…so the bandwagon of firemen arrived. I watched them from my car. They waltzed in with confidence, but then started to pull in the hoses. (It is that moment you realize your house is either going to be eaten by fire or destroyed by water.) They opened windows - giant plumes of smoke poured into the sky. They pulled down their masks, faced the force with their bravery and washed out the fire. They tossed charred blobs out the windows - the baby blanket my sister knitted for my daughter - now a burnt remnant, shoe pieces, salvages of a bureau, it stopped mattering.
My daughter’s room was gone. The fire inspector told us that with two more minutes, we would have had a complete house fire, as it was already spreading into the framing. When the firemen entered my daughter’s bedroom, the flames were lapping out of the walls and dense smoke packed the ceiling to a foot off the floor. Smoke filled the entirety of our second story. I was shaky with gratitude for our smoke alarms, the fire department, the timing of it all, the stoicism and coordination with which my partner and I handled such a crisis - hand in glove. I was fragile in my awe. We easily could have died.
The fire inspector then began to disassemble the chimney pipe, searching for explanation. 22 nail holes. 22 nail holes in a segment of chimney pipe that should be unbreached. 22 nail holes that were then covered up so no inspector, no home owner could see. 22 nail holes that allowed oxygen in, driving up the heat of the pipe, which was surrounded by a collar that was directly affixed to bare wood. 22 nail holes.
The gratitude comes and goes. But mostly it’s a phase that lasts 48 hours. Then the sloppy, burnt bacon smell of one’s house and its contents begins to wear on the soul. A hazmat team came to the home every day with deafening filters and fans, we lived in a hotel at its most unbearable point. My asthma kicked in, I couldn’t stop coughing. PTSD’s tentacles creep into the subconcious - we all have trouble sleeping, the fish dies. I who love fire feel too traumatized to rock the wood stove again. It’s a process.
Once the smell finally leaves my home, and once the insurance claim is all said and done, perhaps then I will return to the largeness and innocence of my gratitude.
