Yet, from late spring to early fall, Grace managed to color her house in pinks, reds, blues, peaches, and yellows. Sweet peas stretched up the back porch’s latticework, hiding the unpainted boards. Trellised roses craned their necks to view the scene below. Delphinium stood watch over the begonias as they fanned out across the soil. Snapdragons waited open-mouthed for lilies of the valley to breech their borders. Come summer, throaty toads from nearby Leggett’s Creek crooned from the shade of rocks.
At the slap of a screen door, Grace’s eyes popped open. Over on the Evanses’ back porch, Myrtle offered an armless rocker to a rather rotund woman. A missionary, if Grace’s recollection could be trusted.
“Good afternoon, Grace,” Myrtle called over from a second rocker. “So good to see you up and about.” She covered her mouth, and whispered something to her guest.
Grace waved a handful of clothespins that she’d retrieved from her apron pocket, peeled a sheet off the top of the basket, and hung it on the line.
“No one likes a busybody,” Grief said, pushing aside the sheet that separated him from Grace.
“She’s a fine Christian,” Grace murmured, smoothing the sheet back into place. “Not many like her who would open their homes to as many missionaries as she does.”
Grief walked the length of the clothesline and stepped around to Grace’s side. “She only puts them up long enough for the elders to take notice,” he said. “They’re someone else’s problem, soon enough.”
“I’ll not have—”
Grief put a finger to Grace’s lips, cupped his ear, and tilted his head toward the women on the porch.
“God as my witness,” Myrtle’s voice penetrated the sheetwall, “she threw that sparkler at her sister.”
“I told you!” Grief’s voice crackled with excitement as he slapped his knee.
“Don’t take my word for it. Ask my sister Mildred.” Myrtle started her rocker going. “She’ll back me up. We both saw the whole thing from this very porch.”
“Myrtle and Mildred. Two peas in a pod.” Grief shook his head good-naturedly. “Always have a bone to scratch between them.”
Eager to please her captive audience, Myrtle continued: “And then we heard poor Daisy accuse her sister. Violet! she yelled just before her dress went up in flames.”
When Grief turned around, he seemed to notice Grace’s wracked expression for the first time. “You really didn’t know?” He studied her for a minute before changing his tack. “I’m not saying it’s all her fault. That husband of yours played a part in this little drama.” His brow furrowed as he tried to get the words right. “No telling what might happen when you put trouble in a child’s hands. Isn’t that what you told him when he brought those sparklers home?”
“What harm can come?” Grace parroted Owen’s response, the last words he delivered on the subject. Somehow this detail, of all the details, this snippet of conversation between a husband and wife—for that’s what it was and nothing more, or was it?—destroyed her. She leaned forward, her hands trembling, her eyes glazed with tears, picked up a damp shirt from the basket, and pinned it to the line.
Nothing to be done about it now, she thought. You can relive a moment again and again and again. But you can’t change it. That’s the tragedy of time.
“See? All better.” Grief absently stroked the back of Grace’s neck. “A little truth,” he said. “A bit of a shock at first, but good for the soul in the end.”
Grace opened her mouth to speak, though she couldn’t imagine what words she would say.
“Hush.” Grief smiled broadly, exposing his yellow teeth, and turned back toward the women. “I want to hear the rest of the story.”
Grace didn’t need to hear the story. She’d lived it that day and every day since. Daisy’s screams, raw, feral, fractured, had compelled everyone within earshot to rush outside and bear witness. Grace, clad only in her slip, flew out the door and into the yard.
As Daisy ran toward the house, fire swallowed her dress and seared the flesh beneath.
“Lord Jesus. No!” Grace had screamed, wrapping Daisy’s flaming body in a rag rug she hadn’t remembered grabbing. She pushed the child to the ground, rolled her over several times, and dropped on top of her, smothering the last of the fire with her own body.
Owen reached the yard on Grace’s heels. Burned flesh saturated their senses. Thick, sweet, biting. Heat rose off Daisy’s body as he opened the rug. A leathery patchwork of red, black, and mahogany reared up and settled itself where the dress had once been. Owen gingerly lifted the afflicted child, carried her toward the house, and whispered, “Be brave, little lady. Daddy’s here.”
Owen, Grace, and Daisy entered the kitchen as one.
Violet remained behind, feet rooted to the desecrated soil.
Being the closest neighbors, Louise Davies and Alice Harris showed up immediately. Doc Rodham arrived at the house not ten minutes later. One of the local children had run to get him, though Grace never knew which one. As with any calamity, so many people, including the young ones, claimed to have played a role that day.
Once Owen placed Daisy on the girls’ bed, Grace pulled a rocker up and studied what parts of her were still whole. Eyes, lashes, brows, nose, mouth, ears—the head in its entirety, untouched. She struggled to find comfort where she could. A disfigured body could be hidden under clothes; a disfigured face was another matter. It drew any manner of unwanted attention, and that would prove difficult for a girl. Grace’s eyes skirted past the worst of it in search of hope. The right hand seemed intact, though the same could not be said of the arm. Still, Daisy was right-handed. Feet, ankles, calves, unimpaired enough for boots. So she won’t be a cripple.
Grace held onto the promise of a mouth that could speak, feet that would carry, and a hand to be used in the service of the Lord. “Mother’s here,” she whispered, confident her daughter could hear her words. Daisy lay still but with eyes open, conscious and alert on the cotton sheet. Another good sign.
Doc Rodham entered the bedroom carrying his medical bag and the piano stool from the parlor. He placed the seat on the floor, cleared a small table, opened his case, and lined up his medicines. “I’m sorry for your troubles,” he said, extending his hand to Owen. He draped a stethoscope around his neck and rolled his seat over to his patient. The fire had ravaged the front of her little body, thighs, torso, most of her right arm, and the whole of the left. He discarded the stethoscope, placed two fingers on the pulse at her neck, and looked into her eyes, so blue.
“Hello, young lady,” Doc Rodham said to his patient.
“Hello,” Daisy answered.
“Thank you, Jesus.” Grace added speech to her list of blessings.
“Am I going to die?”
Her directness seemed to momentarily unnerve Doc Rodham, but reassurance of a kind quickly fixed itself on his expression. “Not on my watch.” He smiled. “Now, tell me where it hurts.”
“My feet,” she said. “They’re so cold.”
“Mrs. Harris!” Doc Rodham yelled loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.
A moment later she poked her head through the door, stole a glance at Daisy, and winced in spite of her best intentions.
“I’ll