For Baby's Sake. Janice Maynard

They rode the school bus home together. My job was to give them a snack, make sure they did their homework and sometimes start a portion of the dinner meal before the parents rolled in at five thirty.”

      “That sounds like a lot for a—what were you? A fifteen-year-old?”

      “Yes. But I had been doing it almost four months. The children respected my authority. The parents were thrilled with how smoothly their evenings went after I had been there. I was making good money and socking it away for college.”

      “Has anybody ever told you your storytelling skills are a downer?” His anticipation of what was coming was accompanied by a rueful grimace.

      “You asked for this.” It wasn’t as if she enjoyed rehashing some of the worst days of her life. “It was getting close to the holidays. The cat got under the Christmas tree and chewed on an electrical cord that was already frayed. The tree skirt caught on fire, but only smoldered at first. Then at some point, the drapes were involved, and after that, the room was engulfed in flames.”

      “What about smoke alarms?”

      “Dead batteries,” she said soberly. “It was a perfect storm of bad decisions by the parents...critical things they had overlooked. I was in the back of the house in the den watching TV with the children. When I smelled smoke and tried to get them out of the house, the rear hallway was on fire. Our only escape was through the front door. I had to put wet towels over the kids’ heads and hustle them past the flames and out into the yard.”

      “My God, Lila. That’s horrific. Were you hurt?”

      “They treated all four of us for mild smoke inhalation. By the time the fire engines arrived, most of the house was engulfed. It wasn’t a total loss, but the family had to live in a motel for three months.”

      She finished her tale and ran out of steam, sitting down abruptly. Even now, years later, retelling the story made her queasy.

      James stared at her, his eyes narrowed as if trying to see inside her head. “Is that it?”