Smokey Hallways and Forced Talks

      “So tell me Maverick, why the number 30?” Rosemary said, crossing one of her legs over the other and leaning forward in her chair. 

      Maverick didn’t want to be there. Sure, he was eight years old and just came out from a traumatic experience…that doesn’t mean he wanted to talk about it. It was Saturday morning, five days after the incident, that mom decided that it was time to pay a visit to Rosemary, his assigned psychologist. The tipping point of this decision was when she had enough of Maverick waking up screaming thanks to his vivid nightmares for three nights in a row.

      Now, he was sitting in a colorful office making a puzzle while ignoring all of Rosemary’s questions. If I say anything Rosemary is going to tell mom, I don’t want her to feel sad. This was how all of the visits to Rosemary went. She would pull out 5 puzzles, knowing that they were Maverick’s favorites, and she would let him play with them while trying to pry any sort of information through her soft-spoken questions. Nevertheless, he liked how she caught on to detail, like the number 30 he was writing in different styles while waiting to be called in her office.

      “You can tell me anything, Mav. I just want to help you out. Make the nightmares stop,” she said with a smile. Maverick had just finished putting all of the edge puzzle pieces together when he looked up to her. Rosemary was funny-looking. She had this thick black curly hair, bright orange glasses, and obnoxious light blue makeup that didn’t go with her pale skin. Maverick thought she looked like a Cartoon Network character.

      “It is my lucky number,” he replied while categorizing the puzzle pieces by colors that looked similar.

      “Oh, mine is the number 3! Why is 30 your lucky number?”

     “Well, when I was in the ambulance this really cool guy said that if we stayed inside the house for 30 more minutes we would’ve died. So, 30 seems like a good number,” he said. Maverick smiled at Rosemary, one of his front teeth missing, happy that she had asked something interesting to him.

      “Wow Maverick, it does sound like 30 could be a very lucky number! Not only for you but for mom. Do you know how this ‘cool guy’ looked? Was he inside the ambulance helping you?”

      “Uhm…he was outside of the ambulance talking to mom, I could hear them because the doors were open. But I couldn’t see him that well because I had a weird plastic thing on my mouth and nose.”

    “An oxygen mask, maybe?” she asked. Maverick nodded fast as an answer. “Why did you need an oxygen mask, Maverick?” she continued.

      “Well because I was coughing sooo much and sooo loud! I hate coughing, it hurts a lot. I wish I could never ever cough,” Maverick replied while building the top right corner of the puzzle.

      “I bet it was very uncomfortable.”

      “Yeah, I always try not to cough now.”

     “I see.” Rosemary stopped to take some notes on her bright yellow agenda, “so why don’t you tell me a little bit more about the fire, Mav?” 

      “From the beginning?” Maverick asked without looking up to see Rosemary, he was finishing the corner he was working on.

      “Yeah, from wherever you remember!”

      “Well, it was Sunday night and I was ready to go to bed! But then a thunderstorm started and mom is terrified of them so she asked me to sleep in her room so she wouldn’t be alone. I agreed and went with her!” Maverick said, never looking at Rosemary, focused on the puzzle.

      “Is it common for mom to ask you to go to her room?”

    “We only have sleepovers when there are thunderstorms, or if we are watching movies and I fall asleep.” Rosemary nodded to that and stayed silent writing on her agenda. Maverick took this as a sign to continue.

      “Anyway, so after that, I just fell asleep. I was having this pretty cool dream about a dragon and a prince with a purple sweater until a scream woke me up. At first, I was confused about what was going on but clearly, mom was yelling so so loud ‘My house is on fire, call the firefighters!’

      “I was sort of confused because, when I wake up in mom’s room I have direct view to the hallway, this time I didn’t! I can always see two things,” Maverick said holding two fingers up, “the shining moon and the green floor lamp mom got me when I was a kid! But they were gone! Now that I think about it, the cool guy that told mom we would die in 30 minutes, also told her that it was because of the cloud of smoke trapped in the apartment. I couldn’t see anything because the cloud was so dark and thick!”

      “Were you scared when you woke up?” Rosemary asked.

Maverick stayed in silence thinking, he rested one of the puzzle pieces against his rosy cheek, “I wouldn’t say scared. I was confused because I couldn’t see, and I was mad that mom didn’t wake me up before she started to yell like a crazy woman!”

      “You are very brave, Maverick! We will talk about mom as we go, please continue telling me what happened after that.”

      “Okay so, I come out of the room crawling. I didn’t want to hit my leg with the edge of mom’s bed. That hurts a lot! And if I crawled I could have like a better sense of my surroundings. When I stepped out of the room, I could see the moon a little better, and the green light was right beside me. I could also see mom yelling through the window, but then she was running at me. I think she didn’t see me, I think she was just running back from the window and then she took a left to go to the living room.

      “I stood up and walked towards the living room too. As I got closer it was getting hotter and hotter, like when you go to a bonfire and you feel the fire? Yeah, like that. And then I saw it, fuah! The fire was like dancing all over the living room, it was so much it reached the ceiling! Our living room was pretty big, Rosemary. But the fire was in all of it. My favorite couch in the living room could fit 6 people, it was bright yellow with blue small squares, and that same couch was slowly being eaten by the fire. I remember worrying that my school backpack would catch on fire because I always left it there!”

      “And what was mom doing in the living room if it was full of fire?” Rosemary asked. Maverick was halfway done with the puzzle. A picture of a bridge in the countryside was coming together. He let out a big sigh after looking at the puzzle for too long. He uncrossed his legs and laid on his back on top of the colorful rug. Maverick turned his head sideways to finally look at Rosemary and stayed silent.

      “If you are tired of continuing we can leave it at—”

      Maverick cut her off, “if I tell you everything today we don’t have to talk about it again right?”

      “Yeah, Mav. We don’t have to go back to it if we don’t need to,” she said smiling.

      “Okay, well mom was trying to open the door but the lock was stuck. The door was right by my favorite couch, the one I told you was getting eaten. Mom was so close to the fire, she was crying because her arm and hand were starting to hurt from the heat! She was running back and forth, from the window to the door, so she could take a gulp of fresh air to keep on trying to open the door. In one of those times she was running towards the window, she finally saw me. She crunched down to my level and said to stay away from the fire by the window so I could breathe better. But…” Maverick took a pause, he was hesitant to speak his mind, but he said it anyway, “I pushed her.”

      “You pushed mom? What made you do that?” This was the first time Rosemary had put on a somber look on her face in their entire conversation, she was not smiling.

      “Well…yeah! I was so angry that she didn’t think of waking me up first! I felt as she had forgotten about me. Then she couldn’t open the door, and she knows she always has trouble opening the door. But I know the trick to it, and she knows I know the trick to it! So why would she tell me to go away when I could've helped her? I was pissed.” By this point Maverick was sitting up again, forgetting how relaxed he had felt when he saw his work coming together with the puzzle and feeling like he deserved a break from it. This time he was feeling riled up, his cheeks and neck were turning red just from the thought of mom, and his dark blue eyes started to water with frustrated tears.

      “But mom was not mad. I pushed her and said to let me try to open the door, and you know what she did? She smiled. She took me to the bathroom, put a towel inside the shower to make it damp, and wrapped me with it. I took her hand and we went to the front door together. Mom let me try opening the door, and the heat didn’t hurt me as it hurt her because I had the wet towel with me. And then I opened the door, on the first try,” he said. Maverick calmed down the more he talked. His words were less rushed, his tears dried up, and his fist stopped clenching by his sides. Let me continue the puzzle, I want to finish it before I leave.

      “She rushed me out of the apartment and we saw our front door neighbors waiting for us with water bottles and more wet towels. Coqui and Beto, are an old couple that always gives me cookies when they bake them together. Coqui opened her arms to me and I went to hug her. I turned to look at mom and I had never seen her like that before.”

     “What happened with mom? What was she doing?” Rosemary didn’t have her yellow agenda resting on her thighs anymore. It was set aside on a small table by her chair, long forgotten. She was too intrigued by what the small boy was saying. 

       “Well her styled hair was a mess. Her face was covered with black dust except for some lines on her cheeks because she was crying. And out of nowhere she punched the glass box where the fire extinguisher was. Her fist was bloody and had some shards of glass in them. I was cringing so hard inside, you have to hit the glass with the elbow like the TV shows teach you, but mom was just not thinking that night!

      “The fire was too strong to put it away with the extinguisher so, when the foam was over we rushed to the street level. And that was it. Mom was talking to the cool man, and Coqui and Beto took me to the ambulance ‘cus I was having a coughing fit and that was it.” Maverick had finished most of the puzzle by that point, there were 5 puzzle-piece-size holes left on the picture.

      “You were not scared at any point then? Not even after you went to stay at your aunt’s place?” Rosemary pushed one of the puzzle pieces towards Maverick, it was too far away for him to reach.

      “I told you I was not scared. I was too busy being mad at mom to worry about a stupid fire. And I love Aunty’s place, she makes the best empanadas!” Maverick said with a smile, he was excited to eat some fish empanadas his aunt had promised for when he was out of therapy that morning.

      “Okay okay,” Rosemary said with a light laugh. “I have a question though, are you still mad at mom?”

Maverick stayed silent at that. He placed the last puzzle piece carefully, he tapped it three times after positioning it in the open space, so it could fit smoothly without bending the other pieces. Maverick stood up straight to look at his finished work. He loved this puzzle so much, he was considering asking Rosemary if he could take it home with him.

      “I am embarrassed that I was mad at mom,” he whispered. “She was trying to get us out of there for so long, she even cut her hand trying to put the fire away too. Do you know that I saw the apartment the next morning? My favorite couch was no longer there, and neither was my backpack with my books and assignments. Mom was trying not to cry when she saw her big stereo. It was on one of the shelves in the living room and it had melted, it reminded me of that picture of the melted clocks you have outside in the waiting room.”

      Rosemary had frowned at that, she could see the remorse in Maverick’s big eyes. He was scratching the back of his hair making his wild dirty blond hair get wilder. She was going to tell Maverick that feeling embarrassed was a step in the right direction, but Maverick was so talkative today that she waited until he was finally done. 

      “I  know you have to talk to mom after this but…could you please not tell her I was mad at her? I don’t want her to get sad or angry at me. It is okay if you tell her everything else, but please please please don’t tell her I said that.” Maverick said softly as if he was afraid someone could hear him. Rosemary smiled with fondness in her eyes and winked at him.

      “Your secret is safe with me, Mav,” she said. That was the last time he saw Rosemary, the last time he talked about the fire, and the start of feeling the need to keep secrets from mom so she wouldn’t feel sad.