The sliver comes out in the wildfire days, but I feel its presence in the days preceding—cold spring turning to prairie sun, dry wind, absent rain, a sense of something in the trees. Later, I’ll wonder if it was always there, arms wrapped around a poplar, waiting.
I’m an odd, impractical woman. At least that’s what Beth tells me. I should have named her Jenny. That’s a name for a go-getter. My daughter isn’t thirty and she has home equity. Beth is more fitting for a has-been like me. I regret the name. I regret everything.
The sliver stands at the edge of the septic field, where the grass gives way to trees. It’s narrow like a poplar, and bends like one in the fire-wind. Its hair—dark brown, with a hint of red, moves with the leaves. Eyes big and glassy, outshine the muffled sun.
I’m scanning the trees when I see it. That’s how I spend these wildfire days, looking out the window, watching the parched trees and desiccated leaves pine for flame, while helicopters overhead search for hot spots. I’m on edge, waiting for emergency alerts. My shoulders ache, I haven’t breathed since the fires started.
Normally, I’d be selling knickknacks. I buy them from the dead—estate sales in the country. I know by now, what’s in demand: antique irons, Bakelite dishware, vintage salt and pepper shakers. Things that cling to people, like memories. I mark them up, and sell them on consignment at funky antique shops in the city.
Two years ago, I paid a graphic designer for a logo—a poplar tree with a single word in cursive: Jenny. It’s not my name, though I wish it was. When I joined a pickleball team last summer, I registered under “Jenny.”
###
The wildfires started six days ago. They declared a state of emergency on day three. There’s no rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. They say the worst is yet to come. Wildfire season lasts five months now.
The nights are harder than the days. I wake in the night, throat raw. Check my phone for emergency alerts, listen for idiots tearing down roads on sparking ATVs, throwing lit cigarettes out car windows. Some nights, there’s dry lightning. In the morning, my lungs ache. I can’t close the windows in this heat.
At least I’ve packed an emergency bag—three days’ worth of needed things. Beth nagged me so much about it. She wouldn’t approve of what I packed: salt and pepper shakers shaped like poodles, antique irons, fire orange Bakelite plates. But these wares of my trade, they’re all that’s left of me.
I don’t know, those first few days, if the sliver’s a threat. The back of my acreage is only bush: poplars, willow, birch. Occasional deer, coyotes, moose—never people, never slivers. Slivers. Somehow, the name’s right. Beth says I’m uncertain about everything, but I know this.
Beth would call the police. I consider it. The sliver doesn’t seem dangerous. Standing out there in the poplars, it resembles an unusually tall lost child.
###
On the ninth day of the wildfires, I play pickleball. We have a new member joining our team. It’s good news—we were losing players, on the verge of disbanding. Our new member looks athletic. She’s everything I’m not: tall, broad-shouldered, confident. She seems friendly. Her name’s Jenny.
Jenny. She laughs when they tell her there’s another one, then searches our faces for her match. Her eyes go right over me. When the others point me out, something flashes in her face. The others don’t notice. She smiles and says hello, though she can see I’m no Jenny.
I twist my ankle the moment the game starts. The real Jenny’s a natural, it’s hard to believe it’s only her second time playing. She moves like an athlete, muscles rippling, blond hair flying, the gym, the other players, bending themselves to accommodate her plays. I sit on the sidelines and watch, while she single-handedly wins our game.
Beth’s at my house when I get home. She drove all the way from the city with roasted chicken thighs. She says I need a hot meal. I don’t correct her—it was cereal last night, and the night before that. Earlier in the week, I had toast. I can’t remember the last time I had chicken. I eat two pieces, even the skin. When I’m done, there’s only bone. Beth waits while I finish my vegetables. We switched roles years ago.
The sliver steps out from the trees the moment Beth leaves. Bones protrude beneath loose skin. It looks under-nourished, but not hungry. I don’t know what makes me grab a chicken thigh and a plate. When I walk out into the yard, the sliver stiffens. I hold out the plate, like that will make a difference. The sliver darts into trees. I set the plate on the grass. When I look for the sliver, there’s only two ears sticking out both sides of a tree.
Back in the house, I watch from the window. I’m too far to see the sliver’s ears. The chicken sits on the plate, uneaten. Beth texts and texts. I shouldn’t have shown her my emergency bag, now she wants me to repack it. I text her and say I did. I look at my untouched bag, then at the chicken in the grass. I couldn’t be practical to save my life.
I wasn’t always this way. When I think to the past, I’m a child, racing down gravel roads in the back of a pickup, hair flying, hands and toes skyward. It might be my only real memory. A snapshot in time wormed into me and fixed, while everything else has faded. Sometimes, I forget I was married. If not for those hands and toes in the sky, I’d have only wrinkled skin and sagging breasts to mark a life.
###
The evacuation order comes on the sixth day of the wildfires. It’s late in the evening, the time when the non-stop alerts reach a crescendo. I should be sensitized, after so many days, but I jump like I always do, and my heart does that thing. I pull up my phone, expecting this alert to be like the others, but this one’s different—it’s for my county. I read it three times, then look to the trees for an anchor.
It’s eerie, driving in the dark to the evacuation centre. We all saw the footage from Fort Mac, years ago. All those people driving through highways of fire—sky orange, forest in flames, seared cars, smoking houses. It’s not so dramatic today. There’s a haze in my headlights, and eyes flash on the side of the road—deer, not slivers. I reach the highway, and it’s jammed with cars—it takes me two and a half hours to make the forty-minute drive to the city.
The evacuation centre’s at an exhibition hall near the airport. They’ve been taking people all week, so by now, there’s a system. They have cots, bedding, muffins. I want to tell Beth I did the right thing, bringing my consignments. All the other necessities are here. But when she calls, she won’t let me speak, she’s so busy scolding me for not letting her know I’m safe.
I eat my muffin, then brush my teeth with the evacuation centre toothbrush. The water’s different than I’m used to. My cot is narrow, it squeaks when I move. There’s an echo. Everything in this hall reverberates, these ceilings are so high. There must be thousands of cots. Thousands of evacuees.
There’s nothing to do but lie down. I’m on my back, holding my phone above my face, trying not to move or to squeak. I browse my consignments on antique store websites, then do mindless online quizzes. Try to ignore all the people around me. The cot hurts my back, but I sleep better than at home.
They tell us we can go back the next day. I’m drinking my evacuation centre coffee, balancing a muffin on a cardboard plate, when they give us the update. The fire’s still out of control, but now the wind’s shifted. They’ve built fireguards and called in the army. Firefighters from the northern US and as far as Quebec and Ontario are on their way. We just need to be ready to leave again if necessary. I eat my muffin, and take another for the road. No telling when Beth will be back with groceries.
The drive home is as I remember. There’s no sign of anything burned. The sky’s clear, I barely see smoke. I turn off the main highway onto gravel. Poplars shimmer on both sides. So many memories on this road. I pull up to the house, half expecting my ex-husband to open the door and greet me.
I walk round to the septic, before going in the house. The plate is where I left it on the grass. A dry poplar leaf has fallen into it. The chicken’s gone. I scan the trees. I hope the sliver took it, but a bird or a coyote is more likely.
Beth checks on me the next day, and being Beth, she brings groceries. I watch her unpack the bags. She knows my kitchen better than I do. Everything she does is with confidence. She’s sure of her place in the world, she got that from her dad. Beth isn’t shattered, like me.
Beth finishes with the groceries and looks out the window. For a moment, I think she sees it. Then she turns around and tells me my latest chores: moving away firewood, getting rid of dead vegetation, relocating the wooden lawn chairs on the porch. Beth is common-sense, she’d never see a sliver.
The sliver appears when she leaves. My eyes catch the glint of its hair in the wildfire sun. I prepare cereal as an offering, then walk out to the septic in bare feet. I can sense its hesitation. I keep my eyes unfocussed as I walk. Bone-dry grass pricks my soles. I stop where the grass meets the trees. There’s the sound of shimmering leaves, and somewhere, a distant sparrow. I wait a moment before fixing my eyes. When I focus, there are only poplars. I set the cereal bowl on the ground. From the trees, there’s an explosion and flash. I suck in my breath. A grouse, spooked, takes flight. My breath slows. There’s no sign of the sliver. Maybe there never was.
###
I play pickleball on the eighth day of the wildfires. I’m the only one on the team near the fires. The girls pat my back and ask if I’m okay. The real Jenny watches me. She approaches when the others leave. I wait for it, but she doesn’t speak. When the game starts, I mess up a play, then spend the rest of the game on the side. The real Jenny wins the game.
Beth brings groceries again the next day. She puts them away, then announces her latest plan to fix me. A beau, apparently, will solve everything. Beth leans over my shoulder while I download the dating app. I went to junior high with a Beau. I’ve always liked the name. As for the concept, I’m sceptical. Beaus aren’t so common these days. My husband was a Bill.
I don’t intend to take Beth’s advice, but somehow, on the tenth day of the wildfires, I find myself brushing my hair and using that filter thing on the camera. I keep my blurb simple. Under name, I write, “Jenny.” Drop two years off my age, and say I’m pert, athletic, and vivacious—like the Jenny on my pickleball team.
I go to bed but can’t sleep. For once, it’s not the wildfires keeping me awake. I can’t stop thinking about it, what it would be like to have a beau. For someone to look at me, to see me, like my ex-husband with his new wife. When we divorced, Bill said he never knew me. I can relate. I stopped looking in the mirror years ago.
I must fall asleep eventually, because some time before dawn, that moment at the evacuation centre wakes me. It’s stuck in my mind, vivid—that squeaky cot in the not-quite-total-darkness, scrolling through salt and pepper shakers on a screen while so many people snore and snort on cots all around me. My brightest memory in years, and utterly meaningless.
The next morning starts off promising—sky blue, wind gusty, air strangely clear. I’m eating cereal at the kitchen table when I see it, standing barefoot in the septic field. I go to the window. Our eyes meet, and the sliver raises a too-big hand. We have that in common—another regret, not learning the piano. The sliver’s t-shirt shimmers, it’s one of those colours they use on Internet surveys that go viral. It might be tan or grey, or something else altogether. The wind takes its hair and the poplars overhead bend, leaves shimmering silver, trunk shining like bone.
My phone makes a sound I don’t recognize. I pull it up, expecting another alarm, but instead, it’s the dating app: I have a match. His name is Alex, he’s a firefighter and he rescues dogs. In his photo, he’s holding a fish. I enlarge the picture. He doesn’t look like an Alex. I text him anyway. We spend the afternoon exchanging messages. Sometimes, I stop by the window and scan the trees for the sliver. I don’t see it, but I feel it. Alex texts and texts. Somehow, by the end of the day, we have a date.
We meet at a chain pub restaurant the next day. It’s high-end, in a strip-mall parking lot, overlooking the highway. That he has time to meet during wildfire season should be my first clue. But I don’t ask him what he really does, and he doesn’t ask me if my name is really Jenny. We both know I’m neither pert nor athletic. We order cheeseburgers and get ketchup on our chins. The server calls us “sweeties” and we laugh about it. He asks for my number, and I give it to him.
I drive home with the windows open. The air’s not so smoky tonight, though the setting sun is orange. Deer linger on both sides of the gravel, and the poplars reflect the waning light. I put on the radio, and tap my fingers on the wheel. For once, when I drive up to my house, I’m not thinking of my ex-husband. I go to bed without checking the window for the sliver. Alex texts me, twice, goodnight.
The smoke’s back the next day, and the sun is distant and orange. It makes me listless. I sort Bakelite plates by colour, but can’t concentrate. I look for the cereal bowl in the septic field, but there’s no sign of it. I locate a spoon under a tree. I want to go into the trees and search for the sliver, but my eyes are watering and my forehead aches.
I’m eating dinner—cold cereal with almost-stale milk, debating whether to make a bowl for the sliver, when Alex texts. Call me. I hold up my spoon and consider. What would Alex think of the sliver? I press “call” and resolve to ask, but my courage falters before he answers. A Jenny would be braver.
Alex is easy to talk to. We compare TV shows and silly hobbies. He tells me he has six toes. His middle name is Nathan, and he likes to cook. I change the subject, when he turns to recipes. If he saw my dinner…I can barely boil an egg. I don’t know how I raised a daughter.
Alex pauses, waiting for me to speak. I rush to fill the space, blabbering about the other Jenny. Feel like an idiot when I hear myself. Face gets hot, and I falter over syllables. Alex saves me. He tells me he plays hockey with “geezers,” says he’s a “geezer,” too. The word’s his. I don’t like my age, but I find myself smiling.
Alex is a good listener. I haven’t talked like this in years. We’re still on the phone when the sun descends behind poplars and the sliver presses its face against my window. Its eyes are enormous, and the smoke haze makes a halo. I’m not scared. I press my palm, in response, to the glass.
###
We’re two weeks into the wildfires when the wind changes. I wake in the morning with a burn in my throat, lungs stabbing. There’s a new acridity in the air, it’s nauseating. My air purifier’s going full speed, but it has no effect. For once, I’m glad I didn’t follow Beth’s advice to change the smoke detector batteries. The last thing I need is that alarm, too.
Emergency alerts go all afternoon. They buzz on my phone, my smartwatch and then my tablet. They don’t make me jump anymore, but when they name my county, just after lunch, my breath catches all the same. I wait to hear it on my smartwatch and tablet. I haven’t misheard. At least it’s not yet an evacuation, just a warning to be ready on short notice.
I’ve been through this. But it would be easier if I weren’t alone. Beth would know what to do. So would a Jenny. I add a toothbrush to my evacuation kit. It feels practical. Try to sort plates, but can’t concentrate. That moment in the cot returns to me. It’s fixed, a frozen memory. I’m staring at a Bakelite plate, wondering what to do with it, when it hits me—it’s not the cot, it’s the moment that’s been captured. A strange woman in pieces without other people or even herself. Scattered knicknacks, meaningless.
The sliver appears at dusk, just as the light in the sky fades to grey and the colours outside lose their contrast. I wouldn’t see it if not for that glint of eyes and blush of red hair. Its clothes are the same colour as the sky now, the same colour as everything. I walk out in bare feet to meet it. Tiny flecks of white ash, smaller than snow, tumble from the sky. The sliver doesn’t retreat. I stop before the trees. We raise our too-big hands together. Next time I’ll get closer.
The government wildfire dashboard is down again. My phone buzzes an alarm, but I lose reception before I can read it—stupid country Internet. Am I supposed to evacuate? I look out the window, as if that will help. I don’t even know what direction to go. There are fires all around here. When I close my eyes, I can see them, devouring trees, searing the landscape clean. I rearrange salt and pepper shakers and sort antique irons to calm myself. It doesn’t stop the coughing.
Sometime before ten, reception returns, and all my electronics scream alarms. The alerts went out hours ago, while I was offline. Beth sent seven texts, all saying in big letters, LEAVE NOW. Blood rushes, and my legs go funny. I put my head between my knees. Reread the messages when the world steadies. LEAVE NOW.
When I look out the window, there’s a brightness beyond the outline of trees. I close an eye to focus, but only see orange and flickering. There’s no sign of the sliver. I should evacuate. I don’t know why I step outside. The smoke cuts my throat, and stings my eyes, before I’m even halfway across the grass. I stop to clear my lungs. Squint through the trees. My breath catches. I’ve seen the videos of trees afire. I listen for the pop of exploding trees, but there’s only the rush of my heart.
I’m hacking and gasping when I reach the house, forehead throbbing in time. The air’s no better inside. Grab my emergency bag and gulp water while I pull up the dashboard, at least it’s back online. There’s nothing about that flame in the sky. Nothing on social media, either. I check more sites. Beth texts twice. I tell her I’m en route to the centre.
Now I’m back at the window, searching for that flame in the sky. It’s higher now, and clearly round. Don’t know how I mistook it for flame. The heat has turned the moon orange, and smoke plumes and wind gusts are making the colour flicker. I stand at the glass and swallow my coughs. There’s something special about this fire moon above trees. A Jenny wouldn’t notice it. I might be the only one out here who sees it. Me and the sliver. I can’t see through the dark if it’s out there, but I put my hand to the glass anyway.
It’s hard to sleep in the smoke. Sometime in the night, the air purifier sputters and dies. I’m up by five, head still pounding, eyes burning, chest tight. The light’s strange when I open the blinds. Red sun, subdued, casting long shadows—it looks like dusk, not dawn. There are no birds singing. At least there’s Internet.
I read the reports. Fifteen hundred firefighters deployed, from all over North America, and still the fires are growing. There are too many, they’re too big, they’re burning too hot and too deep. The one closest to me is 27,000 hectares. It jumped more fireguards, another river overnight. It’s moving in my direction—it’s now only a few kilometers away.
My yard looks like a fairy tale, smoke softening the edges of things, making the air golden. Wild, puffy clouds in the sky change shape while I look at them. I watch them and eat cereal with stale milk. Alex texts, Good morning. He doesn’t know where I live. I contemplate telling him. Beth texts, and I send her a happy face. I’m still eating cereal, looking at the sky, when it occurs to me, those aren’t clouds.
The sliver steps out from the trees. I didn’t know that I missed her, but now relief floods me. I put down my spoon and rush to her. I’ve forgotten an offering. I ignore the dead grass underfoot. The sliver steps toward me. I explode into coughing. Inhale ash flecks, then hack harder. She jumps behind a tree. I swallow my coughs. She grips a trunk. I wait. The sliver smiles, and it tickles my memory.
We look at each other. Ash falls, tiny and delicate on her hair. The sliver reaches for a poplar leaf and brings it to her nose. Her eyes soften. I can’t quite mirror her, but I grab a leaf and pretend to sniff it. The sliver grins. We have the same teeth. I look in the mirror so rarely now, I almost miss it.
Beth texts and tries to call all afternoon. I call back, but hang up before she answers. When she calls again, I send an emoji.
It’s just after lunch, when the orange glow appears on the horizon. There’s no mistaking it for the moon. Beth would know what to do. She’d have left for the evacuation centre hours ago. Not like me, all scattered pieces and regrets, a sliver, waiting for fire to find me.
The sliver’s in the yard again. I walk outside to meet her. We touch palms. She sees me. Her gaze shifts, eyes shining orange. She doesn’t have to speak, I see with her eyes what’s behind me. Hear thunder and pops at my back. When I turn, the sky is all sparks. Ash rains heavy, black, and hot. The sliver retreats to the poplars. She wraps her arms around a tree. I know her. She won’t listen, but I call out anyway.
There’s no time. I rush to the house for my car keys. Patches of grass alight around me. I breathe heat. Too late for the emergency bag, and all the random trinkets. I pause at the trees, breath ragged. Can’t see the sliver through the smoke.
I reach the car as the poplars ignite. Reverse down the driveway so fast I skid on the gravel, and almost slide into the ditch. Try to breathe. Get onto the road, hit the gas, and fishtail. Hit the gas harder. The bush erupts with fleeing deer. I swerve and slide, smash my forehead on the wheel. There’s no air.
Foot’s all the way down on the gas now. Flames rush at me in the rearview. Mouth’s full of ash. Can’t see a thing through the smoke. Hair flies, and poplars explode on both sides of me. The wheel smokes. I extend my hands skyward. The sliver burns, memories and bones seared clean. If I go fast enough, I’ll find the rest of me.
Originally published in Prairie Fire in April 2024.
