Smoke by Catherine McKenzie Page A

Safe,” I say to him, placing my hand on his shoulder gently.
    “I’ve lost everything.”
    “I’m so very sorry. You can stay here for now, and I’m sure that . . .”
    I stop myself, because what am I sure about? That it will all be okay? That there will be people and money to help him? That when they shut this shelter down, he’ll have somewhere to go? How can I say anything like that to him, when I don’t even know it for myself?
    If he notices my trailing thoughts, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He simply blinks slowly as he looks around him.
    “This is Nelson Elementary, ain’t it?”
    I confirm it is, and he goes off on another tangent. This isn’t the elementary school he went to. Well, it has the same name, of course, but this building was built twenty years ago. The one he’d attended was torn down when it was found to be full of asbestos and the school district was sued for two cases of lung cancer. He liked that building, which was new when he attended it. Back then, everyone in town was pretty much like him; cattle ranchers’ sons and dairy farmers’ daughters. School cleared out at harvest and calving times. Reading, writing, and arithmetic made up most of the curriculum—it was all anyone who grew up in Nelson needed.
    Things are different now, of course, he says. He knows that. But it doesn’t mean he has to like it.
    He stops, his eyes going blank again.
    I can tell that Deputy Clark is growing impatient, but when he makes a move to say something, I signal him to let John talk. The talking is also part of the shock. I’ve found over the years that I get more out of someone if I just let them flow. People abhor the vacuum of silence in a crowd. It’s a natural instinct to fill it with whatever is foremost in your thoughts. If I were in his place, I’m sure I’d be babbling about Ben and what was going on between us and how it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t his fault, these things just happen sometimes. As it is, I know John will work his way back around to the fire, and if I’m lucky, put this case to bed before Ben even has to know I was working on it.
    So I let the silence rest until John continues. “We never had any kids, me and Kristy. Kristy, that’s my wife. You sounded like her for a second. Anyway, Kristy couldn’t or I couldn’t or we both couldn’t. We never really bothered to find out. No money for the doctor, and besides, we both knew that if it was one or the other’s fault, we’d start to blaming, and resentment would grow until there was nothing else between us.”
    He looks surprised at what he just said. I’m holding my breath, my heart thumping in my chest.
    Out of the mouths of scared old men.
    “You have any kids?” he asks me.
    “No.”
    “I bet you’d be good at it. You talk to people like they’re real, not like . . .” He nods over to where Honor is folding blankets. He lowers his voice. “She talks in that way people do to folks past a certain age. You know that way?”
    I know what he means. Honor’s the kind of person who speaks to seniors like they’re hard of understanding. As if they already had one foot on the other side.
    “I do,” I say. “So you’ve lived in Nelson your whole life?”
    That’s right, he says, his whole life and his daddy’s life before that. And he worked construction, used to anyway, and he’s lonely now, without his wife. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, and he feels like he might be to blame.
    “To blame?” I say. “Do you mean for the fire?”
    Deputy Clark leans forward, notebook in hand, looking as if he’s getting ready to take a statement.
    “I was asleep,” John says. “Why I’d be to blame for the fire?”
    “You might’ve noticed it sooner,” Deputy Clark says. I shake my head, but he presses on. “Or maybe . . . Were you using your fire pit last night, sir?”
    “The . . . Is that where the fire started?”
    “Likely.”
    “It’s too soon to say that for sure,” I