On the front porch

The fire had ignited and spread through the Manhattan walk-up quickly – dry wood and the summer drought didn’t help. Dina had made a break for it, thinking Jenny would be disabled by that final slam, but no. As Dina catapulted down the stairs, three at a time, to make a quick exit – and head for the police – Jenny caught up with her and jumped on her back. The two went flying forward into the floor.

Dina groaned. She felt a dull weight in her stomach, still reeling from the shocked emptiness of having vomited – and wondered if she’d punctured her abdomen. But no warm, salty scent of blood came to her nose. Just the heat from the fire and smoke above. With everything left to her, she elbowed Jenny in the ribs. Jenny screamed, and Dina slammed her fist into Jenny’s porcelain face, stood up, and kicked her in the jaw. She turned around and went for the stairs.

This time she made it to the front entrance, grabbed for the lobby door. Was there no one else in this burning building? And then she remembered – Bill, upstairs, dead, his body probably being burned at that precise moment – and began to hyperventilate. But then she heard heavy, rapid steps from the stairwell and knew, she had only a moment. She ran to the front door, pulled, and the heavy steel door gave way, and she ran out, onto the front porch.

A fire truck was pulling up, and a police car stopped on the other side of the street, an officer getting out right away. She was a young African-American woman. Dina stopped on the porch, amazed at their speed. What had it been, ninety seconds, two minutes since the fire had begun to spread?

And then Dina heard the front door open, but before she could turn around, she saw the officer, that young woman, pull her gun, aim right toward her, and – but then she shifted a few degrees, and then fired a shot.