Fireproof

plucking up an olive and popping it into her mouth.
    “Hey, I know you’re trying to be nice and calm about Jake, but the truth is I should have paid closer attention. You’re allowed to be mad as hell with me.”
    He handed her a glass of wine. She gulped almost half of it like she was chugging water. Patrick stopped, surprised. He hadn’t seen this side of Maggie. He suspected that she was being careful and selective in what she let him see.
    “It isn’t your fault, Patrick. He’s done it when I’ve been here. Sometimes immediately after I’ve let him into the yard. I see my fenced fortress as security. Jake sees it as a prison.”
    She emptied the rest of her glass before Patrick even took a sip of his.

CHAPTER 30

    “This is the longest he’s been gone,” Maggie told Lucy Coy over the phone.
    “Jake’s used to taking care of himself. He always ran off for days when he was with me.”
    “But that was in the country, where he had the forest and cornfields and fresh rabbits. He doesn’t know about traffic and neighbors with guns.” She tried to keep the panic from her voice. She wasn’t sure why this upset her so much. Maybe it was simply that she was exhausted. Too little sleep. The fire, the stitches, her strange adventure down in the sewer. Jake escaping and not coming back was just the break point in a long day.
    “Jake saved my life,” Maggie said, “and how do I repay him? By taking him thirteen hundred miles away from everything and everyone he’s ever known.”
    “You’re taking his leaving as an affront.”
    “Isn’t it?”
    “He’s checking out his surroundings.”
    “It’s been almost four months. They’re not that new anymore.”
    “Marking his territory. Staking his claim, if you will.”
    “Escaping from the prison I keep him in.”
    Lucy Coy laughed that melodic sound that came rarely but, when it did come, sounded natural and heartfelt. It was also contagious, and Maggie laughed, too.
    She rubbed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Yes, she was being melodramatic and ridiculous. The physical exhaustion of the day had spilled over into her mind. It had taken twenty minutes in the shower to get the smell of smoke, hospital antiseptic, and the sewer removed from her skin, out of her hair.
    “We cannot tame the wild spirit that lives within Jake.”
    This was the philosophical side of the woman that had mesmerized Maggie while she was a guest in Lucy’s home in the Sandhills of Nebraska.
    “Is it possible,” Lucy continued, “that you find it so unsettling because you wrestle with the same nonconforming spirit within yourself?”
    Maggie smiled and attempted to shake that “aha” feeling that Lucy so often triggered. Her preintroduction to Lucy Coy was a county sheriff who called her “that crazy old Indian woman.” The retired death investigator for the Nebraska State Patrol was nowhere near crazy or old. Instead, words like “graceful,” “contemplative,” “disciplined,” and “wise” beyond her sixty-plus years better described the woman whom Maggie recognized as a kindred spirit. When Lucy mentioned Maggie’s nonconforming spirit, Maggie took it not as an accusation but as the compliment it was meant to be.
    “Didn’t you tell me there’s a stream that runs behind your property?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sounds like the perfect hunting grounds for him.”
    It was one of the reasons Maggie bought the place. The steepridges on both sides of the stream made it a natural barricade, almost like her personal moat.
    Lucy’s voice and manner had started to soothe and calm Maggie until she heard the tap-tap of rain begin to hit the glass of the patio door. Immediately she was on her feet, Harvey beside her, looking out into the dark backyard. Leafless trees waved skeletal branches.
    “It’s starting to rain,” she said. “It could be sleet by morning.”
    “I remember him being out last winter all night after a snowfall. It must have been freezing. I have no idea how or where he kept warm.”
    “And when he came back he was okay?”
    “Brought back a half-eaten rabbit and left it on the front porch for me. Sharing’s never been an issue with him. In fact, I think it was his peace offering.”
    “You make him sound as if he has supernatural powers.”
    There was silence. Maggie had grown accustomed to Lucy’s contemplative pauses.
    “Go ahead and get some rest, Maggie. Jake will be fine.” And then she added, “And so will you.”
    “I hope you’re