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Box of Fire There was the man with the urn. William. He stood in front of my bedroom door holding the thing in his hands. He said, “Nick?” “Yes,” I said. “I’m coming down.” He said, “That’s fine. Just fine.” “You’re William,” I said. “Oh,” said William. “She mentioned me. That’s so fine.” There was the woman whose house it was. Jane. I followed William downstairs to the living room where I found her holding a shiny golden plate with sandwiches. She was waiting impatiently, doing her best to look like she was waiting patiently. William had moved along the hardwood floor and down the stairs like he was trying to walk on water. He stepped carefully, studying his steps, this soft grace spreading itself around him like fire. He carried that urn like I’ve never seen anyone carry anything before. Held it like it was the moon. When she saw us, Jane put the plate of sandwiches on the coffee table and motioned to us to sit down. The sandwiches looked like she had put real care into them, sliced evenly into triangles, the crust gone. None of the filling spilling out of the slices of bread. For two months I had been living with Jane. Not living with her exactly, but living just above her. I paid her two hundred dollars every month. That was it. She cooked for me from time to time. She helped me with my laundry. She gave me that room and my own bathroom upstairs. The week before I met William, she had sat me down in the kitchen and told me her plans. Jane said, “I hope you don’t mind.” “Mind what?” “I’m having a thing.” “What kind of a thing?” I said. This went on. What she meant was she was going to have people over for a kind of reunion. “Like a reunion?” I had finally said for her. “Yes,” she said. “That’s the word.” “So, your family?” I said. “It’s not that kind of reunion,” she had said. William was the only one who showed up. I don’t know how many people she had invited. I don’t know who she invited. It was a handful of people, though. I had seen the invitations before she sent them. They were purple with lace. They were goddamn gorgeous, so sweet and over-the-top I wanted to kill Jane for making them. William had responded immediately, assuring Jane he would come. William, the only one who showed. Jane had trouble eating her sandwich because she was busy watching William and me eat ours. William used only one hand, keeping the other one on that urn of his. Me, I used both hands. I ate in a serious, pointed way of eating. The thing about Jane is that she has fingers and toes like a statue would have. They’re all long and straight and perfect. They’re far too perfect for how old Jane looks. There is a Laundromat at the end of the block. That’s where I met Jane. I was living with Madeline back then. Mad. Every Wednesday night I would take our laundry, hers and mine, to that Laundromat. She wouldn’t go with me. Jane would go on the same nights, but she wouldn’t always do laundry. Sometimes she would just go and watch television or get candy from the machine and then eat it in her little chair by the front door. I noticed her but never did anything about it. What is there to do with a woman eating candy bar after candy bar at a Laundromat where she has no clothes? The week that Madeline left I had half the laundry that I normally would have had. It was just mine. Apparently Jane noticed. I guess I appeared troubled. She came up to me, right up to my washing machine, and put her long fingers down on the lid. I was absolutely blown by them. It was like looking up at those redwood trees you hear about. A few months later I was living in the spare bedroom on the second story of her little house. But William, Jane, and me. We made small talk in the living room. William told me about Jane. He said, “Jane was so beautiful. She was just, oh.” “William!” said Jane. “Stop it.” “Oh, fine, fine,” he said to her, patting on that urn. “Nick, you’re just going to have to believe me. The pictures of her as a girl.” “I will,” I told William. “I do.” I picked up another sandwich and started to work on it. Jane went to the kitchen and brought back a bottle of sherry. We all drank. Jane talked about the plate that she had used for the sandwiches. I had heard the story before. She said, mostly to William, “My mother gave me that old plate. I remember when she used to make all kinds of goodies. She used to put them on that plate and then place it in the middle of the room. We would all just go crazy.” “Jane,” William said to me, “had a lot of brothers and sisters.” “I didn’t know that,” I said. “William,” said Jane. “Oh, fine, okay,” said William. I took a bite. “It was just,” said William, “it was just that you all must have been so special. So special.” “The sandwiches are really great, Jane,” I said. “Oh, thank you!” she said. “There’s something special that I do to them. Can you guess what it is?” “It’s the bread!” said William. “William!” she said. “You bake your own bread?” I said. “Of course she does,” said William. “She’s a fine, fine baker.” “I’ve never smelled you baking bread,” I said. “Oh, well,” said Jane. I kept eating and looked around the house. It really was a good house. Houses like that, they’re full of all kinds of things. In Jane’s were the makings of what could be a fantastic antique auction. She had an armoire and these amazing couches like giant rubies. She had picture frames and old portraits. I had liked the house immediately. There was no question. I walked in there like it was mine. I told her I would take the extra room before she could even finish her question. Almost dropped my basket of laundry. Jane was starting to get a little drunk on the sherry and the sandwiches. She kept giving me these glances, like she was desperately trying to push something into me. I had only seen her drunk once before. We were in the kitchen. She was cooking mushrooms in some wine. Then she was drinking the leftover wine. Those mushrooms? The best I ever had. That was the only time that I asked Jane about her family, about where they were or if she ever had any. She told me a few things. Just a few. How Jane got that big house was one of them. Her mother gave it to her before she died. She had given it to Jane because Jane wanted to have a big family. Jane was living in another state at that time, but she came back for the house. There was, now, just us. About the kids she had just said, “I came close once.” That was that. I think that William was getting a little drunk, as well. He was staring down, far and deep, into that urn, like he wanted to go blind and have to see only that forever. Then he got up and went to the restroom. He stepped lightly again, afraid to wake something long dead. Before he left, though, he touched Jane on the shoulder without looking at her. It was there in that touch. In the way that Jane kind of shied away, uncomfortable. It was there that I felt things start to fall away. As soon as he was gone, Jane gave me another one of those drunken looks. Only this time she came over and sat down next to me. “Jane,” I said. “Listen,” she said. “I need to show you something.” “What about William?” I said. “What do you mean?” “How do you know him anyway?” I said. Jane grabbed my wrist with that hand full of fingers and pulled me weakly. I followed. This is desperate. She took me to the back room and shut the door behind us. She said, “William will be gone for a little while. It’s okay.” “Why does he have that urn?” I said. “Jane, wait.” Jane was looking through a chest of drawers. She pulled out old photographs that looked like they came from that secondhand store downtown. People we would never know, and who would never know us, came out into the light, though they would never know it. She pulled out a mirror and old earrings next. “Nick,” said Jane. “Oh. William used to be the gardener for my mother when she lived here alone.” “What, really?” I said. “But—” “That urn’s probably empty,” she said. “Okay?” “Wait,” I said. “Jane, hang on.” She pulled out a box. This little, perfect box with polished, dark wood. She brought it over and shoved it into me. I kept trying to talk to her, but she was done for the moment. She just put the box into my stomach. So I took it. I took that box. I opened it carefully as Jane waited, staring at my hands. Inside was this purple cloth, like there was royalty in there. I started looking through. Then William’s voice came drifting into the room from outside. “You guys,” he said. “Jane, that tub is so fine. Really, it’s a grand bathroom.” Jane told me to be quiet. She put her finger to her lips as she said it. “Okay,” I said. “Shh,” she said. “Okay,” I mouthed silently. William kept talking. He must have been wandering around in the living room as he was calling out our names. I thought of him cleaning the urn. I thought of him buying it somewhere, looking sad. Jane got up against the door, her shoulder against it, and listened. When it was quiet, she motioned at me to look. She mouthed the word. Look. Underneath the cloth, nestled deep, was this dead bird. That’s what it was. A dead bird, rotting there like a heart. I looked up at Jane for something, but she had nothing to give. I looked back at the bird. Then back at Jane. “Jane—” I said. “Look,” she mouthed again. I bit my lip. I had to. I stood there, Jane leaning against the door, pushing against the empty house with all those dreams bouncing around and burning up like meteorites. I stood there, looking deep down into the darkest thing that I had ever seen, this dead thing that Jane had somehow carried around with her always. And then William wandering, lonely. And me standing and looking. And Jane starting to whisper, louder now, “Look. For God’s sake, Nick, go on.”
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