It's Never too Late

“Safety engineering. Fire behavior, hazardous material, physics, technical drawing, regulatory compliance, ergonomics, industrial hygiene...” Head spinning, he reeled himself in. “It’s a four-year bachelor degree with a graduate program that adds emergency management,” he finished as he reached his truck and unlocked the door. “If I’d had the training already, I probably could have saved Jimmy’s life. This is just what the plant needs.”

Because he was going home to Bierly. To Ella.

“Good.”

A wave of heat engulfed him. He climbed up into the front seat and immediately hopped back down again.

“Good?” He said into the phone, standing there staring at the blistering interior of his truck. “That’s all? Just good?” He’d upended his entire existence for “good”?

“It’s the beginning, Markie-boy.”

Reaching in, he turned on the ignition, set the air to its coolest setting and prayed the vehicle wouldn’t overheat before he could drive it and cool the engine.

“The beginning of what?” He didn’t like the sound of this.

“My plan.”

“I assume this plan has to do w

ith me?”

“Of course.”

“Then don’t you think you should let me in on it?”

“In time, Markie-boy. In time.”

At least she was counting on having time. He decided to leave it at that.

* * *

“‘HOLDING TUBE UPRIGHT, lift bowl and slide into place.’”

Addy read. Looked at the piece of half-inch tubing sticking out of the cement base, which was covered in river rock. And then at the river rock and cement bowl that were still in the box on the fold-up handheld dolly that lived in her trunk when she wasn’t using it to cart crates of files into court.

Sweat dripped down her back beneath her tank top. She wiped more from her forehead and smeared it on the denim shorts that had been clean at the beginning of this project but now bore various smudges.

The guy at the landscaping store in Phoenix had assured her, as he’d loaded the fountain into her car, that she’d have no problem putting the thing together by herself. It was in pieces, he’d said, and had recommended that she open the box and carry the fountain, piece by piece, to its final destination.

Using a board for a ramp, she’d managed, by climbing into her trunk and getting behind the box, to push it out of her car, down the ramp and onto the two-wheeler.

Then, with her tennis shoes for traction on the hot cement, she’d started the cart rolling to the backyard.

She’d landed the base on the ground by sliding it out of the box.

And now they wanted her to lift the bowl? Had the guy at the store even looked at her? She was female. Five foot two. Weighed not much more than that fountain did. There was no way she could lift it.

And no way she was even going to try to live without a fountain. Water sustained her; it was the foundation of her mental and emotional equilibrium.

A girl who’d been burned alive could recover, move on, live a healthy and stable life, as long as she had water close by. And she was better at it when she could hear the water, anytime, all the time, in bed at night, and in the kitchen in the morning.

Right now, with the life of lies she was embarking on, she needed the foundations of her existence firmly in place. Addy, the most black-and-white person in the world, had just taken on a life of duplicity. Her boundaries were already pushed beyond maximum capacity.

Add to that, she was back in Shelter Valley. The desert. Where temperature soared to excruciating highs, drying out everything in its sphere. A fire’s breeding ground.

And the land of her personal hell.

She had to have water.