Chapter 7 - The Night The House Caught Fire
The summer Lila turned seven months old was the best summer Boone had ever had.
Rachel moved into the spare bedroom, just like she had offered. She got a job at the elementary school in town as a teacher’s aide. She cooked dinner every night—meatloaf, fried chicken, all the things Boone and Elias had loved when they were a family. She got up with Lila in the middle of the night when Boone’s nightmares were bad, letting him sleep. She sat with him on the porch in the evenings, drinking iced tea, talking about Elias, about the good years before she left, about the mistakes they had both made.
It wasn’t perfect. There were fights. There were days when Boone would look at her and all he could see was the empty side of the bed the morning she left, all he could hear was five-year-old Elias crying for his mom. There were days when Rachel would get quiet and distant, lost in her own guilt. But they worked at it. They went to counseling together. They talked. They cried. They forgave, slowly, imperfectly, the way people do when they love each other even when it’s hard.
And Lila? Lila thrived. She had two grandparents who adored her, a house full of love, a yard full of dogs (Boone had adopted two rescue labs, Max and Daisy, to be her protectors), and more clothes and toys than she knew what to do with. She was crawling everywhere, pulling herself up on the furniture, getting into everything. She was happy. She was healthy. She was home.
Then came the night of August fourteenth.
Boone had taken Lila to the NICU reunion at the hospital that afternoon. All the babies who had been patients there over the past five years came back with their families. There were games, and food, and a photographer, and Dr. Chen had held Lila up and announced to everyone that she was her favorite success story. Boone had run into me, into Rita, into Sarah, into all the nurses who had fought for her. We had all taken a group picture by the entrance, Lila in Boone’s arms, wearing a tiny shirt that said I Survived The NICU.
They got home late, around nine o’clock. Lila was exhausted, asleep before Boone even got her out of the car seat. He carried her up to her room, changed her into her pajamas, laid her in her crib, and stood there watching her sleep for a long time, just like he did every night. Rachel was already in bed, her light off. The dogs were curled up on the living room rug. The house was quiet. Peaceful.
Boone took a shower, let the hot water wash the day away, and climbed into his own bed. He fell asleep almost instantly.
He doesn’t know what woke him up. Maybe it was the dogs barking. Maybe it was the pop of a circuit breaker. Maybe it was just that soldier’s sixth sense, the one that had kept him alive through three tours of war, screaming that something was wrong.
But he woke up at 2:17 a.m., and the first thing he noticed was the smell.
Smoke.
Thick, acrid, burning smoke.
He was out of bed in a heartbeat, his feet hitting the cold floor. He opened his bedroom door, and smoke poured in, stinging his eyes, making him cough. The hallway was orange, glowing with firelight. The fire was in the living room, spreading fast up the curtains, across the carpet, already licking at the stairs.
“RACHEL!” he screamed, running toward her room. He banged on her door, hard. “FIRE! GET UP! NOW!”
He heard her scream from inside, heard her scrambling out of bed. He didn’t wait. He turned and ran the other way, toward Lila’s room at the end of the hall. The smoke was thicker now, so thick he could barely see. He dropped to his hands and knees, crawling the last few feet, the way they had taught him in fire safety training when he was in the Army. The floor was hot beneath his palms. The heat was unbearable, like standing in front of an open oven.
He got to Lila’s door. It was closed, thank God—closed doors buy you time, keep the fire and smoke out. He grabbed the handle. It was burning hot. He didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his shirt around his hand, turned the handle, and threw the door open.
The room was still clear. The fire hadn’t gotten there yet. But the smoke was seeping under the door, creeping across the ceiling.
Lila was standing up in her crib, holding onto the rails, crying. She was scared, but she was okay.
“I got you, baby,” Boone gasped, crawling over to her. He lifted her out of the crib, held her tight against his chest, covering her mouth and nose with his shirt to keep the smoke out. “Papa’s got you. You’re okay. We’re gonna get out of here.”
He turned to leave the room, and that was when he saw it.
The fire was now completely blocking the hallway. The ceiling had collapsed in the living room. Flames were shooting up the walls, eating through the drywall, the wood, everything in their path. The front door was gone. The stairs were gone. There was no way out that way.
Rachel appeared in the doorway of her room, a wet towel over her face, her eyes wide with terror.
“Boone!” she yelled over the roar of the fire. “The window! Lila’s window! It’s the only way!”
She was right. Lila’s room had a window that looked out over the backyard, a good twelve feet off the ground. It was their only chance.
Boone ran to the window. It was stuck, painted shut from years of not being opened. He put Lila down on the floor for half a second, covered her with a blanket, and threw his shoulder against the window as hard as he could. Once. Twice. On the third hit, the glass shattered, shards flying everywhere. He ignored the cuts on his arm, his shoulder, and pushed the frame up as far as it would go.
The night air rushed in, cold and clean, feeding the fire behind him. The roar got louder. The heat was so intense now he could feel his hair singeing.
“Rachel!” he yelled. “Come on! We gotta go NOW!”
She ran across the hall, through the smoke and the heat, and joined him at the window. Below them, the dogs were barking frantically, running back and forth, trying to figure out how to get to them.
“I’ll go first,” Rachel said. “I’ll catch her. You hand her down to me, then you jump.”
“Are you crazy?” Boone said. “It’s twelve feet! You’ll break your legs!”
“I don’t care!” she screamed. “She’s our granddaughter, Boone! I’m not letting anything happen to her! Now give me the baby!”
There was no time to argue. A beam fell in the hallway behind them with a deafening crash. The fire was in the room now, creeping across the carpet toward the crib.
Boone picked Lila up, kissed her forehead, and handed her down to Rachel. Rachel leaned out the window, stretching as far as she could, and caught her. She held Lila tight against her chest, closed her eyes, and jumped.
They hit the ground hard. Rachel landed on her side, cushioning Lila’s fall with her own body. She didn’t move for a second, and Boone’s heart stopped. But then she groaned, rolled over, and sat up, holding Lila tight. Lila was crying, but she was moving. She was okay.
“I’m okay!” Rachel yelled up at him. “She’s okay! Jump, Boone! Now!”
Boone climbed onto the windowsill. The fire was behind him now, the whole room engulfed. He could feel the heat on his back, burning through his shirt. He looked down. Twelve feet. Nothing to a soldier. But his knee was bad—he’d had three surgeries on it since the explosion—and his balance was shot from the TBI. He knew he probably wouldn’t land well.
But he didn’t have a choice.
He jumped.
He hit the ground feet first, but his left knee buckled instantly. He went down hard, rolling across the grass, his shoulder slamming into the fence. Pain shot through his entire body, white hot, blinding. He lay there for a second, gasping, unable to breathe, unable to move.
“Boone!” Rachel was crawling toward him, Lila still in her arms. “Boone, are you okay? Answer me!”
He forced his eyes open. He looked past her, at the house. It was fully engulfed now, flames shooting thirty feet into the air, lighting up the whole countryside. He could hear sirens in the distance, getting closer. The fire department was on their way.
“Lila,” he gasped. “Is she…?”
“She’s fine,” Rachel said, crying now, sitting down next to him in the grass, holding Lila out so he could see her. “She’s fine. A little scared, but she’s fine. You did good, Boone. You saved her. You saved us both.”
He reached out a shaking hand and touched Lila’s cheek. She grabbed his finger, her eyes wide, and stopped crying. She just looked at him, like she knew. Like she knew he had run through fire for her. Like she knew he would do it a thousand times over.
“Elias’s letter,” he said suddenly, trying to sit up, the pain making him dizzy. “The dog tags. The medals. They’re in the safe in the closet—”
“Boone, stop,” Rachel said, putting a hand on his chest. “Let it go. It’s just stuff. We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
But he knew it wasn’t just stuff. Those things were all he had left of Elias. All he had left of the son he had lost twice—once to the war, once to the fire.
The fire trucks arrived a minute later, lights flashing, sirens wailing. The paramedics ran over, loaded Boone onto a stretcher, checked Rachel and Lila over. Lila was perfect—no burns, no smoke inhalation, just a little scared. Rachel had a broken wrist from the fall, a few cuts and bruises. Boone had a shattered left knee, third-degree burns on his arms and back, a concussion, and more smoke inhalation than the paramedics liked. They loaded all three of them into the ambulance and headed for Riverbend.
The ride to the hospital was a blur. Boone lay on the stretcher, looking out the window at the dark Iowa night, thinking about the house. About the nursery Elias had never gotten to see. About the letter he had never gotten to finish reading. About all the memories that were turning to ash even as they drove away.
Rachel held his hand from the other side of the ambulance, Lila curled up in her lap, asleep now, exhausted.
“We’ll rebuild, Boone,” she said quietly. “Whatever it takes. We’ll build a better house. A bigger one. With a bigger yard for the dogs. And a safer room for Lila. We’ll start over. Together.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Together,” he repeated.
But even then, as the ambulance pulled into the hospital parking lot, as he saw me and Rita and Sarah waiting for him at the ER doors, as he realized that once again his life had been burned to the ground and he was going to have to build it back up from nothing… he couldn’t shake the feeling that this fire hadn’t been an accident.
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Because Richard Voss was out on bail.
And he had sworn he would get even.
