Fly Away Home by Marge Piercy

Author:Marge Piercy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

17

It took Daria a moment to realize her room was dark, she had been soundly asleep and the phone was ringing. As she snapped on the bedside lamp, she saw it was two thirty-five. She hesitated, her hand over the phone. Something had happened to Tracy? To Pops? “Hello? Who is this?”

“Sandra María’s building is burning,” Tom burst out. “Come over.”

“Sandra María? Is she all right? What about Mariela?”

“They’re safe, but badly shaken. Come over now, Daria. Come and help,” he barked and hung up.

What could she possibly do to help? She ought to go anyhow. Presumably they had been awakened as suddenly as she had, but not by the phone. Hastily she dressed and rushed out. The night was bitter cold with a harsh wind blowing from the northwest across a clear icy black sky pricked with tiny sharp-edged stars. Driving fast, she got to the neighborhood in twenty minutes. A fire truck and a hook and ladder blocked Sandra María’s street, so she parked way up the hill in Tom’s driveway and trotted down the icy curve. She was suddenly aware of herself, a woman alone in the middle of the night on a city street, and looked around warily. Above the engines, could the people on the next block hear her if she screamed?

She hastened as much as she dared, sliding on the ice, around to the row of brick apartments. Enormous black hoses ran into the front door, and the firemen were trying to haul another up the steps. Other firemen were on the roof, chipping away with their axes. Occasionally a hunk of burning roofing fell over the side into the street. The radios spat words and static; the engines and the pumps made the sidewalk thrum under her feet. In spite of the hour and the intense cold, a crowd stood in clumps on the other side of the street watching the firemen. Many nearby apartments had lights turned on. At the windows worried faces showed, peering out.

An old woman sat on the curb, shaking. A young man in a bathrobe who was awkwardly grasping a little dog was trying to comfort her. The dog yapped incessantly. A woman with a coat over pajamas brought out blankets. “I’ve lost everything,” the old woman was sobbing. “Everything! All my things, gone.”

Daria could not find Sandra María or her daughter. Frightened she turned back to the building. She could see flames shooting up from the top floor, where their apartment was. Had they really gotten out? She worked her way through the crowd, looking for anyone she knew. What seemed to be a large family group was talking excitedly in Spanish. Maybe they would know Sandra María. Still she felt shy about asking. She had studied Spanish in college, but she had never used it. Finally she picked out the teenage daughter of the family, whose hair was hacked off in a punk cut just beginning to grow out. Timidly she said, “I’m looking for my friend Sandra María.

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