I pulled him out onto the porch and then ran into the house. The small, cluttered foyer already smelled of smoke and when I made the familiar right turn into the living room, Hugh was backing away from the window with his hand over his eyes.

“We’re on fire,” I said. (Hugh was later to testify that I’d said this in a “casual” tone of voice. It seems incredible; but I don’t remember.)

The living room was hotter than any summer’s day. It didn’t so much seem that smoke was rushing in as that the air itself was turning into smoke. The fire, with its tactical instinct, had surrounded the frame of the largest window on the outside, maneuvering toward the easiest entry into the house. It raced around the pulpy, half-rotten wood, multiplying its intensity, dancing, dancing like warriors working themselves up before a battle, until the heat was powerful enough to explode the window and a long orange arm reached in and turned the curtains to flame.

It is here, at this point, when the window blew out and the curtains caught fire, that the sequence of events become irretrievable. We were, I would suppose, like any other group of people in a burning house, fighting back our terror with the worthless fantasy that really nothing so terribly serious was happening. Only Hugh, who had fought in a war and had spent time in a prison camp, only Hugh knew firsthand how sometimes ordinary life is completely overturned. The rest of us, even as we breathed in the heat and the smoke, even as our lungs burned and our eyes teared and we heard the crackle of the wood, held onto the possibility that disaster would suddenly stop in its tracks, turn around, and disappear.

I forced myself to be calm as I went to Jade’s side, and I put my arm around her in the manner of someone taking charge during an emergency—but really, all I wanted to do was touch her.

“How are you?” I said, putting my lips near her ear. Her hair smelled from the curling gel she had set it with; her neck looked naked and vulnerable.