Impossible Dreams (41 page)

“It’s hearsay,” he warned. As both women watched
him expectantly, he sighed. “According to Headley, your mother’s
mother was the black sheep of the Arnold family.”

Cleo looked blank. Maya grinned wider.

“The mayor’s family? We’re the black sheep
of the mayor’s family? Can we call him up and tell him now?”

Axell caught the nape of her neck and shoved her out the
door. “Don’t you dare. And if you greet him in church as
‘cousin,’ I’ll disown you.”

“Won’t be the first time,” Cleo called
airily as they departed.

“Daddy!
Daddy
!” Constance shouted in alarm
from the floor below.

“Mr. Axell, Mr. Axell! Fire!” Matty yelled in
excitement.

Exchanging looks of panic, Maya and Axell dashed down the
stairs.

Flames licked at the walls of the woodshed behind the
kitchen. They could see it the instant they hit the bottom of the stairs and
the uncurtained window popped into view.

Axell slammed his cell phone into Maya’s hands.
“Get the kids out and call 911. I’ll look for a hose.”

“There’s a connection on the right,” she
shouted as he raced toward the kitchen door. “Cleo!” she yelled up
the stairs. “Get down here now! Fire!”

Pounding the cell phone, gathering up Alexa, and shooing the
two excited children toward the front door, away from the fire, Maya
didn’t even consider what valuables might be left behind. She’d never
learned appreciation for material things, but she knew the value of human life.

Shouting directions into the phone, she listened for
Cleo’s feet on the stairs, and satisfied she heard them, herded everyone
out the door.

She couldn’t leave the children to help Axell.
Anxiously, she sought a place in the side yard where they could keep an eye on
him. The old shed contained nothing more than spiders and snakes, as far as she
was aware. It was the proximity to the house and Axell’s determination to
stand between it and the fire that scared her. She heard the hiss of the hose
and smelled the smoke the instant he turned the water on the flames.

Cleo ran out carrying an armful of old books and letters.
Frantically, she glanced up at the house, then back to where Axell fought the
flames. She dropped the papers at Maya’s feet. “It’s not at
the house yet. Are there blankets in there?” Apparently remembering the
stack of cots and blankets in the back room they’d passed, she darted
back up to the porch.

“Cleo! Wait!” Maya screamed after her, but bent
on helping, Cleo dashed inside.

“Mr. Pig!” Matty wailed. “The fire will
hurt Mr. Pig!”

Oh, Lord, please don’t... Maya couldn’t phrase
the petitions she wanted most. Save Axell, save Cleo, save the school, save the
animals... The list was too endless for debate, and she wafted wordless prayers
heavenward as she crouched beside Matty, and hugging him as well as Alexa,
watched the flames leap higher.

Constance gnawed on her bottom lip and clenched her little
hands as she watched the shadows illuminated by the growing fire. Axell
attacked the highest flames with the hose. Cleo ran out the back door with a
stack of blankets and began beating at the sparks leaping to the dry grass and
dead brush of the uncleared lawn between shed and kitchen.

As sirens wailed in the distance, Maya wondered what could
possibly have set off a fire in an unused shed. There was no wiring, no cans of
gasoline, no gas lines, no heaps of chemical-laden rags, no nothing but old
wood and spiders.

And spiders didn’t light fires.

I’m not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.

Soot-coated, soaked, and sweating, Axell wearily trudged
past the charred embers of the woodshed and the storage building containing all
the school’s yard maintenance equipment. Volunteer firefighters continued
dousing the back of the house and the smoking ruins of the outbuildings with
water pumped from the school’s well.

They’d managed to protect the school building from all
damage except to a few charred boards of the kitchen porch. They hadn’t
managed to protect Axell’s sense of security.

Floodlights illuminated the overhanging shrubbery and trees
of the front yard, where neighbors had gathered in the balmy Carolina night.
Mosquitoes buzzed and fireflies flickered in the shadows of the fence rows.
Normality was slowly returning, but not for him. He’d never be the same
again.

He could see Maya relentlessly hugging Alexa, her other arm
around Constance’s shoulders, while Cleo sat on the ground with Matty
clinging to her neck. Neighbors had brought pots of coffee for the
firefighters, people milled about the lawn, but Maya and the children formed an
island of their own, an island he’d almost lost.

Insides wrenching, Axell strode briskly past firemen rolling
up their hoses and hauling down their ladders. The damned school wasn’t
worth it. Maya could start one somewhere else. He should have let the thing
burn to the ground. That would have ended the debate once and for all.

The fire chief had confirmed arson.

Axell wanted to believe that whoever had set the fire
didn’t know anyone was inside. Normally, no one would be at this hour. He
just couldn’t imagine how anyone could miss the lights upstairs and the
car in the drive. Someone had tried to kill his family.

He couldn’t face that kind of loss again. He’d
survived the deaths of his parents, his wife, and his son, but he didn’t
think he could accept the loss of Constance, or Maya or Alexa or Matty. He
didn’t want to remember the blank, lonely existence he’d led before
their arrival. He didn’t want to admit his failure to protect them.

It was his job to see them safe, and he hadn’t done
his job when he’d bowed to Maya’s wishes to keep the damned school.
It was time he started listening to his head instead of the mindless muscle
below his belt — which stirred uncontrollably the instant Maya flung herself into
his arms and buried her face against his filthy shirt, unheeding of his stench
and grime.

Axell gathered her up for a brief moment of thanksgiving.
Then, ignoring the turmoil of his heart, he kissed her hair, checked
Alexa’s serene expression, and set Maya back on the ground. “Take
the kids home. I need to talk to the officers. They’ll give me a ride
later.”

Maya stared at him with eyes wide with hurt. She was so
damned transparent sometimes, it scared him. She’d have to learn to live
with him as he was. She could create all the happy illusions she liked, but it
was his duty to beat reality into submission when it threatened life as he knew
it. She wasn’t going to like what he was about to do. The knowledge cut
like a scalpel through some vital part, but he was strong. He would endure
whatever it took to see her safe.

He hadn’t known what he was doing when he got mixed up
with her. Maya filled his life like the joyous balloons he’d loved as a
kid. She made life sparkle, decorated it with laughter and surprise, and gave
him the kind of chest-pounding hope he’d never thought to know.

He loved her.

The realization was too huge to swallow all at once. Off
kilter, Axell reached for Constance and hugged her against him. She wrapped her
skinny arms around his waist and more love welled inside him. He didn’t
dare express the emotion spilling through him — not in front of a crowd. His
father’s training was ingrained.

“Cleo can take the kids home,” Maya said
quietly. “I’ll stay with you.”

Oh, God, that’s just what he didn’t need.
He’d rather keep Cleo here. At least her cynicism was on his side. But he
couldn’t tell Maya that. He couldn’t puncture her dream-spun
rainbows right now.

“Axell!” The shout over the murmurs of the crowd
jerked Axell’s head in the direction of the drive.

The mayor.

Ralph Arnold hurried over the trampled grass, not a
blow-dried hair out of place, not an inch of his immaculate suit revealing a
wrinkle. Axell groaned inwardly, then with a definite Maya twist, offered his
grimy hand as the mayor stopped in front of them.

Ralph looked at Axell’s filthy palm, glanced at his
sooty face, then nervously smiled at the women and children.
“Everyone’s safe!” he said with relief, pretending
Axell’s outstretched hand didn’t exist.

Maya apparently caught the byplay and offered a half grin to
Axell before donning her usual vague expression when confronted with someone
she couldn’t relate to. He was learning all her tricks, it seemed.

“No thanks to the arsonist,” she replied
sweetly. “We could have all been roasted alive. Would you have put a
marker beside the new road in remembrance?”

Ralph looked rattled and turned to Axell for guidance. No
matter how much he despised the man and his politics, Axell couldn’t
believe the mayor capable of arson. He shrugged. “It’s been an
unpleasant evening, but I think I have news you’ll want to hear. We need
to get together in the morning.”

Maya shot him a suspicious look. “I’m still not
selling.”

Damning her perceptiveness, Axell calmly met her gaze.
“Cleo is ready to sell, aren’t you?” He glanced in his
sister-in-law’s direction. His sister-in-law. Damn, he’d exchanged
a busybody mother-in-law for an ex-con sister-in-law. It didn’t matter.
Protecting his wife and kids was what mattered.

Cleo glanced suspiciously from him to the mayor and
shrugged. “No skin off my nose. It’s Maya’s dream, not
mine.”

Maya’s dream. Axell wanted to stop the discussion for
now. “We’ll talk in the morning, Ralph. Everyone’s nerves are
shot tonight.”

“I won’t sell, and that’s final.”
Maya gathered up Alexa, caught Constance’s arm, and glowered at her
sister. “We’re going. Have a good chat.”

Axell recognized the sinking feeling in his stomach as she
walked away, but he was prepared for that, much more than he was prepared for
the sudden urge to shout at her to come back.

He didn’t want to be divided from Maya in any manner,
physical or emotional or in their hopes for the future. For a little while,
he’d almost felt as if they were one whole, as if their physical joining
had truly brought them together in heart and soul. But that was patently
ridiculous. Grown men did what they had to do, and usually got yelled at for
it.

Maya had always declared she went with the flow. Maybe she
would drop the scheme for a school now that she had Cleo and those rental
properties to occupy her mind.

Axell ruthlessly blocked out the memory of Maya painting the
picture of misfits and poor children standing on the outside, looking in,
yearning for the love and understanding she could provide. Schools were for
learning, not sentimental claptrap.

If only he could block out the fear that Constance could
easily have become one of those misfits.

***

February, 1977

It’s over. She’s left, taking her babies with her,
not even knowing why the storm broke over her innocent head. Perhaps
she’ll be happier with her husband’s family, away from the stench
of her father’s cowardice and the cruelty of her mother’s kin.

What difference does anything make now? I have an offer of easy
money, money that can some day go to my daughter and her babies. They’ll
be too far away to be affected by anything I do here. Why not paint the whole
damned town with tar? Helen would have loved the irony.

The Arnolds deserve to have their faces rubbed in the dirt they
strive so desperately to pretend doesn’t exist in their pretty little
town.

***

Axell followed the light in the family room as he entered
the house well after midnight. He hadn’t expected Maya to wait up for
him. She must be totally wiped by now. He certainly was.

He needed a hot shower, and a long soak, and clean sheets
with Maya’s sweet-smelling curves in his arms, and then he thought he
could sleep for a week. Heaven was having Maya to come home to. He was aroused
just thinking of her sleepy kisses. She’d forgive him for his plans to
sell the school. Maya simply didn’t have it in her to hold a grudge.

Prepared to scold her for waiting up, Axell stopped dead in
the doorway at the sight of Sandra flipping pages of a magazine.

“Well, it’s about time,” she said huffily,
standing up. “Constance has been crying for hours. What do you intend to
do about it?”

Constance? Axell blinked and tried to rearrange his relaxing
thoughts of showers and bed to this new perspective. “Where’s
Maya?” he asked cautiously.

“Gone, of course.” Sandra threw the magazine
down. “You really didn’t think she’d hang around once she
came into a little money of her own, did you? Those kind only think of one
thing.”

Gone? Axell dragged his hand through his hair, realized he
was smearing soot, and grimaced. “Where did she go?” he asked in
genuine puzzlement, although his stomach was telling him exactly where
she’d gone and why.

“How should I know?” Sandra asked arrogantly.
“I’m not a mind reader. She dropped Constance off, packed up
Matty’s toys and the baby’s diapers, and left. She’ll
probably be back for the rest sometime. You can ask her then. I’m going
to bed.”

Icy cold numbed him as Sandra swept past. Maya would never
have left Constance behind if she’d simply meant to spend the night with
Cleo. He hadn’t believed she would leave Constance at all. She loved
Constance.

Maya had a heart full of love for everyone.

Clutching his grinding gut, Axell sank to the couch,
oblivious to what his filthy clothes did to the upholstery. She’d left
him. She’d walked away. Over the damned school. He knew better than to
think she’d left him because of money. Maya didn’t have any idea
whatsoever how much those properties were worth and wouldn’t care. But
she was completely capable of leaving him over a principle.

Let her, dammit. She was so frigging determined to swim away
at the first sign of trouble, then he’d damned well let her go. He
didn’t need this hassle, worrying about Constance and Alexa and Matty and
Maya and that damned school and a arsonist and how the ex-con sister and her
drug dealer friends mixed in.