE FIRES. Copyright © 1999 by René Steinke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader February 2008

  ISBN 978-0-06-166975-0

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  Document Outline

  Cover Image

  Title Page

  Dedication Page

  Epigraph Page

  Contents Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright Notice

  About the Publisher

  Table of Contents

  Epigraph

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Title Page

  Dedication Page

  Contents