Bone and Bread Read Online Free PDF Page B

and eyes was fierce. She was naked apart from a wet towel that was dripping onto the bed. “You’re dreaming. We’re going to the balcony. We’re holding hands in a chain and running to the balcony.”
    Mama hauled Sadhana out of bed and pushed her ahead as she pulled me behind, holding us by the wrists instead of our hands. Outside of our bedroom, the heat was immense, like a force field pushing us back from the front door. The dog’s shadow I thought I’d seen was a black cloud of smoke that stung at our eyes.
    â€œDuck down,” said Mama, crouching with us, but she did not slacken her pace for a moment. Choking and gasping, the three of us flew through the cloud across to the kitchen, out to the large balcony through the sliding patio doors, and down the fire escape.
    Mama didn’t slow down once we reached the ground. She pulled us around the corner into the alleyway and then out front to the shop, to get them to evacuate and call 911. Uncle wasn’t working, but Travis, the night manager, along with Carlos and Ajay, who had worked there the longest, came outside with big white buckets full of water. Mama shook her head at them as they approached our front door.
    â€œThere’s nothing but possessions in there now. Sticks and stones. Please don’t take a chance.” And when they began to insist: “Don’t you dare.”
    The fire station was just around the corner, so in almost no time at all there were wailing sirens and three red engines and a dozen firefighters in impossibly heavy-looking yellow suits hurtling into our apartment. Bagel customers arrived and stood staring with us on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. In half an hour, the fire was out, though in that time it had made its way up our front staircase and into the apartment, where it had begun to char the living room.
    It was one of the firefighters who called us lucky. He came out and announced that the fire was out, and Mama threw her arms around him in a ferocious hug.
    â€œNot everybody remembers to change the batteries in their smoke detectors,” he said, patting her shoulder as she pulled away. His cheeks were dark with soot, and beneath that we could see the deep blush left behind by Mama’s embrace. She was still wearing only her towel.
    Mama told him he had no idea how lucky. “The girls and I, we can’t smell smoke anymore,” she said. “From living over the store with the wood ovens going all day and night. Like the people who live near Niagara Falls and don’t notice the roar of the water.”
    The fire chief said the blaze had started with a gas-soaked towel stuffed through the mail slot, followed by a match. The shop itself had escaped unscathed, but our front stoop had been spray-painted all over with a symbol that made Mama gasp when she saw it. Nobody said they saw anything, though the shop had been open all night, as usual. Uncle, when he arrived later, began shouting for somebody to get the turpentine.

    The apartment, when we got back from a stay with one of Mama’s yoga friends, was no longer the spoiled child of fire and water. The green rug on the front stairs, soaked by the firefighters where it was spared by the flames, had been torn up and replaced by a blue one. The drywall all along the entryway had been patched up, and everywhere, as far as the fire had penetrated, had a new coat of paint. Sadhana and I were amazed that so much had come to pass during our absence. It was Mama’s way to do most things herself.
    â€œThe wonders of insurance” was all she said about it. She touched her fingers to the new banister and looked at the fine dusting of white powder as she pulled them away. “Fixed up in broad strokes. Cleaned in a hurry.”
    At first, Sadhana and I were absorbed in discovering every little thing that had been altered. Mama let us do as we liked and unpacked all our bags by herself.
    My sister stepped