Heather pulled Dianne’s arm through the heavy brush. “Come on,” she said, breaking into a dark clearing. Ahead of the girls stood a large, wooden-sided house, shutters falling off and front porch caved in. Dianne shivered.
“I don’t think we should do this, Heather.”
“Relax. It’s not like anyone ever comes here. I doubt half the people here know about it.”
“We’re still burning down a house. That’s a felony.”
“If you’re caught.” She kicked a plank of rotted wood; it fell apart.
“You do know I’m training to be a firefighter. I can’t afford to be caught.” Heather pulled a lighter out of her pocket and lit a dry branch. She blew the glow into a flame and touched it to the side of the house. Smoke billowed out from the siding. The flames quickly spread up the dry timber.
Heather and Dianne watched while the inside of the house filled with smoke, the former grinning gleefully. Suddenly, cutting through the black shadows of the trees, came flashing red lights, joined by the cry of a siren. The two girls jumped and looked at each other wildly. Heather pushed her friend beyond the nearest shrub. Behind her, from in the house, came a wail above the sirens, very sharp and very human. Heather turned back.
“Go, Dee. I’ll get it.”
“Let me come too.”
“No! You’ll lose your chance at being a firefighter!”
“Well, maybe I should!”
“GO!” Heather shoved the older girl into the forest and ran back to the house. She vaulted over the collapsed porch and through the empty door way. Stepping carefully, blinded by the smoke, she followed the cries to a room in the back. On the floor was a child of about two, curled in a ball.
Heather picked the boy up, despite his flailing, and carried him back through the burning house. As she stepped to the doorway, the floor under her feet collapsed. Her screams blended with the baby’s cries and the sirens as burning wood fell on top of her. She crawled, still carrying the boy, through the lattice around the bottom of the house and sprawled, unconscious, in the glare of a police car’s spot light.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
“Heather Price, because you are a minor, and because you did attempt to save the child, and you turned yourself in, I will give you a lighter sentence. You will be on probation for one year.
“However, you will also be responsible for Peter Doe in a year and a half when you turn eighteen. Until then he will be the charge of your parents.
“Also, you are never to seek reconstructive surgery for the scars on your face.”
The judge slammed his gavel on the table.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Charles Price took off his uniform hat and sat on the couch across from his sister.
“I’ll give you one more chance. Who else was there?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Charles.” Heather crossed her arms and looked out the window.
“I was there, Heather. I was the one who pulled you all the way out of the house. I was the one who saw those footprints that weren’t yours.”
“I’ll never tell you who it was.”
“Don’t worry.” Charles picked absently at the snap on his empty holster. “I’ll find out who it was.”
Peter, still wearing the last of the bandages for the third-degree burns on his arm, toddled into the room and climbed onto Heather’s lap. His fingers traced the web of still pink scars lining her face. She sighed.
In ten months she’d be graduating. Most of her friends, well, the people that used to be her friends, would be leaving for college come next September. Meanwhile, Heather still had eight and a half months left on her probation. She hadn’t even bothered to look at colleges, and her guidance counselor hadn’t encouraged her. Besides, she would be the adopted mother of Peter Price, nee Doe, two months into her freshman year. She took the only option left her and began looking for a job that would hire convicted felons.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Heather found that job three months later in a dress shop. Despite never having held a needle in her life, the proprietor “liked her potential” and didn’t stare at her scars or watch her out of the corner of her eye, like all the others had done.
“Thanks, Mrs. Hawthorn. You won’t regret this.”
“It’s the least I can do, dear,” she said with a kindly smile.
Her job was simple. She would show up after she had a chance to pick up Peter from her high school’s kindergarten and drop him off with her mother. The duties were mainly bookkeeping, to Heather’s delight.
“I don’t get these new-fangled computer systems,” Mrs. Hawthorn would say, shaking her head and “tsking” at the Hewlett-Packard before heading off to cut a yard off the bolt of fabric for a customer. The job continued like this through the summer after her senior year. Gradually, Heather was introduced to the basic aspects of measuring and cutting by Mrs. Hawthorn.
Mrs. Hawthorn was pleased to let Heather start full time in the fall. “I don’t suppose... See, I can’t leave Peter home all day, and I can’t really afford day care...” she looked down at the floor.
“Of course he can come with you. You do most of your work in the back, so he can stay with you.”
“Oh, you’re the best!” Heather swung her arms around the startled old lady and bolted out the door.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
It was, ironically, at the scene of a fire four years later that Officer Charles Price met Dianne Parson. When their eyes met, he felt sparks jump. He wasn’t surprised to see her coming by to file the report with the police department the next day. He brought her a cup of departmental coffee in the lobby.
Charles started the conversation off lightly with a comment about the weather, and Dianne returned in kind. The conversation went on like this for a quarter hour, until Charles finally asked, “Would you like to go to dinner Saturday night?”
Dianne smiled shyly. “Of course. But I should probably know your name first,”
“Charles.” He held out his hand.
“Dianne.” She shook the offered hand. “But call me Dee.”
Charles’s hand tightened imperceptibly.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Charles dropped by his parents house a few weeks later, ostensibly to enjoy dinner with his family. He just happened to corner his little sister in the living room.
“So, what have you been up to, Heather?”
She wiped some unknown substance out of Peter’s soot-black hair. “Same old, same old.”
“Not seeing anyone or anything?”
“Charles, look at me. Besides, I already have a kid. Do you really have to ask?”
“I only ask because I’m going out with a nice girl, Dianne Parson. We met at a fire scene.”
Heather looked up, but said nothing.
“Dee’s a firefighter. She gives talks to kids on fire safety, too. She said she once had a bad incident with a lighter. Say, you had a friend, Dee, didn’t you? What ever happened to her?”
“I haven’t spoken to her for over four years.”
“Really. Well, this Dee didn’t seem to recognize my name, so it must not be the same one.” Heather knew that Charles knew as well as she did that there was only one Dianne called Dee in the town.
“Charles, you can’t do this to her.”
“Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Cut it out. You know exactly what I mean. You cannot date Dianne just to get to me. Besides, you have no proof of anything.”
“Oh, I’m not dating her to get to you. I’m past the stage of being mad at you. And what you just said is proof enough for me. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt her.”
Heather did not like the look in her brother’s eyes.
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Subject line "Scars Don't Heal"