The Burning

Maria made potato fritters. The recipe called for a pound of potatoes, two eggs, half a cup of flour. It was a recipe for latkes originally. Maria wasn’t Jewish, but she had gone to take out the trash just a half an hour before, and something in the blueness of the night, the needling of December into her face had sprouted this idea in her. In the winter months, potatoes lived in a mesh sack in the corner of the garage. She had reached a hand inside and touched some potatoes near the top that had rotted soft. Disgust spread through her chest. Even in the garage, her breath clouded white in the air.

She didn’t want to measure out a pound, just prodded around until she felt she had enough firm potatoes. They would only be for her and Lai, anyway. Lai was usually meandering through the internet at this hour, though whether he was catching up on the day’s news or giggling at memes she wasn’t sure. He didn’t come out of the office as she set a pot of water to boil. She cut each potato in half first, inspecting for black blooms within the flesh. She didn’t trust the recipe, that potatoes would cook sufficiently in hot frying oil if not boiled first. The texture came out mealy, like mashed potatoes, instead of the fine shreds of real latkes. She called them fritters.

They didn’t taste bad. She salted them straight out of the oil and took a plate to Lai. He sat in a dark office and didn’t look away from the screen when Maria turned on the light.

“What’s this?”

“Try it.”

He started to pick one up. “It’s hot,” Maria said. He blew on it, mouth ovaling around the stream of air. After a bite, he licked salt off his lips.

“How is it?”

“Good. Too salty.” He looked at the plate in her hands. The square of paper towel beneath the mound of fritters leaked, yellow and greasy. Only its edges retained some white.

“Are those for me?”

“Not all of them.” Maria smiled. “Should I go put some on a plate for you?”

“Why’d you bring all of them here if I can’t eat all of them?”

Maria shook her head. She bent her face to the screen. “What’s this?” she said. “‘The New York Times?’”

“Just some culture stuff.”

She put down the plate and started to reach for the mouse. “We don’t have a subscription.”

He tossed the last bite of fritter into his mouth. “I’m using my parents’.”

She shifted her hips to position herself to better to scroll through the article he’d been reading as he stretched across her for another fritter, his arm connecting with her torso on one side, the table on the other. The plate clattered to the floor. The fritters landed with the heaviness of uncooked meat.

They bent down at the same time, saw the smoke expanding into the room at the same time. The fire alarm went off. Maria thought of babies. The alarm continued. Lai ran to the kitchen. Maria followed, crouching, elbow jammed across her mouth. The smoke around the stove was thick gray, but she could see the color of the fire that sprayed out of the frying pan. The flame she had left on, normally blue beneath the pan, had been consumed by orange.

“Wet some towels!” Lai’s words came through in a spiral as he ran to get the fire extinguisher.

Maria could only find the white tea towels some friends had given them for their marriage. She ran them under the faucet. The smoke thickened.

“The towels!” Lai yelled.

Later, when she and Lai were hunched against the door of the ambulance sent alongside the firetrucks, she wondered about the din of fire. They’d yelled. Lai and she both, when she’d dialed 9-1-1. The operator had told them to get out of the house.

“We need to get out of the house,” she’d yelled to him.

She remembered how the smoke alarm had shaken up through her bare feet. But she didn’t remember the fire as loud. Loud, maybe, compared to the silence in the ambulance, she and Lai on one side, a teenaged volunteer pretending to study a chart on a clipboard on the other. Loud, maybe, compared to the way silence seemed a solid thing as they waited for the firemen to deem the house safe to reenter.

“We’re fine,” Lai kept telling everyone.

She thought maybe the smoke had been loud. She could smell it on herself. Lai had asked for a tissue. The mucus had been black.

“Look.” He had shown her.

She wished for that loudness now, back in the house. Ash dimmed every surface to grayscale. Windows had been opened for the smoke to leave. Black footprints from the firemen tracked all around the house, each one smudged in a distinct way.

She felt she should say something to Lai. Some kind of sorry, a gift of guilt.

He’d stood in the kitchen with her, looking at the scorched stove. Then he’d gone upstairs, leaving the windows wide, where she knew she’d find the shape of his indifferent body in their bed.