Spencer was an arsonist. It started first with the pleasure of a match against its striker. She liked to dip the match so the flame drew closer to her hand, revealing in the heat before she got hurt. She liked the smell of fire, the burn of her nostrils and the headache that came later. It started from matches to receipts, single socks, and the heads of flowers. Then, her father wrote her mother a letter.
It arrived on a Thursday afternoon to a house that smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. Her mother hadn’t baked since her father left. As Spencer stepped into the house, cradling the letter between her hands, she caught her mother gliding through the kitchen. After five months of sobriety, Dahlia Howell swapped her husband’s flannels for a pastel summer dress, delicate jewelry, and a soft perfume that smelled of roses.
Spencer knew she had to get rid of the letter.
Safe in her bedroom, she twirled it between her fingers, staring at the yellowing envelope with its red stamp that fumbled from rolling bins, sailed across seas from Scotland, and landed in a battered mailbox in Grafton. Spencer couldn’t help herself. She thumbed the red wax seal, cracking it in half, and out came a postcard with a dull watercolor of thistles. She raised the card to her nose, trying to get wafts of her father’s musky cologne that he dabbed onto his wrists. The only thing she could smell was the sweetness of the purple flower, one pressed and left inside the envelope.
Everything here is wet, waiting to bloom. I miss you — J.
She hadn’t heard from him in six months. No call, text, or email. Now this. A letter that meant nothing to her, but would mean everything to her mother. It would break her, shatter her into a million pieces. It would be Spencer picking up the bottles, not him. She rifled through her closet for an empty box and slipped the letter inside under her bed.
Following the scent of oatmeal cookies and music back to the kitchen, she noticed smoke in the air. As she crossed the foyer, she saw the liquor turned oil cabinet door wide open and empty, She Will Be Loved playing softly in the background.
“Mom, the cookies—” The fire alarm on the ceiling shrilled. Spencer rushed over, heaving the oven door open. The tray of oatmeal cookies had turned to coal. It clattered against the coil stove top. “I’m sorry,” Dahlia said softly, breaking out of her trance.
“It’s okay.” Spencer waved at the air, opening the window above the sink.
“I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry.” Dahlia’s eyes glistened.
“It’s okay, mom.” Spencer unlocked the backyard door. The smoke poured out slowly. The alarm distracted them from the melody of broken girls and never-ending love.
***
Spencer sat in the middle of a grey room on grey plush seats in front of a grey coffee table waiting for her name to be called out by Renee Fisher, Marriage and Family Therapist. As she waited, Spencer eyed the magazines scattered amongst the glass tabletop. There were dozens of out-dated magazines with broken spines and crumbled pages. Spencer spared a quick glance over at the receptionist who sat low behind a high desk.
“If you’re gonna do it, just do it.”
Tucked away in the far corner beneath slender faux leaves, Graham Marshall, watched her with indifference. Spencer furrowed her brows, wondering how she could have missed him. Not that she
would have said hello or passed him a knowing glance. They went to the same school, lived in the same town, their dads worked the same construction jobs, but it didn’t make them friends. “Do what?” She turned her attention to the empty hallway.
Graham scoffed. His leather jacket crinkled as he surged forward. In one swift motion he snatched a magazine and slipped it inside of his jacket. Spencer blinked at him. Graham had dimples when he smiled.
He gestured towards the table. “Do it.”
Spencer crossed her arms. Maybe she could fold into herself and disappear.
“If you get caught you can always blame it on your parents,” Graham took another magazine off the tabletop. It was an US Weekly cover with Jennifer Love Hewitt’s failed engagement. Spencer wondered how a girl with love in her name could be so poor at it. “That’s why you’re here isn’t it?”
Graham flipped through the pages, a smirk working on his lips. Spencer gritted her teeth. No one knew yet why Spencer’s father had left. At first, she told people that her grandmother was sick and her father went to Scotland to be closer to her. But as the weeks turned into months, Spencer could only drag out her grandmother’s fictional death for so long. It would’ve been fine had her mother not broken her decades long sobriety and showed up to Spencer’s award ceremony drunk. Everyone was looking at them differently now, like they knew what her father had done. Maybe Graham knew it too. Maybe it was a guy thing, maybe slime knows slime. He continued through the magazine, every turn of the page egging her on.
Spencer leaned forward. Should she take a magazine and shove it into her bag? Roll it up and hit him with it? Hit him until that stupid smirk was wiped off his face and replaced with fear.
“Spencer Howell?” A slender woman stood at the opening of the hallway with a manilla folder between polished nails. Spencer’s hand was resting on one of the magazines.
Graham let out a laugh through his nose, finally settling on a page. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Spencer bit her tongue, forcing herself to move her hand from the magazine and grab her bag. She turned her back on him and followed Renee into the hallway towards her office. “Spen?” Graham called. She could see his eyes over the magazine, gleaming beneath the fluorescent light. “Have a good session.”
She forced herself to smile, deciding then that she would’ve hit him with it.
***
On her way home, another letter found her. She admired the lettering, afterall, her father was the one who taught her how to write. Her own handwriting nearly resembled his. The letter was addressed to Dahlia who wasn’t home yet.
It wasn’t the award ceremony that made Dahlia snap out of her sorrow. It was Spencer coming home to find her sprawled out on the couch, an empty bottle resting on its side against the carpeted floor. Dahlia had sworn the ceremony was a one time thing, a moment of weakness, temptation, whatever. But there it was, all of her promises, down the drain in one simple Peach Moscato bottle. Spencer tried to be optimistic. It was only one bottle instead of three. It was only Moscato instead of Gin. The bottle was empty so it couldn’t stain. She cleaned her mother up and nursed her back to sobriety. She’d been clean for five months, but Spencer still had her doubts.
She could feel the matchbox in her pocket. This letter was heavier than the postcard her father had sent. It had the same thickness of the magazines in the office. It would burn slowly enough for her to admire the flames. She could take twigs, toilet paper, and the cardboard pizza box from a couple of nights ago and create an altar of wasted things. His letter at the very heart of it. But even so, Spencer stood, BJ memberships and PayPal pre-approvals and her father’s letter in hand, wondering. Spencer locked herself in her room when he left. She didn’t say goodbye, safe travels, see you in hell. None of it. He didn’t either. She felt his presence behind the door. Imagined his calloused hands hovering over the locked doorknob.
Spencer pushed her father out of her thoughts, and quickly traveled through the house, dropping her bag on the recliner that he used to lounge in after work, moving into the kitchen where they used to share cake batter from a bowl, until she was outside.
Spencer ripped the match, feeling all the tension in her body float out into the open air as the fire let out its sudden crackle. It licked at the corners of the envelope. Twisting, turning, and devouring. She shut her eyes, picturing the woman’s legs wrapped tight around her father, the constellations on his back. The room had smelled like sweat and skin and stale breath. She lit another match and another and another until all four corners of the letter were burning collectively before carving a path that brought them all back together.
***
At night, Spencer thought about writing her own letter. It would say something like, I hate you, how could you, mom’s drinking again, aren’t we enough?, we’re better off without you, come home. She hated that last part because the truth was, she missed him. The house was different without him. Dahlia used to get up every morning before either of them to whip up pancakes and coffee. Her father used to cut up bananas and leave funny faces on her pancakes no matter how old she got. Now, her mother couldn’t get out of bed before noon.
At a small shaded corner of the school’s cafeteria, Spencer poked at a can of chicken salad unenthusiastically. She could feel the vibration of her phone in the back pocket of her jeans, carrying pleads from her two best friends, Ethan and Ainsley, to meet them on the third floor. It was easier to let the buzzing fade away, to let them wonder where she was, instead of admitting to the truth. Since the letters from her father started coming in, it was becoming harder to pretend that everything was okay. No one knew, not even them. If she told them what her father had done, it would make it real and Spencer wasn’t ready for that. Finding herself sinking into her own black cloud, a shadow trickled over her, spewing magazines instead of rainwater.
There were dozens of magazines atop Spencer’s lunch tray, but it was Hewitt’s face that was staring back at her. Graham stood over her shaking out the contents of his bookbag. Though the bag was obviously empty he made a show of shaking it once more before taking the empty seat across from her.
Graham drummed his fingers against the table. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Spencer repeated, staring at him with narrowed eyes for a long moment. Long enough for her to realize how quiet the cafeteria had gotten. Spencer didn’t need to look to know that all eyes were on them. They were from two completely different worlds. Graham was memorable if not for his looks, then his reputation. Spencer, at best, was a pleasure to have in class. “What are you doing?” Spencer finally asked.
“I’m getting you what you want.”
“Right,” Spencer hummed, flipping through the magazines. “And what’s in it for you?” “For me? Why, nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“No bullshit.”
“What do you want, Graham?”
“What do I want?” He mulled this over for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that you just stole dozens of magazines for an I don’t know?”
“Ah,” Graham waved a hand dismissively. “I did it just to do it, like I told you to do.” Spencer’s gaze could burn through him. “I did it for fun, Jesus, don’t you do things just for fun?” She used to build things with her dad. That was fun. They started small with a toy chest, each wall a complimentary color. Then they worked bigger and bigger until last summer when they built a tiny home in the backyard for when her grandparents came to visit. She thought that was fun until Ainsley came up with the idea of doing a party there. After school Spencer went to drop off the supplies and that’s when she found him.
Her father was with some woman that she’d seen maybe once or twice. Spencer couldn’t remember. Only the woman’s legs around his waist and she remembered thanking God that there was a sheet covering them so all Spencer really saw was her father’s freckled back.
“Why do you even care?” Spencer started picking away at the magazines, forcing herself back to the present.
“What are you doing tonight?”
Spencer rolled her eyes. “Not you.”
Graham laughed. “Why not?” He leaned in close, his lip brushing against her ear. She felt the hair on her neck rise imagining how this looked to everyone else. “It would be fun.”
***
The letters were collecting faster than Spencer liked. She snatched a new letter out of the mail, heavier than the last when tires rolled onto the gravel road, shooting rocks beneath the pressure. Spencer turned her attention to the familiar, yet unfamiliar sighting of a black Ford Escape pulling to a stop in front of her. She had the letter clutched in a tight grip, her mouth pressed firmly as if she had tasted something nasty and hadn’t yet spit it out.
Graham slipped his sunglasses to the top of his head, taking one look at her, one look at the letter. “Am I allowed to ask?”
“No.”
“Great,” Graham put the car in park. “Get in.”
“Do you normally prey upon girls like this?”
“Oh, come on,” Graham exhaled. “We’ve known each other since we were five.” “So?” Spencer said, dragging the letters out.
“Alright, fine!” Graham ran his hands along the steering wheel and focused his gaze straight ahead. If she listened closely enough she could hear the distant roar of cars sailing across the highway, the cry of a bird deep inside a tree unseen. “I just — I know what it’s like sitting in that room, and it just fucking blows, you know? If I have to hear and how does that make you feel one more time I’m gonna lose my mind.”
Spencer shifted her weight onto her other leg. She had only been in once since the initial meeting. Instead of having Spencer relive the moment she found her father, Renee Fisher implored her to think about her life before it. They used to go to the drive-in movie theatre once a month. Her mother always smelled like cinnamon from the cookies she’d bake. Snacks from the concession stand were all fine and swell, but nothing could beat Dahlia’s sweets. That’s what her father used to say. Spencer always had to pee halfway through the movie and whenever she got back, she’d find her mother resting in her father’s arms. How does that make you feel, Renee had asked. It made Spencer feel angry, like love was all a lie.
“What’s your deal anyways?” Spencer found herself asking.
Graham frowned, puzzled for a moment. Spencer didn’t know why they’d never hung out before. He was a familiar presence, someone that was always around. The kind of guy you invited to summer barbeques and pool parties for good measure. Someone she knew, but didn’t know. Maybe he realized it too.
“Guess I got daddy issues too.” Graham finally said.
Spencer raised a brow, but he didn’t say anything, so she didn’t either. She let the silence fill with the rumble of the engine. She imagined the engine’s belt running around and around. She wondered how badly it would hurt if she placed her hand on it.
“So,” Spencer started, needing to move, talk, do something. “How does that make you feel?” Graham laughed, it was a sudden burst that neither of them expected. She laughed too. She’d been so angry lately that it was hard to remember what it was like to be happy.
When Graham’s laughter faded away, lightness remained in his eyes. “So, you gonna invite me in or what?”
“I am not sleeping with you.”
“Fine by me,” The engine cut off. He popped the door open and stepped out. He was a lot taller than she realized, but it didn’t make her feel any smaller. “I don’t feel like sleeping.” ***
Outside on the porch in the late night, they swayed on a two-seater swing. Spencer found herself relaxed in his presence, her feet draped over his legs. Graham focused his attention on the tiny house, constructed with cedar siding and a black metal roof. Spencer looked at it now, the moon left it’s reflection against the rooftop.
“What’s that?” Graham asked.
“Just something my dad and I built.” She turned her head, looking up at the porch’s ceiling. She counted three beams with spiderwebs.
“You two are really close, hm?” Graham drew a circle against her skin.
“We were.” Spencer laced her fingers together over her stomach. It took them three months to build the tiny home. She learned how to install working lights, heat, a ceiling fan, and proper insulation.
“Connection bad in Scotland?” Graham teased.
“Something like that.” She became aware of the letter that was still shoved in the back pocket of her jeans. She hadn’t opened one since the first postcard, hadn’t bothered really looking at them either, growing familiar with its battered look. She just grabbed them from one box and moved them to another.
Graham’s eyes traced the outline of the house. “I’d kill to do something like that with my dad.” “Why can’t you?” Spencer adjusted so her body was half-raised in her seat. His eyes dropped, the simple patterns on her skin resumed.
“We just don’t always see eye to eye I guess.” He said quietly.
“I get that.” Spencer said, humming softly.
“I find that hard to believe,” Graham started. “Your dad’s…” A cheater. A liar. “Good.” “Good?” Spencer sat up, pulling her feet towards her chest. Graham’s hands levitated for a moment, unsure of what to do with them now. “What kind of a good man leaves his family and doesn’t call or text or email for six months and then all of a sudden decides to send stupid letters that mean jack shit!”
Graham frowned. “You said your grandmother—”
“I lied, okay! I lied.” Spencer deflated, letting out a frustrated breath.
The tiny home stood out like a sore thumb in the night. She hated it. She wondered if that was the first time, the first woman. She hated him. Hated that her own hands resembled his, that her hand writing resembled his, that she laughed like him, played with fire like him.
“Spen…” Graham shifted his body towards her and placed a hand on her knee. Their eyes met. She took him in, every wrinkle that extended out of the corners of his eyes, to the darkness beneath them, to a slit that had never healed properly on his top lip.
Spencer reached forward, cupping both sides of his face and pressed her lips against his. Graham let out a gasp against their crushing lips. She felt warmth rushing all through her body, bubbling at the tips of her fingers, tumbling deep in her belly, then—
Graham stood. “What are you doing?”
He looked at her the same way her father did when she caught him. Wide eyed and scrunched, like she was the one who was doing something wrong. Who did he think he was fooling? Graham was the one who showed up, sought her out, and now he didn’t want her?
“Isn’t this what you want?” Spencer spat.
“Yes. I mean, no! Not like this. I mean, like you said earlier, we barely know each other right?” “And that’s stopped you before?”
Graham flinched. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Oh, come on! You’ve slept with half the school. You expect me to believe that you’ve taken the time to get to know every single one of them?”
“Half the school? Since when does being with three girls equate to half the fucking school?” Graham scoffed, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “Jesus, Spen. I know people talk, but I didn’t think you’d be one of them. Do you even know how much people are talking about you and your family? They’re saying your dad’s got a whole new family in Scotland and left you guys and I don’t believe that, I chose to believe you.”
“Well maybe you’re wrong for that.” Spencer stood up, her eyes prickling. “Maybe there’s a reason rumors spread so quickly because everyone else can see it— they can see the truth better than we can. And maybe they’ve always known that my dad is a cheater and a liar and I fucking hate him for leaving us, for leaving me,” Tears were falling down her face and her chest felt tight, so tight, that she could just rip her skin open right then and there and scream. “Am I not good enough?” “Spencer, of course you are—” He tried to pull her in, but she shoved him off. She moved towards the house. “Go home Graham.”
“But—”
“Go. Home.” She locked the backyard door in his face and rushed up the stairs. Inside her bedroom, she slammed the door shut. A picture frame shook. Her body trembled from months of pent up anger and sadness. Why did she have to be the one to find her father? Why did it have to be her trying to pick up all the broken pieces? Why couldn’t her mother just keep it together? WhyWhyWhy? Spencer sobbed, collapsing onto the floor.
Under her bed the black shoebox looked back at her. Through her blurry vision, she could see the yellow envelopes tossed inside through a little hole in the box. She reached for it. It was heavier than she imagined but she carried it down the stairs, slinging her backpack onto her shoulder with all the magazines Graham had given her too. She walked into her father’s office before the stairs and grabbed everything she could. His books, the blueprint for the tiny home, notebooks and mail that had been slipped under the door. At his desk there was a picture of her propped on his shoulders.
Spencer felt her face soften, but before she could get lost in the memory she carried all of his things outside and into the tiny home. Inside, a queen size mattress waited for her, neatly made. She wondered if he made it before he left. If he washed the sheets or if her mother did. She emptied out all of his belongings, coating the bed until not a single inch of it was exposed. She didn’t want to think about naked bodies, of panted breaths, of wet kisses and the feeling of your stomach boiling over with want.
It was all a lie.
Spencer grabbed a bottle of gasoline.
Every letter. Every word.
Spencer uncapped the bottle.
Every laugh. Every smile.
She squeezed the bottle over the bed.
Every promise. Every “I love you.”
She ripped a match and tossed it in.
It caught instantly, parting across the bed like the woman’s legs, warm and inviting. Spencer shut her eyes, hoping the memories would burn too. Her mother wrapped in his arms in the dark. The woman clutching onto his back. Her mother twirling as they danced in the kitchen. The arch of the woman’s back. Her father pulling Spencer in so they could dance as a family.
The curtains beside the bed caught, the fire worked its way up. Spencer opened her eyes. It poured down the side of the bed, inching closer and closer to her. She took a step back, then two, and three until the whole room was blindingly bright.
“Shit!” Spencer gasped, holding her arm against the flame. “Shitshitshit.”
“Spen!” Graham slammed through the front door, his eyes wide as the flame surged towards the ceiling. He grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back out into the fresh crisp air, away from the tiny home and closer to the actual house. Spencer stumbled onto the porch, her body collapsing onto the swing they laid on before. “Get a fire extinguisher—”
“What the hell is that going to do?—”
“Buy us some time til the firemen show up! Now go!” Graham ordered.
Spencer did as she was told, catching her breath along the way. Graham went in and did what he could, but it wasn’t much compared to how quickly everything caught. Spencer waited by the foot of the steps on the porch until the sound of alarms accompanied with flashing lights came and took care of the rest.
Graham plopped down hard next to her, his forehead covered in sweat. A skeleton of the tiny home was left after the firemen washed it down. Steam drifted into the open air devouring her father’s letters.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Graham asked.
Spencer nodded shakily, coming undone. She could feel her heart tearing at the seams as she cried, but her body felt lighter from the release. Graham caught her in his arms and rested his head against hers.
“I was the one who found him. In there with someone else.” She raised her head slightly to look at the mess she made. All of those months spent hammering and drilling, of laughter and frustration, of being a father and daughter crumbled in an instant.
Graham hummed, resting his cheek against her head. “I know that what he did was wrong,” He started, choosing his words slowly. “But I meant what I said, he’s still a good man.”
Spencer pulled back, but Graham kept a firm embrace around her. His eyes were hazel, she realized.
“He used to bring me lunch,” Graham started, running a hand down her arm. “Over the summer when they needed more guys on the construction sites, your dad always brought an extra sandwich with him. My dad would rag on me all day even though all I was trying to do was help him, you know? He didn’t see it that way and I guess your dad felt bad and noticed so he was just trying to do something nice for me. He’d sit with me and we’d eat together and just,” Graham laughed. “I dunno, just shoot the shit I guess. Talk about anything. It made me feel…safe.”
Spencer let out a soft sad laugh. She could picture it in her head. Her father’s unyielding kindness for others. She almost pictured him leaving notes in Graham’s lunch bag like he used to do for her.
“The letter in the mailbox, was that from him?”
Spencer nodded. “I’ve been hiding them for weeks. I didn’t want my mom to find them and…” She could see Dahlia on the floor again, her body limp, the bottle empty. She was only a toddler the last time her mother drank, it was a foggy memory but it was all the same. “I burnt them all.” Graham nodded slowly. “Did you read them?”
Spencer shook her head. “Only the first one. It was a postcard.”
“What’d it say?”
“Everything here is wet, waiting to bloom. I miss you.”
Graham turned his head towards what was left. “I’d say it’s no different here, hm?”
And Spencer laughed, she didn’t know why, but it bubbled out of her and floated into the air. The ground was soaked from the harsh flow of water from the hose, the grass surrounding the tiny home either scorched or flooded. But soon enough, everything would grow over and there’d be nothing left but grass and dandelions covering over their mistakes.
“Spencer!” Dahlia’s heels clicked rapidly over the deck as she rushed towards the two. Her eyes looked wild floating from the two teenagers, to the firemen, to the lights, to what was left. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine Mom, it was just an accident.” Spencer slipped out of Graham’s embrace. Dahlia flung her scrawny arms over her daughter’s head, pulling her into her chest. Her skin was soft and cool, Spencer could just sink into it. The hours had clipped away while Dahlia was gone and Spencer half-expected her to come home smelling like booze, but here she was, vanilla and cinnamon and sweet.
“Mrs. Howell?” A fireman slipped off his hat as he approached. “A word, please.” Dahlia pulled Spencer back, holding her face between her fingers, cuticles pushed back and fingernails freshly polished. “I’ll take care of this okay? Don’t worry about a thing.” For once, Spencer let her.
***
Three days passed before the next letter showed up. Spencer was in the kitchen when it arrived, sitting on the counter as Graham made himself comfortable digging through the cupboards for a bag of chocolate chips to go with homemade pancakes. Her mother held the yellow envelope cradled between careful palms.
“Spencer?” Her voice strained. “It’s for you.”
Spencer’s lips parted. Even Graham had gone rigid, closing a cabinet door so softly it didn’t even squeak. Dahlia took a step forward, holding the thin letter in the air for her to take. Spencer let it hover in the space between them, her hands heavy. The first letter addressed to her, she didn’t know what to expect. She was afraid of being disappointed, of being angry all over again, of seeing her mother fall apart when she just pieced herself back together again.
Dahlia’s eyes flickered between the letter and her daughter. It took her a moment, two, but then she smiled softly. “It’s okay Spen. I’ll be okay.”
Spencer looked over at Graham. He nodded at her. It was like the magazines, one chance, one risk. Spencer took it. She didn’t know if she’d like what she read, but she did know that Graham was right. She had a good father. One that taught her everything. How to write her name, how to build a toy chest, and how to keep the fire inside of her alive through all the moments of happiness and all the moments of sadness. Spencer sucked in one final breath and ripped the letter open.
