The flames shot up. Past the overhang of cypress and the feathery boughs of the pines.

My mother dropped the wet wash she was hanging and frowned as she watched the orange and yellow lick the sky. Soon enough the smokey black clouds would be seen for miles.

It was coming from the direction of my daddy's moonshine still. He'd always had one going, least ways for as long as I was living. But since the President had made it a law that no one could drink alcohol, he was cooking shine constantly. Some said my daddy made the best in the county.

"Lee, go run down and see what's going on. You come right back, ya' hear?"

My mother looked real scared. It was like she already knew what I was going to find.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Jumping over rocks and fallen logs, my footfalls stirring up the musty underbrush. The still and the immediate area around it was on fire.

My daddy was crawling toward something, leaning over it and I could hear a frantic keening sound coming from him.

Breathless I started toward him. "Daddy?"

"Stay back, Lee," he said, waved me away and turned to look at me. "Go tell your mother to take everything off the bed on the sleeping porch."

"But, Daddy, what happened-," I asked again.

My daddy had never so much as raised his voice at me before, but this time he yelled at me. "Damn it, Lee, do as I say now."

I stamped at the small island of flames near my feet and took off towards the house.

Mother was standing at the edge of the clearing, wringing her hands and when I got close enough she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. "What's happened?"

"Daddy said get the bed on the porch ready."

"Is he hurt?"

"Don't think so."

She hurried up onto the porch and peppered me with questions while we cleared the fresh folded laundry off the bed. "Did you see your Uncle Gus or Tucker?"

"No ma'am."

Uncle Gus came running up the incline to the house. He was out of breath and clutching his chest. "Martha, tear up some sheets. We're gonna need some bandages."

"Gus, what's happened?"

He fanned himself, sweat pasting his graying hair to the sides of his head. "Water wasn't running high enough on the coils. I ran to the creek to check it. I wasn't there but my guess is the fumes ignited. Tucker was right there, tending the fire." Uncle Gus looked at me then at my mother. "He's in a bad way, Martha."

"He ain't dead is he?"

She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. Tucker was her baby brother. She was grown and married when he was born, but my grandmother died and she took him in. She raised Tucker up right along with me. He was only four years older than me.

"How bad, Gus?"

Uncle Gus shook his head. "It's bad."

A sob came choking out of her and she grabbed onto my shoulders again. She looked close to fainting.

We both looked up to see my daddy carrying Tucker across the yard. My mother stiffened and grabbed for a clean sheet. She ripped the sheet in half and handed it to me. "Good long strips, Lee," she whispered as Daddy brought Tucker up the stairs.

Tucker wasn't moving. His clothes had been burned off his arms and the majority of his upper body. His flesh was rippled and red and there were some spots that were open , weeping and oozing. Tucker's eyes were half lidded and milky looking.

"He ain't gonna die, is he, Uncle Gus?"

"Hush, quiet down, boy."

I fought the urge to rush over to him. I wanted him to sit up and wink like he always did when he was fooling around. I wanted to see something that would prove my Uncle Gus wrong.

My mother knelt beside him, dipping a rag into a basin of cool water. She put it to his lips and he suckled it like a baby. The skin on his mouth pulled free when she took the cloth away.

After an hour Tucker started to whimper. His body shook as if palsied and his whimpers grew to a level that made me think his soul was crying out with pain.

My daddy's hands were blistered and Uncle Gus put some salve on his hands and then wrapped them as gently as possible.

Daddy walked out and stood by the pump.

"You hurt bad?" I asked.

"I'll heal soon enough," he said. His shoulders sagged and he turned away, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. "This should never have happened. He was just a boy."

"Maybe he'll get better," I said. I believed in miracles. The preacher at church said that miracles happened every day.

My mother walked to the pump. She walked with purpose and held herself straight and rigid. She didn't look at my daddy. She rinsed the basin out and started pumping the water into it.

"Martha, say something," he pleaded. His voice was sad and lost sounding.

She didn't look up. It was like she didn't hear him.

"I would never have put Tucker in harm's way. You know that. I love that boy."

My mother turned without speaking and started back to the house.

"Mom, it wasn't Daddy's fault," I blurted.

She flung the basin at my feet. Wild eyes stared at me as she spoke. "Don't you dare take his side while that boy lays up there dying."

There was a madness swirling in her eyes. Hate, worry and fear were festering behind a crystal blue iris.


My mother sat with Tucker until after midnight. Uncle Gus sat with him then. Before I had gone up to bed I had sat with Tucker. Over half of his body was burned. Tiny helpless cries escaped him and every so often a tear would roll out of his eyes.

I tried my best to picture the old Tucker. The lopsided grin, and the tooth that was chipped from a fall years before, those were the things I wanted to see. But this thing that lay here. This body wracked with pain, this wasn't Tucker.

If it were an animal, my daddy or Uncle Gus would have put it out of its misery. But this was a boy. Now we waited for God to end it.

After laying in bed and unable to close my eyes on the horrible day, I went back downstairs to sit with Uncle Gus. I didn't want to be alone anyway.

Uncle Gus was slouched and snoring lightly in a chair. I could hear the thin raspy breaths of Tucker. As I crept closer I could see his eyes open and close with each painful breath. His eyes rolled towards me.

"Is it terrible pain?" I whispered.

A slow blink was his answer. Labored and shallow breathing seemed to echo through the air.

"Jesus is waiting for you," I said. I touched his brow gentle as a butterfly wing. "I don't want you hurt no more."

His eyes closed , then reopened. I reached down and lifted a pillow that had fallen from Gus's chair.

Gus was still sleeping and I moved the pillow over Tucker. It took only seconds before I felt his body go still. The pillow fell away from his face and I saw that his eyes were still open. I suppose he was looking towards heaven.



My Uncle Gus stood beside me as they lowered Tucker's coffin into the ground. The September sky was clear and a warm breeze blew around us.

My mother and daddy stood no more than a foot apart, yet had not said one word to each other since that day. I started to go stand with them when Uncle Gus put his arm around me and squeezed me.

"God forgives those who forgive themselves," he said softly. "You did the right thing, Lee."

I couldn't look at him, but I knew now he had seen me smother Tucker.

Carefully, I made my way to where my parents stood. My mother stared dry eyed at the open earth. Her blue eyes smoldered with fire.

My daddy, eyes closed, recited the Lord's Prayer.

A long time ago I had heard that time heals all wounds, but I wasn't so sure. I couldn't see my mother forgiving my daddy for the accident that hurt Tucker. She would always blame him for the pain and suffering Tucker had endured.

If she found out it was me that had ended that pain, do you think she'd ever forgive me?