The Meadow 77 “What time is it?” she mumbles. “Alhambra is on fire.” Danny is camping in the mountains and he took the car he and Lupita share, and mine’s still M.I.A., so I pick her up in Judah’s. We park at the elementary school across the street from the library and watch the rising orange flames. Smoke pours out of the green roof as firefighters pull on the long hoses like they’re playing tug-of-war. Lupita squeezes my hand. “Maybe they can still save it. Either way, we won’t be out of a job. They can send us to another branch.” The sky has slipped from black to gray. The sun will be up soon. “It’s Brigid,” I say. “Huh?” “My sister did this.” “What? Did she tell you that?” “I just know.” I think of how I shamed my sister. In her broken brain, the only way to avoid going on the perp wall was to burn the building to the ground. My mind goes to all of things that are burning: the displays I finished setting up last week, the frayed orange carpeting the city has been promising to replace for years, the banks of public computers, the ancient break room couch, Katherine’s desk, the holds shelf. The sun rises at our backs, spilling light onto the scene before us. Sirens echo through the neighborhood. For a second, I believe they’re not for the fire, but for Brigid herself, that everyone else is in the same state of panic as I am, their hearts beating as mine: what-has-she-done, what-has-she-done, what-hasshe-done.
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