Crash & Burn

Chapter One

"It won't be that bad," she said, lightly. "And it won't be for long."

I couldn't believe it. Four of us in a one-bedroom apartment?

"We have to live here?" I said, my voice cracking as my composure broke. There was no mistake. She was serious.

"Oh, Zoe, come here." She pulled me into a hug. "It'll be okay, you'll see. Everything happens for a reason."

That was Mom's philosophy in life. But I couldn't think of a single reason why our house had to burn to the ground, or how this new reality could ever be better than the old one. I just wanted to go home. But home didn't exist anymore. We were, for all intents and purposes, homeless. Because this place would certainly never be home

There were so many memories, so many little things that we'd treasured and kept over the years; Grandma's cookbook, Mom's wedding dress, our photo albums and home movies. Things that could never be replaced. And they were all gone.

"Zoe?" I felt a tug on the bottom of my shirt, as a little body squirmed to get in on the hug. "Mom?" Alice said uncertainly, her voice beginning to quiver.

"It's okay, baby." Mom stepped back, visibly pulling herself together. She glanced around at all of us. "Right. We have some work to do to get this place spic-and-span before bed tonight."

"I think it will take months to accomplish that," I said, eyeing the room.

"We'll be done in a few hours," she said, more firmly.

"Wasn't there anywhere else?" I asked, desperately. "We can't stay here, there isn't enough room for all of us!"

"It's all I can afford at the moment, Zoe," Mom said, evenly. "It isn't ideal. I know that. But I need you to stop questioning something that I can't change. We just have to make the best out of a bad situation."

I swallowed further protests. Part of me knew that Mom would have found us a better place if she could, knew that she didn't like this anymore than I did, and that she didn't really want to sleep on that ratty old couch. It was just hard to accept that we had no other choice.

"What do you want me to do?" I said instead.

"You can start by cleaning out the refrigerator." She wearily pushed back a blonde strand of hair that had escaped the no-nonsense ponytail she'd tied it up into. Rummaging inside one of the bags on the floor, she pulled out a sponge and a bottle of surface cleaner. "And the kitchen cupboards too, so we can get the groceries out of the car. They'll keep for the time being."

I rolled up the sleeves of my sweatshirt, making a start while Mom left to tackle the bathroom.

It was backbreaking work; removing the layers of grime that had settled into the kitchen. My arms were soon aching from all the scrubbing, and I had also survived a mini heart attack after discovering a dead spider in one of the cupboards. All in all, I was quite proud of what I'd accomplished in such as short space of time.

I scrubbed my hands, and put the cleaning products away in a drawer underneath the sink. After glancing round a final time, I went to Asher who had been pretty quiet the past hour, staring out of the bedroom window onto the street below.

"There's... there's no yard," he whispered, glancing uncertainly at me as I came to stand next to him. The twins had never lived in an apartment before, always having our beautiful house with its big yard.

"No, there isn't, but I'm sure I saw a park a few blocks away. That's even better, don't you think?" I put a comforting arm around him. There was a time when I could have easily swung him onto my hip, but he was five years old now and I could no longer manage it.