She looked up, and the house across the road was on fire.

“The mother had run into town, to the pharmacy,” Edith said, her eyes going distant, seeing it.

“There was a woman minding the child, and she’d fallen asleep in the back bedroom.

And I could hear Natalie.

Screaming.

At the front window.” She closed her eyes.

“Everybody on that road was shouting at me to wait.

Wait for the volunteer fire department.