Anne Louise Pepper
The night my mother asked my father to build a fire, please, he’d snapped a salute and shouted—Yes, sir!—and stomped to the fireplace to screw sheets of newspaper into indignant balls, stuff them in the hearth, clap on lumber scraps from last summer’s porch renovation, and poke at the pile with a lit match; this was the same swollen mood as when he swatted us—grab your ankles—for talking back, or when he shut off our television show to lecture about how we were feckless shirkers who’d never learn enterprise.
When the blaze bulged from the brick mouth and crackled up the flue, he eased a bit, gazing, but people soon knocked on our door to warn us our roof was on fire—flames were licking from the chimney crown. We raced outside, and my father trooped after. The shingles hadn’t ignited, but, as the white arcs flicked up and burst, it seemed imminent, though the night was near freezing and billowed fog. My father stared, his mouth weak. The neighbors also gathered, like owls, on the street and on their porches, and someone muttered about calling the fire department. At this, my father cleared his throat and announced there was no danger, no need to worry or alert anyone; we were burning scraps of lumber was all, and everyone should keep in mind just how flammable our houses really were.
#
Anne Louise Pepper is a writer and former educator who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her work can be found in failbetter and The Citron Review.