Page 39 of Since the Day We Left

“The best is yet to come,” Arthur said, watching people milling around, admiring their new paintings. “They remember. All of them—why this place matters.”

Miles nodded, struck by how present Arthur seemed tonight.

A young woman approached with a canvas tucked under her arm. “Mr. Dalton? Your brushwork is incredible—how do you get the waves to move like that?”

Arthur lit up, launching into a story about painting the coast as a boy. Miles stepped aside as his dad spoke with the ease of someone who had never forgotten his craft.

Nearby, the couple from the hardware store waved him over. “Miles! Your dad says you know a thing or two about refinishing floors?”

Of course he did.

“Just enough to be dangerous.” Miles smiled and walked over. He chatted about sandpaper grits and polyurethane, nodding along to their renovation woes, but his eyes couldn’t help but drift through the crowd, looking for a familiar face.

Where is she?

He excused himself after a few minutes, grabbing a paper cup of water from a table. He gulped it down and scanned the clusters of people, looking for that unmistakable red hair—for the woman he adored.

“Fire!” The primal scream sliced through the night.

Miles turned toward it.

Smoke billowed from a window at the back.

Orange flames crawled up the walls, distorted through the warping glass.

Someone yelled about 9-1-1.

He smelled it now—the nauseating sting of burning paint and canvas.

Wood splintered. Something snapped.

Miles’s eyes watered as he surveyed the scene, mentally calculating.

Rate of spread: Rapid. Old wood and art supplies feeding the flames—perfect storm for engulfment.

Wind direction: East—pushing smoke and heat toward the back.

Points of failure: Cracking ceiling joists, weakening floors, and heat-stressed windows. Could explode into lethal glass shards.

“No—no, no, no!” Arthur’s voice cracked, yanking Miles back from his thoughts. Tears filled his dad’s eyes. “My special painting!”

“Dad, I’m sorry, but you have to get back, okay?” Miles tried to reassure him, his feet already carrying him toward the building.

He shoved through the crowd, fighting against the flow of bodies. Snatches of conversation reached him—someone said how old and dry the building was, how fast it would burn, another said the fire department was ten minutes out.

Ten minutes?

In ten minutes, there’d be nothing left.

Smoke thickened, curling through the air. Glass cracked. People shouted conflicting things—someone called for water, another yelled about an extinguisher, but Miles already knew the truth: None of that would be enough.

There she is.

Miles sprinted in Wendi’s direction.

“Let me go!” she screamed, straining against the men holding her back. “My boy’s in there!”

The men tightened their grip. “The fire department’s coming. You can’t go in there.”

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