It was the second church fire in as many months in New Hanover County. In November, Good Hope Covenant Church in Wilmington was completely destroyed. “Investigators are still treating it as suspicious, and as a case of potential arson at this point,” Ryan noted.
Witnesses report that less than twenty minutes before the fire, bottle rockets were seen being launched on the beach behind the church, likely in celebration of the New Year. “Bottle rockets are illegal in North Carolina, and are especially dangerous considering the recent drought conditions,” cautioned Ryan. “This fire shows the reason why. A man is in the hospital and the church is a total loss.”
When her mom finished reading, she looked up, meeting Ronnie’s eyes. Ronnie hesitated; then, with a sigh, she began to tell a story that still felt utterly senseless to her, even with the benefit of hindsight.
1
Ronnie
Six months earlier
Ronnie slouched in the front seat of the car, wondering why on earth her mom and dad hated her so much.
It was the only thing that could explain why she was here visiting her dad, in this godforsaken southern armpit of a place, instead of spending time with her friends back home in Manhattan.
No, scratch that. She wasn’t just visiting her dad. Visiting implied a weekend or two, maybe even a week. She supposed she could live with a visit. But to stay until late August? Pretty much the entire summer? That was banishment, and for most of the nine hours it had taken them to drive down, she’d felt like a prisoner being transferred to a rural penitentiary. She couldn’t believe her mom was actually going to make her go through with this.
Ronnie was so enveloped in misery, it took a second for her to recognize Mozart’s Sonata no. 16 in C Major. It was one of the pieces she had performed at Carnegie Hall four years ago, and she knew her mom had put it on while Ronnie was sleeping. Too bad. Ronnie reached over to turn it off.
“Why’d you do that?” her mom said, frowning. “I like hearing you play.”
“I don’t.”
“How about if I turn the volume down?”
“Just stop, Mom. Okay? I’m not in the mood.”
Ronnie stared out the window, knowing full well that her mom’s lips had just formed a tight seam. Her mom did that a lot these days. It was as if her lips were magnetized.
“I think I saw a pelican when we crossed the bridge to Wrightsville Beach,” her mom commented with forced lightness.
“Gee, that’s swell. Maybe you should call the Crocodile Hunter.”
“He died,” Jonah said, his voice floating up from the backseat, the sounds mingling with those from his Game Boy. Her ten-year-old pain-in-the-butt brother was addicted to the thing. “Don’t you remember?” he went on. “It was really sad.”
“Of course I remember.”
“You didn’t sound like you remembered.”
“Well, I did.”
“Then you shouldn’t have said what you just said.”
She didn’t bother to respond a third time. Her brother always needed the last word. It drove her crazy.
“Were you able to get any sleep at all?” her mom asked.
“Until you hit that pothole. Thanks for that, by the way. My head practically went through the glass.”
Her mom’s gaze remained fixed on the road. “I’m glad to see your nap put you in a better mood.”
Ronnie snapped her gum. Her mom hated that, which was the main reason she’d done it pretty much nonstop as they’d driven down I-95. The interstate, in her humble opinion, was just about the most boring stretch of roadway ever conceived. Unless someone was particularly fond of greasy fast food, disgusting rest-stop bathrooms, and zillions of pine trees, it could lull a person to sleep with its hypnotically ugly monotony.
She’d said those exact words to her mother in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, but Mom had ignored the comments every time. Aside from trying to make nice on the trip since it was the last time they’d see each other for a while, Mom wasn’t one for conversation in the car. She wasn’t all that comfortable driving, which wasn’t surprising since they either rode the subways or took cabs when they needed to get somewhere. In the apartment, though… that was a different story. Mom had no qualms about getting into things there, and the building super had come by twice in the last couple of months to ask them to keep it down. Mom probably believed that the louder she yelled about Ronnie’s grades, or Ronnie’s friends, or the fact that