Thief River Falls

10

“Who’s Danny?” Purdue asked.

Lisa didn’t answer right away. Danny’s death was part of her past, and there had been so much more loss since then. And yet he was always there with her. Their lives together were like snapshots, photos in her mind of little bits of their history. She saw him wherever she went. Like the pond in front of the pickup where she was now. They’d been here together. When she looked at the water, she still saw herself as a teenager, swimming with Danny and Noah. Drying on towels under the sunshine afterward. Hoping her brother didn’t notice that she and Danny were holding hands.

“How about we go down to the little lake?” Lisa said to Purdue.

“Okay.”

“Are you warm enough?”

“I’m fine.”

They both got out of the truck. She tramped through the weeds, and the boy splashed in the mud the way boys do. Where the pond water slurped around the tall brush, she stopped and put an arm around Purdue’s shoulder. He felt small and vulnerable with those skinny bones of his. The wind whipped his blond hair, and the mist made his face shine. He pointed at an eagle overhead, making high circles above the fields. They both followed its progress as the circles got bigger and wider, until the bird was just a tiny dot lost in the clouds.

“I met Danny in high school,” Lisa told him, when she was finally able to talk about it. “He was a year older than me, but I knew who he was. All the girls did. My brother Noah went out for the baseball team, and Danny was a pitcher. He and Noah became friends, and so Danny and I became friends, too. The three of us started doing everything together. Every evening, every weekend, we’d be hanging out. I don’t really remember when Danny and I started to become more than friends. But at some point, we knew we were in love. We had lots of plans. Get married. Have kids.”

“Did you?” Purdue asked.

“Well, life is a little more complicated than that. We went to different colleges after high school, and we broke up. We didn’t see each other for several years.”

“Why?”

Lisa shrugged at the bad memories. “Danny’s father had big plans of his own for Danny. College, law school, politics. Danny was supposed to be going places, maybe even Congress or governor someday. He didn’t want any of that, but you don’t say no to Danny’s father. I told Danny he had to make a choice, either me or The Plan. He chose The Plan, at least for a while. He went to law school, got a job as a lobbyist at a big firm in Minneapolis. He was on his way. I became a nurse at the hospital in Thief River Falls. I lived with my parents and wrote books. I didn’t sell any of them, but I kept writing.”

“So what happened?”

“On my twenty-seventh birthday, Danny showed up at our door,” Lisa said. “He’d quit his job and moved back to Thief River Falls. He’d begun training to be a firefighter, which was what he’d really wanted to do since we were in high school. A few months later, we were engaged. We rented a house next to my parents, and we moved in there. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be that happy again.”

Purdue had a child’s gift for picking up on emotions. “Don’t be sad, Lisa.”

“Oh, I’m okay.”

“Danny’s father must have been mad.”

“Yes, he was,” Lisa agreed. “He was unhappy with Danny, but mostly he was angry at me. As far as he was concerned, I was the one who screwed up his plan. The fact that Danny never wanted it didn’t matter to him. Danny came back here for me, so that meant it was my fault. Everything that happened afterward was my fault, too. He blamed me when Danny died. In his mind, I’m the one who killed his son.”

“Why would he think that?”

She closed her eyes, feeling haunted. “Because I let Danny go.”

“Go where?”

Lisa smiled. If she didn’t smile, she would cry again, even after ten years in between. She could still picture that last morning with Danny so clearly, in the little bedroom in the house next door to her parents, with the sunlight making a dusty stream through the window. They’d made love in the middle of the night, with their bodies moist from the sticky August air and the crickets keeping time with their rhythm. She remembered him getting out of bed. He’d let his golden hair grow long, and she liked it that way. She could see the definition of his muscles, the ripples in his chest, the flex in his arms and legs. He was in the best shape of his life. Strong. Ready for anything.

“There was a fire in California,” Lisa explained. “Danny volunteered to help.”

“Was it dangerous?”

“Very.”

“Were you scared?”

“I was terrified,” Lisa said.

She thought about the video of the fires outside Bakersfield. The towering flames as tall as dragons. Ash falling over a thousand miles. The scorched trees, the wreckage of homes, the blackened hillsides. Fire was a wily, malevolent enemy. The love of her life was getting ready to strap on his gear and head into an inferno.

“If you were so scared, why did you let him go?” Purdue asked.

It was such a simple question. Why?

She’d asked herself that same question a thousand times. It would have been so easy to make him stay. Two words, that was all she’d needed. Two words, and he would never have left her side. She’d been so close to telling him: Don’t go. But he was determined, he was excited, and she wasn’t going to stand in his way.

“I was scared, but Danny wasn’t scared at all,” she said. “He told me not to worry. He said the time would fly by. I’d be busy with the plans for the wedding. We were getting married two months later. He was sure I’d be busy with publishers, too. My first book was out with an agent, and he was convinced I’d get a deal soon. He was so supportive of my dreams. He believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. So I had to do the same for him. I couldn’t take him away from something he really wanted to do.”

“He left? He went to fight the fire?”

“Yes, he did.”

She saw their last moments together in her head. She remembered him coming back to bed and sitting next to her on the rumpled sheets. Lacing his fingers tightly with hers. Kissing her, a soft kiss that became long and passionate. They’d both smiled, but their smiles were fake. And then he’d walked away from her. Letting go of him was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

Two words. She should have made him stay.

“What happened to him?” Purdue asked.

“Danny was in California for a month. He could have gone home, but he volunteered to stay when a new fire broke out. People said it was growing like a monster. It was bearing down on this neighborhood in the hills, and he stayed in the area longer than he should have to make sure that everyone got out. Everyone did, because of him. But not Danny. The fire jumped ahead of him and trapped him.”

Purdue frowned. “I’m really sorry, Lisa.”

“Yeah. Me too.” She felt her eyes fill with tears again; she couldn’t hold them back. “Danny’s father barely spoke to me after that. He blamed me for losing him. He said I could have stopped him from going, and he’s right. I let him go.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“No. But there’s a lot I would have done differently if I had the chance. While he was gone, my agent called. Danny was right. She’d sold my first book. And I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to give him the news over the phone. I wanted us to be together. I had so much to tell him when he was back, and I wanted to make it a big surprise. So I waited. That’s what I have to live with. I waited, and I never got to tell him about anything.”