Fire next door, and memories of what can happen

The Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

The Rudnicks' house began burning sometime around 1 a.m. last Tuesday. They live behind me but I didn't know them. Just a small patch of trees separates our yards. But they live on a side street and I live on a main street and our paths never crossed.

They have now.

I awoke to the flickering red of emergency lights recognized even in sleep. I thought it was an ambulance. Until I saw the sky. Fire didn't register immediately. Just danger, something encroaching where it shouldn't be.

I looked out my bedroom window and the trees were backlit with flickering orange, and beyond them were bright red and orange flames. Then I heard the crackling. Then I smelled the smoke. "Fire!" I yelled to no one, my husband out of town, unaware that flames were just 50 yards, half a football field, away from the house.

The fire felt close. Very close. It was above the treetops. It was singeing the leaves. It was devouring the sky. And I was scared.

I pulled on jeans, a fleece, sandals - should I grab the photo albums? What for? Which would I take? Where would I take them? - and hurried up the Merlins' driveway, my heart racing, the fire growing bigger by the minute. Diane Merlin and I stood together and watched in silence as the Rudnicks' garage burned, as their cars, their roof, their entire house, were engulfed by flames.

But they got out. They weren't hurt.

"Thank God," he said the next day. "We're OK," she said. "It's OK."

Firemen, dozens from Canton and neighboring towns, fought the fire. The Red Cross arrived and gave this man, who just minutes before had had a closet full of shoes, a pair of sneakers so that he wouldn't be barefoot as he stood watching his home burn.

A cataclysm. A single fire. No injuries. No deaths. A happy ending. But an ending nonetheless.

It's the incongruity of the fire that astounds. Not just the suddenness, but the unexpectedness. This wasn't an old wooden structure, but a new, custom-made, top-of-the-line, impeccably groomed brick house. It wasn't winter, when you anticipate fire, but a balmy fall night. The fire did not start in the house and set off the alarms, but in the garage where no alarm sounded.

My grandmother died in a fire. It was a balmy spring night. And it was a small fire with minimal damage. The house survived just fine. But my grandmother did not. I drive by the place where she lived and even today, so many years later, I think about how my cousin Linda was supposed to have spent that night with her. And how at the last minute she changed her mind. It's a good thing she wasn't there, we all said back then. Counting our blessings. Thanking God for Linda. Thanking God for what we didn't lose.

That's what we do when tragedy spares us something worse. We give thanks. We rebuild. We go on. Because this is all we can do.

From my street, you can't see all that was lost in the Rudnicks' fire. By the next morning, it was as if the fire never happened. The day dawned fresh and bright. The sun was shining, the air was cool, and the fire, though not quite vanquished, was under control. Everything seemed the same as it always was. But everything was different.

I had always wondered what I would grab if there were a fire. I learned that I would grab nothing. I learned that I would just run out the door. I watched as the firefighters worked to put out the fire. And I watched as they worked to clean up, salvaging, rescuing, bringing charred things from the house, a vase, a dish, a photo album, a hat, respectful of everything saved.

My little yard. My small garden. The rooms where my children grew up and where my grandchildren now sleep. Pictures. Books. Toys. The fire could have taken them, too. It didn't because there was no wind Monday night, because the ground was wet, and because the firefighters got the blaze under control. But it could have taken all these things. And it could have taken more.

I knew this after my grandmother died, but I forgot. Everything is clearer now. The fire made me remember.