Haunting Margalo

It Was An Accident

Margalo sat on the hotel bed, staring at her parents. She wanted to cry, but she was so shocked that the tears refused to come.

"You can't do that! I--I'm your daughter!"

Her mother looked sternly back at her. "We can, and we will. You should be glad we're sending you to Aunt Catherine's and not a home for troubled children."

"But I'm not a troubled child," she choked. "It was an accident."

Her father sat down next to her, patting her shoulder in a half-hearted attempt at comforting the distraught girl. "Sweetie, this is what's best for you right now, okay?"

"No, it's not!" The tears were coming now, sobbing louder than she had since the seventh grade.

Margalo's mother shook her head. Margalo had never seen her like this before--she was usually so understanding, but today, she seemed to have no compassion for her daughter. "Margalo, this has been going on for too long. I thought you would get over this little fire phase after you were done grieving for Violet, but it's been three years now, and you almost burned the entire house down. What on earth were you thinking?"

There was so much that Margalo wanted to say in response--that it wasn't a "little fire phase", that she was really a pyromaniac. She wanted to tell her mother how flirting with fire was her way of trying to seize power over the very thing that had spiraled out of control that fateful day three years ago. She wanted to explain how the only thing that had ever relieved her guilt about Violet was feeling that she was mastering the flames, but Margalo knew her mother would never understand.

"I don't know," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to. I was just playing with a lighter, and--and it got out of hand. I didn't mean to, and I won't do it again."

"No, you certainly won't," said her mother. "Because I would think that in someone else's house, you might have a little more caution."

"But--"

"It's settled, Margalo," her father cut in, going from reassuring ally to assistant prosecutor in only minutes. "We've bought the tickets and you'll go to Aunt Cathy's the day after tomorrow. Don't you realize how serious this is? We're staying in a hotel, two minutes away from our house, because our house is unlivable."

Margalo stared at her hands, clasped on her lap. "They said it could be repaired."

"Those repairs will cost us tens of thousands of dollars," said her mother. "All for what? So you could play with some matches?"

"It was a lighter."

"I don't care what it was," her mom replied coldly. "It shouldn't have happened."

Margalo buried her face in her palms. She knew it was stupid of her to play with fire inside, but the compulsion to push herself further was too strong to resist. "I can't believe this is happening," she mumbled into her hands.

She had only lived in Stanville for two years, but it had become home to her. Moving in before the first day of ninth grade had been an advantage--no one else really knew anyone, either, so she was on pretty level playing ground. Aunt Catherine lived in Margalo's hometown, Bellton, so it wasn't as if she was going to a completely unknown place--but that was the problem. Margalo would have been happy never to go to Bellton again, the place where Violet had died. The memories were too painful. Besides, it was a small town, where everyone knew everyone. What if people remembered Margalo as the girl who called Violet a whore minutes before the fire took her life?

"You can keep in touch with your friends and us," her dad said. "We're not abandoning you."

"Yes, you are!" Margalo protested. "That's exactly what you're doing!"

 "No, it's not. We're doing what's best for you."

Margalo stood up abruptly. "Fine, then. I'm leaving." She began to gather her clothes from around the hotel room and stuff them into her suitcase.

"Honey, your flight isn't for another two days."

Margalo zipped her suitcase and picked it up, heading towards the door. "I know, but there's no way in hell I'm spending the rest of my time here with two people who want me gone. I'll see you when you decide you can let your own daughter live with you."

"Come on, don't do this, Margalo," her mother pleaded.

"I'm going to Lauren's house for the next two days. I'll take a cab to the airport." She opened the door. "And don't you dare try to come get me unless you're willing to bring me home." Margalo slammed the door behind her and ran down the hall and into the elevator. As she pressed the button to go down to the ground floor, she slumped against the wall, sliding to the ground. How could this have happened? She’d been messing around with fire for three years now, and she’d always avoided trouble, carefully brushing against her boundaries without destroying them. And then one day, she came home upset, and she brought all her newspapers into the room, locking the door behind her. Just a few lighter swipes later, everything went wrong, and she was standing outside with burns all up her arms and her parents horrified at what they saw when they arrived home. And it was all Margalo’s fault.

The elevator dinged softly and Margalo stepped out, suddenly feeling self-conscious about walking around all alone with a Hello Kitty suitcase from when she was a little kid. As she opened the glass doors of the hotel and took a breath of the fresh air outside, something awful hit her. That had been the last time she would see her parents in a long, long, time.

Then again, Margalo was used to screwing up her goodbyes.