As the plane touched down at Missoula International Airport, Joan stared out her window toward the mountain range ablaze with vibrant reds and oranges. She was surprised that the glowing Montana hues conjured memories of the College Fire, which always lurked in the shadows.
The night of the fire, Joan and Ann had been out drinking. Each had broken up with their boyfriends and were anxious to move on with their lives. But a couple of beers had quickly sapped their strength, so they had decided to make it an early night. They had staggered home, and both had fallen into a deep sleep. The next thing Joan remembered was the explosion and Ann’s panicked shouts. “Joan, get up! Get up! The house is on fire!”
Ann’s voice sounded so far off, and even as she prayed for five more minutes of sleep, the scent of smoke slithered up her nose and rubbed against her nasal passages like sandpaper. She sneezed, pulled in more of the smoke that was quickly filling the air. Her lungs burning, she coughed and sat up as the sound of fire engines wailed in the distance.
“Joan!” Ann’s voice grew more desperate and distant.
Her head spun as she looked around the small room filled with dark-gray smoke and coiling fumes. Beyond the door, popping sounds mixed with the roar of a spiraling wind.
Involuntarily, she sucked in a second breath, followed quickly by a new coughing fit. She raised her hands to her mouth as she swung her feet over the side of the bed. For an instant, she was back in the apartment with her father, and the fire was consuming the living room around his recliner as he slept.
The inferno’s pop and roar hissed louder as the gray smoke grew darker. She dropped to the floor on her hands and knees, taking refuge in a lingering pocket of breathable air. The smoke thickened and forced her to her belly against the blue shag carpet. Her eyes watered, and she sensed she had minutes to escape. She crawled faster.
Her fingers brushed the edge of a door, and she stood and twisted the knob. She expected to see her living room but instead found herself in her closet. Sweat beaded on her brow and between her shoulder blades. Inside the closet, she sucked in the last of the fresh air and then moved to the door to her right.
Rising again, she reached for the door handle and immediately recoiled as the metal, now molten hot, burned her palm. The pain rocketed through her body and sent a surge of adrenaline, clearing all traces of brain fog. She glanced back toward her bed, thinking she could wrap her body and hands in a coverlet, but the smoke now enveloped her and the bed.
Grabbing the edge of her shirt, she twisted the handle with her left hand. The heat immediately burned through the worn cotton fabric, blistering her skin. She accepted the pain and kept turning the knob. It gave way, and the door swung inward.
Joan gasped at the first sign of the inferno eating through the room and their lives. She looked toward the front door and saw Gideon carrying his sister, Ann, outside. She tried to follow, but the heat held her back.
“Don’t leave me!” Joan gasped.
Neither looked back as they rushed out the front door. She dropped to her hands and knees, desperately searching for another pocket of air. The carpet radiated more heat as wallboards crackled and groaned beneath the fire thundering over her head. When she lifted her gaze, the door had vanished in a cloud of black smoke. Desperate, she crawled back to the closet in her room, choking until finally her head spun, and she passed out.
The plane came to a stop, and the steward announced the local time. Joan waited as the passengers grabbed their bags from the overhead bins, and when it was her turn, she yanked her backpack free.
Checking her watch, Joan knew that if Ann was as punctual as she had been in college, she would be at baggage claim now. As she made her way through the terminal, she wondered what it would be like to see Ann again. It had been more than ten years since the fire, and though she and Ann had exchanged cards each holiday and had spoken on the phone a few times in the early years, they had not had any real contact in some time. They had been the best of