Unworthy

A story of a disaster and how I felt watching it happen to someone I care about.

Spending time with my family has been complicated in the past.  Not because they make it that way.  They are great people.  I just spent too many years watching my sisters build lives for themselves while I appeared to be doing nothing but building up disappointment in myself.  For over a decade I was a musician without any sort of plan moving forward.  As the years waned on my stagnant state felt more and more like it was tattooed to my face.  I spent a long time wishing someone would beat me violentlywhile telling me to s**t or get off the pot.  That day never came, I did not wake up overnight like I hoped.  I did wake up eventually.  Though it just took more time as it always does. 

Times had changed, I had gone back to college and I had reason to believe I was going to start a real career for once.  I found a girl who loves me for myself and supports me in all I do.  This was clearly the first time in my life where I had enough to build a self esteem for myself.  So when my sister invited me to go up north with her husband Shayn and two kids Carley and Landon.  I felt like it was finally a chance for me to hang out with these people I loved and just be in the room with them.  I didn't have to be the broke failure anymore.

I arrived at a tiny cabin that they had purchased last year.  The land was overgrown at it's fringes and they had a boat propped against the wall.  The cabin as small as you would expect.  The best feature was a huge window looking out onto the yard and if you looked closely enough you could see the river at the edge of the woods.  After a short tour of the place we went outdoors to see the river and then we kicked a beach ball back and forth for a while.  Everyone's sense of humor was in full effect and no one seemed to want to complicate things.  It was simply five people enjoying each others company.

I was mostly happy to see Shayn.  Shayn was my brother-in-law who I had known since I was 13.  Undoubtedly the main father figure in my life.  this was not only because of how absent my own father was or because of how much I needed one by the time I met him.  More because of how his nature props him up to be a father figure.  He has a very good balance of being alpha male yet very spiritual.  He was someone who taught me the value of strength, of hard work, of nature, and of finding value in places where most don't try to look for it.  He taught me how to be a man of conviction.

I hoped this weekend was going to be like one we had when we were in Mexico some years before.  Shayn is someone I share a lot of brotherly love with when we are around each other.  However when we are apart, we are usually at odds with each other.  His job had whittled at his spirit and brought a dark cloud into their home.  I missed who he was before he got that job.  I got to see his old self when we were in Mexico while he was chasing the worm at the bottle of tequila.  When he was pretty far gone he had kissed me on the lips in front of everyone.  One of those sort of kisses that says "I am loving my life right now."  I can't say it avoided all the awkwardness that comes with two straight men kissing.  It was still a beautiful moment because there are very few people I can really know in that way.  I hoped that this day would shape into something similar.

We had gone inside when the sun started to go low.  Johanna said she was going to make french fries.  She put a massive long handled pot on the stove filled with oil and started to heat it.  The kids started to play a game of Jenga on the floor.  I got down on the floor to join them while Johanna and Shayn went outside.  The game was just starting to become competitive when I could hear the sound of something flaring behind me.  I felt my heart sink as I turned and noticed that the pot was completely engulfed in flames.

Carley screamed for her parents and ran into the kitchen and started to fill a bowl with water to throw on the fire.  I ran in and told her to stop and that it would make it worse.  I could barely hold my thoughts together.  I just felt panicked when I noticed how truly small this kitchen was.  The flames brushed the underside of the cabinets above the stove.  The cabinets looked like a cheap plywood that would go up much more quickly than one would think.  I grabbed the handle and could feel the heat forcing it's way over my arms.  The grease was spitting out of the pan and leaving fire on the counter and on the floor where it landed.  I didn't feel like I could hold on to it very long.  I was just hoping it would cool down quick enough to go out but it was so f*****g hot.  I couldn't keep holding onto it I was afraid it was going to set the kitchen rugs on fire.  I saw a clear space on the counter.  I knew it wasn't a good place to set it but I didn't see where I had any choice.  My hands were shaking so much from the heat I was afraid of dropping it.

By the time I set the pot on the counter, Shayn was in the house and had already gotten the kids out of the cabin.  When the pain in my hands started recede I quickly noticed how close the flames were less than a foot away from the window drapes.  I felt like this whole place was about to go up and there was nothing I could do about it.  I wasn't thinking in clear thoughts, I just saw the entire place in flames in my minds eye.  I saw myself standing in the middle of it, too shocked and dumbfounded to find a way out.  Maybe I could have just turned the stove off and waited it out.  Maybe I could have set it on the floor and pulled the rugs away from the flames.  All I could see now is that I made a choice and brought the fire closer to the drapes and could see fire forming on the counter and floor rugs from the oil shooting out in all directions.  Whatever choices I had left I was too scared to consider trying.

Shayn ran up next to me and grabbed the pot handle and started to move it out of the kitchen.  I stayed in the kitchen to put out the small fires on the floors with my feet.  Then I went to turn off the stove.  Within seconds I was following Shayn.  He started to move around the kitchen counter to the entry way right around the corner.  There was a narrow walkway to the door outside.  This walkway had the window on it's right side with drapes just like the those in the kitchen but these drapes were as tall as a man and hugging the entire walkway. 

As Shayn moved towards the open door the winds from outside started pushing the fire into his face.  He didn't have any choice but to close his eyes and walk blindly through the door.  The entry was covered with loose shoes and since Shayn couldn't navigate anymore he slipped on one of them.  I remember the scream more clearly than anything else.  A terrified "F**K!" in a tone that I had never heard before.  Not from him.  The entire entryway lit up into a fireball that engulfed it almost entirely.  I turned away.  I don't know why.  Maybe I was looking for something to put it out.  Maybe I didn't want to see it.  I'm not the sort of person to turn away but that time I did.

After a short time, that gray area between a second and several minutes, I turned back around.  IThe drapes had not caught and the fire was receding quickly.  I saw Shayn stomping out the little flames that were left and I came over to help him.  Then as soon as I arrived there he left.  I didn't notice where he had gone.  When the fire was completely out I breathed a sign of relief.  The cabin looked much darker now.  I ran into the kitchen to make sure the fire was completely out.  

When I finally had a second to breathe I looked at Shayn.  He was planking on the floor.  "Is my face burned?" he asked me.  I looked it over, I could just see a little more than a silhouette.  The only evidence I could see of a burn was a bit of singe on his goatee and eyebrows.  "No, I don't see anything, did any other part get burned?" I asked.  "My legs... call 911" he had said.

For a second, I had thought we were in the clear.  The fireball went out so quickly I didn't see how his burns could have been any more than superficial.  Shayn was a very tough man though.  When we were kids, me and two other people tried to take him down in a short wrestling match and failed to do so.  Clearly the situation was more real than I wanted to feel it was.  I went outside and told Johanna to call 911.  The kids were sitting on the bumper of their truck crying.  I sat down on the edge of the picnic table which sat facing the door only ten feet away.

When Shayn walked out of the front door he looked only looked as weary as someone who had just awaken, if only a little stiffer.  That was when I could finally see how hurt he was.  The top of his forearm was completely peeled and the skin hung off his wrist in one piece.  The legs looked even worse. It had large patches of red but the larger burns had large centers of white.   The white parts look like the skin of uncooked chicken that had been left in the sun too long and left to spoil.  

I don't know how long I stared at these injuries.  I know that I looked more scared than he did.  He didn't look scared at all.  He was strangely casual.  Just standing there as if he was just stepping out for some air.  "Oh my god Shayn.  I can't even imagine..."  "Don't..." he interrupted "I can't think about it right now.  I don't want to scare them."  His face briefly showed the pain he was feeling.  An expression that let me know that yes, he was holding it together but it was as difficult as it seemed.

We were in the middle of nowhere.  Which meant that help would be dispatched from very far away.  So there was nothing to do but wait there.  For a while I sat and tried to think of a million different things to say to break the silence.  Any humor that could possibly be appropriate.  Any reassurance that wouldn't be stupid or condescending.  Any hope that wouldn't be naive.  Any predictions that wouldn't be so far reaching because no one knew what was going to happen.  Shayn might be ready to lose part of his foot for all I had known.

I remember having feelings that I had forgotten as an adult.  It had been a lot of years since I ever felt like I was trying to live up to anyone else.  I couldn't believe that despite everything that just happened that he was so determined to hold himself together just to try to avoid his kids being afraid on his behalf.  I could suddenly remember how I felt as a teenager always hoping that I could be someone who could take charge the way that he did.  Knowing that in my heart I will never be as capable of that as he is.  When it really matters, my fear will trump my strength. 

In the weeks after, Shayn had an incredible recovery.  Though he had a period of melancholy, that went away when he finally managed to leave his job so he could start over somewhere else.  Maybe the burn might have enabled him to do that, but I've never asked him that.  That summer I helped him and Johanna try to manage their time around Shayn's recovery.  My other sister stepped up more than I did.  I don't know if I did enough or not.  I might always feel like that little boy raised by a father who never stepped up to help anyone.  My fear of being my father does push me to be better but it just as often makes me feel like I'm shutting down at the worst times.

I wasn't alone in my insecurities in the aftermath of this situation.  For a few weeks we all became exaggerations of ourselves.  My mother fought harder to steal attention from Shayn.  My father was more indifferent.  My younger sister was more giving.  I was more confused and divided.  Though when the time came for us to analyze the things that really matter.  I was there and I contributed.  Maybe this is what matters most.

Author's Note

I would appreciate comments on the strength of the ending. Did I manage to convince readers to care about any of the people involved? Does the writing come off as too self focused?