Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR 12 HOURS AND 59 MINUTES

THERE WAS STILL no foam. There were still no reinforcements. One little boy was still not a priority. The situation at the bridge was dire and there were no next steps.

Levon trudged down the hill, plopping down to sit beside Dani. They both stared into the unrelenting fire. Frankie was right—the wings must have been nearly full of fuel because the blaze had barely let up. It was a steady, constant state of raging heat and taunting flames holding them back from the van.

Dani knew there was a solution, but she didn’t know what it was. She eyed the structural reinforcements of the concrete and metal bridge. They seemed to be sound, but what did she know? She wasn’t a civil engineer.

“Take a break,” Levon said. “I’ll stay with him. Go get some water.”

“I bet Connor would like a drink. I bet he’s thirsty too.”

The tone of her voice told Levon it’d be better not to push it so he just said, “Well, you’ll be of no use to him if you have to tap out.”

They sat there together for a while in the chilly April air, not talking and watching Connor. The boy was lying on his side curled up in a ball, moving and adjusting himself only every once in a while. He was too old for a daily nap, but Dani hoped exhaustion would win out and maybe, just for a little bit, he would doze off. Leave this place and these horrors. Go somewhere warm and bright, where his only concern was which toy he wanted to play with.

“You haven’t heard from Marion, have you?” Levon asked.

Dani shook her head, remembering with a twinge of guilt the handful of times she’d turned away from Connor to check her phone. “Carla?”

“Nope,” Levon said. “Can’t get a call to connect. My texts say ‘undelivered.’ I’m sure she’s got the same on her end. Boggs somehow got a text from his girlfriend. She’s okay. Frankie’s got nothing.”

“I bet Carla has Bri. And I bet Daddy figured out a way to get to them. They’re fine.”

“We’ll probably see them round the corner with our foam here in a bit.”

“Carla knows a guy whose sister’s friend’s brother has a stock of foam.”

“Nah. Marion knows the recipe. He’s going to make it from scratch.”

There was probably more truth to that than either of them wanted to admit. Any qualities of bravery and ingenuity Dani had, she’d gotten from her daddy. Levon would be the first to say that marrying Carla was the smartest thing he’d ever done. Of course Dani and Levon were worried about them. But they were also confident they were fine. The far greater fear lay in thinking of the possibility of a life where they weren’t.

Levon stared into the fire, transfixed, as his mind went back to their kitchen just that morning. He’d walked in to grab his coffee thermos before heading to the station and found Carla at the sink staring at the bird feeder in the backyard.

The water was running, but Carla’s hands were still. She was looking at a cardinal pecking at the feeder when suddenly the bird flew away. Levon had seen the seed in the bird’s beak and assumed she was bringing it back to her babies in the nest.

He knew Carla assumed the same.

Levon cleared his throat now and told Dani, “We lost another baby.”

Dani dropped her head. The sound of the river grew louder. “Shit,” she muttered finally. “When?”

“Last weekend.”

Dani thought back. That had been Brianna’s birthday weekend. They’d had a little party. Carla had baked the cake. “I’m sorry, Lee. I am so sorry. She was, what, ten weeks?”

“Eleven,” he said.

Dani was the only other person who’d known Carla was pregnant. They’d learned the hard way, after the first two, to wait to tell anyone. Fewer questions to field. Fewer gifts to return. Fewer mournful arm squeezes.

“How’s Carla?” Dani asked.

Levon considered. He wasn’t sure he had an answer.

“I’m not good at it, you know?” he said finally. “I never know what I’m supposed to do. Or what she wants me to say. I don’t know what she needs.”

“She probably doesn’t know what she needs either.”

Levon nodded, thinking that was an easy out. “I looked it up. You know the whole It happened for a reason stuff people say? All that bullshit? They say don’t say that. It invalidates the pain. Makes it like it’s a good thing. Like it’s a good thing that your child didn’t… you know. Didn’t make it. Like you should be glad it happened or something.”

Levon stared across the river at Connor’s dad’s lifeless body slumped over the wheel. The last thing Paul had done on this earth was face away from his son to protect the child from the sight of his dead father. As if what the boy couldn’t see couldn’t hurt him.

“But I just—” Levon stopped short. Eventually, when he did continue, his voice was low. “I don’t know, Dani, I just keep thinking, what if she were still pregnant? Today, I mean. With everything happening at the plant. The baby would be here in it too. Breathing it. Being around it. Exposed…”

He trailed off, not completing his thought.

He didn’t have to.

After a while Dani stood, stretching her back, taking a deep breath of cold spring air. Her eyes were trained on Connor’s dad too. In her peripheral vision, the flames danced.

“I don’t think being glad your child isn’t here to see this means you’re glad your child didn’t make it,” she said before looking down at Levon. “I think it makes you a father.”

Dani passed him the megaphone and squeezed his shoulder. “If Connor needs me, I’m just at the truck.”

As she made her way up the embankment to the fire engine, she saw Boggs and Frankie going through the tools and supplies they had, trying to come up with something. Dani got her water and leaned against the rig, helmet tucked under one arm. Closing her eyes, she rested her head back, trying to clear her mind.

The cold air pinched at her cheeks. The smell of smoke and jet fuel seeped into her suit. A bird chirped. The river rushed and rambled. Voices, quiet and distant, occasionally came over the radio.

The water in her mouth was wildly refreshing; in this heightened state, she felt as though she could trace its journey through her body. She visualized the path it took: through her mouth to her throat, down her esophagus, and into her stomach.

Dani opened her eyes and slowly lifted her head.

“So, we’ve been thinking,” Frankie said, coming around the front of the fire engine. “If we go through…” He trailed off, seeing her face. “You all right? Dani? What is it?”

Dani kept staring off at nothing, looking out across the distance, across the river. The water, the bridge, the van. Finally, she turned to Frankie, almost surprised that he was there. Her mouth was open and she looked distracted as the pieces in her head moved closer together.

“I think,” she said, working it through, “I think I might have an idea…”

Frankie didn’t respond; he just looked where she was looking, trying to catch up. In the background, someone on the radio started talking.

“Be advised, travel on I-35…”

“So, what’s your—” Frankie began.

Dani’s hand shot out as she shushed him.

“… teams have cleared the…”

“Oh my God,” Dani said as she scrambled into the truck, turning up the volume on the CB radio. After a few seconds, she giggled. “That’s my dad!”

“That’s your dad?” Boggs said, joining them. “Dude, he’s unreal. He’s at the plant and he’s relaying all the information over channel seven. Everyone’s listening to him.”

Dani couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “This isn’t our comms? This is everyone?”

“Yup.”

“Like, anyone in town with a CB? You’re shitting me.”

“I’m not, I swear. He’s literally the only way the town’s getting information, since the power’s out.”

“All of Waketa is hearing him?”

“Well, anyone with a CB.”

“So he can get any message to the community?”

Boggs crossed his arms. “Dani, you’re starting to make as much sense as Frankie. Why is this so confusing?”

“I just—I want to make sure I understand. My dad, right now, can get messages and warnings and requests—any information—to anyone listening to the radio?”

“Yes.”

Dani couldn’t believe it. She smiled big.

“I know how to get Connor out.”