Blue Smoke

“Reena. Oh, Reena.”
    “You’re wrong. There’s a mistake. I’ll call him and you’ll see. I’ll call him right now.”
    But when she turned, Xander was there, smelling of flour, like her father. His arms came hard around her. “Come on, come into the back with me. Mia, call Pete, tell him we need him in here.”
    “No, let go. I have to call.”
    “You come and sit.” He snatched the water pitcher before she dropped it, shoved it at Mia.
    “He’s coming to dinner. He might even have left already. Traffic—” She began to shake as Xander pulled her into the prep room.
    “Sit down. Do what I tell you. Gina, are you sure? There’s no mistake?”
    “I heard from Jen. A friend of hers lives in the same building. She—her friend lives right down the hall from Josh. They took her to the hospital.” Gina wiped at tears with the back of her hand. “She’s going to be all right, but she had to go to the hospital. Josh . . . It started in his apartment, that’s what they said. They couldn’t get to him before . . . It was on the news, too. My mother heard it on the news.”
    She sat down at Reena’s feet, laid her head in Reena’s lap. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

    “When?” Reena stared straight ahead, saw nothing now. Nothing but gray, like smoke. “When did it happen?”
    “I’m not sure. Last night.”
    “I need to go home.”
    “I’m going to take you in a minute. Here.” Xander handed her a glass of water. “Drink this.”
    She took the glass, stared at it. “How? Did they say how it started?”
    “They think he must’ve been smoking in bed, fell asleep.”
    “That’s not right. He doesn’t smoke. That’s not right.”
    “We’ll worry about that later. Gina, call my mother, and can you wait here until Pete gets down? We’re going home, Reena. We’ll go out the back.”
    “He doesn’t smoke. Maybe it wasn’t him. They made a mistake.”
    “We’ll find out. We’ll call John. When we get home,” Xander said as he drew her to her feet. “We’re going to go home now.”
    The sunlight and June heat struck her. Somehow she was walking, putting one foot in front of the other, but she couldn’t feel her legs.
    She heard children playing as she turned the corner, calling out to one another the way children do. And car radios, turned up loud, to stream music out as cars drove by. And her brother’s voice murmuring to her.
    She’d always remember Xander taking her home, both of them still wearing their aprons. Xander smelling of flour. The sun was bright and hurt her eyes, and his arm stayed strong and firm around her waist. There were some little girls playing jacks on the sidewalk, and another sitting on the white marble steps holding an intense conversation with her Barbie doll.
    Opera— Aida —poured out of an open window and sounded like tears. She didn’t cry. Gina’s tears had been so big, so fast, but her own eyes felt painfully dry.
    Then there was Mama, rushing out of their house, leaving the door open wide behind her. Mama, running down the sidewalk to her, as she had once when she fell off her bike and sprained her wrist.
    And when her mother’s arms came around her, tight, tight, tight, it all became real. Standing on the sidewalk, held by her mother and brother, Reena drowned in tears.

    S he was put to bed, and her mother stayed with her through the next storm of tears. And was there when she awoke from a thin and headachy sleep.
    “Did John call? Did he come?”
    “Not yet.” Bianca stroked Reena’s hair. “He said it would take some time.”
    “I want to go see. I want to go see for myself.”
    “And what did he say about that?” Bianca asked gently.
    “That I shouldn’t.” Her own voice sounded thin to her ears, as if she’d been sick a very long time. “That they wouldn’t let me go inside. But—”
    “Be patient, cara. I know it’s hard. Try to sleep a little more. I’ll stay with you.”
    “I don’t want to sleep. It could be a mistake.”
    “We’ll wait. It’s all we can do. Fran went to church to light a candle and pray so I could stay with you.”
    “I can’t pray. I can’t think of words.”
    “It’s not the words, you know that.”
    Reena angled her head, saw the rosary her mother held. “You always have the words.”
    “If you need words, you can say them with me. We’ll start a rosary.” She put the dangling crucifix in Reena’s hand. Taking a breath, Reena crossed herself with it, then moved up