Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

Chapter 13

"I remember a lot about that night," he insisted. "My mother woke me up because she smelled smoke. I remember watching her run through the front door and down the street in her robe, and the night sky above your house was glowing because of the flames. She had told my dad to keep me in the house, but after a few minutes he put my coat on me and we followed her to the corner, where your old house used to be. You were standing outside in the street with your dog, barefoot, in your nightgown, just watching the flames climb higher and higher. The dog was going nuts. She was barking her head off, and wouldn't let anyone near you. I remember thinking it was just so weird to see you standing there alone. I'd always thought of you and Jennie like a pair, you know? Like two socks that go together."

"You knew it was me, standing there, and not Jennie?" I asked, surprised.

Trey nodded. "Of course. I could always tell you apart. Jennie's posture was different. Her eyebrows were a little heavier. She bit her fingernails down to the quick."

Unbelievable, I thought to myself, that Trey had known instantly that I'd survived and Jennie hadn't, but my own parents hadn't been able to tell the difference between us.

"I don't think I'd ever seen one of you without the other before that night. You could ask my mom about it, if you want. Back then she used to tell anyone who would listen that the dog must have gotten you up and led you outside."

I tried so hard to remember that night, but my memories were what they always were: little more than the unbearable tightness of smoke in my chest, the roar of the flames, and a sense of urgency that I needed to get outside. Had Moxie awakened me? Had she run through the  screen door, as she was fond of doing when she was a puppy—she'd figured out how to stand on her hind legs to press the handle with her front paws and open the door— to inspire me to follow her out onto the lawn? I really couldn't recall. I didn't remember much about even being in the street, other than the moment when I saw my mother's silhouette emerge in the doorway, the wall of orange fire behind her. If Trey's mom was right and Moxie had nudged me awake, then why me and not Jennie? Would Moxie have gone back into the house to rouse Jennie if the flames hadn't risen so quickly? There had been a gas leak in the basement, the fire department had determined during their investigation. That was why the whole house had gone up in such enormous flames so quickly, and it could have been started by anything, even a tiny spark from static electricity.

"So if you're wondering why you made it out and not Jennie, the answer is Moxie. For whatever reason, she was able to wake you up, but not your sister. It's as simple as that, McKenna. You can't question it."

I lay quiet for a moment, thinking about life and the energy of the universe and how something as simple as the sensitivity of my skin to a dog's wet nose had probably made the difference between life and death for me and my twin.

"We kept her here with us, you know," Trey told me. "Moxie. We had her here for two or three weeks while your family stayed somewhere else. I kept hoping you'd move away forever so that she'd just be my dog."

I shook my head in surprise. "I didn't know that," I admitted. The weeks following the fire were a blur for me. I recalled distinctly missing school. After our time in the hospital and Jennie's funeral, Mom and I went to Missouri to stay with my grandparents for a few weeks while Dad stayed in Willow at a motel and dealt with the insurance paperwork. I remembered very little about those weeks in Missouri other than the most random details: a red patchwork quilt spread over the brown plaid couch for me, turkey sandwiches prepared by my grandmother with thick mayonnaise, my mother disappearing behind a closed door to her childhood bedroom for hours on end to cry without my seeing it. But now that I was trying to remember it all, I was sure of it: Moxie hadn't been with us.