In White Robes

Prologue

Everything I held dear to my heart was turning to hot smoke.

I couldn't see through the black mist. Too thick, too dark. With my work boots shuffling through ash and debris that once was my own floor, I clawed my way to where I could hear my son's voice again and the air caught in my throat.

It was faint. A dying cry.

"Dad . . ."

Hold on. Hold on, I wanted to scream, but I could only imagine how the smoke would taste if I were to open my mouth. The further I went, the less faith I had in the firemen and the police. Weren't they supposed to protect?

What happened and why weren't they fast enough?

"Dad," his voice came again. I lunged once more through the smoke, nearly tripping on a burnt mass of wood. The shards tried hopelessly to dig into my feet, denied by the steel of my boots, and there he was. My beloved son, his young features tainted and mangled by the flames that had captured him.

I waved the last cloud of smoke out of my face and leaned down to him, carefully preparing to lift him into my arms.

"Don't try to talk," I said, my voice wavering. "Save your energy. Dad's here. I'm here. Everything will be okay."

"It hurts." His words struck my heart like a family of little daggers. "I can't move them."

The smoke tried to wrap around my lips again; I waved it off a second time, taking a vague breath. "Can't move what?" He responded with nothing for a few moments but I knew he was alive. "Please, say something. Talk to Dad. Come on, buddy."

I tried to pull him up from the sea of burning wood. He wasn't moving.

"Dad . . . my legs."

Dear Lord, no, I thought, barring my teeth and feeling for a knee. But there were no legs. The smoke at my feet had been masking my son's legs, and when I saw them, a feeling of devastation came over me.

Laid roughly across his knees, a large wooden beam. I looked up. Telling from the hole in the ceiling, I understood it had fallen on him. His only hope of survival had been crushed in more ways than one.

The flames around us crackled, sending the room into a quick flash of hot-orange. The air smelled of melting memories. Home Sweet Home was "home" no more.

I looked into my son's dying yellow eyes and he looked back. The pain in his face brought tears to my eyes. There was nothing I could do except hold him here, remain here in the middle of the fire with him, wait for him to draw one last breath.

If he was going to die, I was going to be here to send him off into death. My boy was not dying alone.

He smiled a weak smile. I caressed his head gently, hugging myself closer to him. I needed to hold him. Tighter than ever now.

"You're a good kid," I said, pressing my tears into his forehead. "I love you. I'll stay right here with you until . . ."

The flames sparked again.

"Until the angels come," he finished my sentence, his voice still frail and shaky. "That's what we always used to sing. Did I get the line right this time?"

An even harder sob escaped my mouth, a sound of desperation and loss.

"That's right," I said, smiling and wailing at once. The flames reached closer to us, burning hot and bright. "Until the angels come."