“Emily was ten. The fire started downstairs. She was trapped on the second floor.”
My throat tightened, but I continued.
“The firefighters weren’t there yet. I went back inside.”
Daniel looked at Emily.
She was staring at the flowers in her hands.
“I found her under part of a fallen curtain. She couldn’t get out by herself. I covered her and carried her as far as I could, then crawled the rest of the way.”
Mark rubbed one hand across his face.
“She got Emily out,” he said.
His voice cracked on the final word.
I looked at him.
He had been standing on the lawn that night.
For years, I remembered the expression on his face when someone pulled Emily from my arms.
I also remembered waking later and hearing him tell a doctor that both of his daughters had survived.
We survived.
We just did not survive in the same bodies.
Daniel swallowed.
“And Emily never told me this.”
“She didn’t have to,” I said. “I never asked her to.”
That mattered to me.
