Baker's Dozen

Maggie spotted them before mom did: storm clouds forming in the west over the ocean, beyond San Diego. She dropped Josephine, her plastic Barbie-like doll, onto the dry dusty soil so typical of Alpine, California in November, and screamed towards the kitchen window.

“Ma! Rain! Ma!”

A light eastward wind blew her long brown hair over her face as she pointed behind her, to the west. Rain meant dad would come home soon. (Yet another pine cone to the collection.) “Ma! Ma!”

Mom, looking out the kitchen window, smiled then crossed herself. The fire east of Julian mountain had raged for seven days and there had been no relenting. The dryness had turned the paradise east of Alpine to a firefighter’s hell.

Their residence was at least half a mile from any other house. Dad treasured nature. Rescuing forests from fires fed his professional pride the most. He brought Maggie a burnt pine cone from each forest fire he helped extinguish. She couldn't count them, but her mother told her she had a baker’s dozen cones, so far.

Over the next three hours into the afternoon Maggie entertained herself at the yard west of the house, monitored by her mother in the kitchen, as Maggie monitored the clouds all the time.

She could no longer see San Diego, the view now obstructed by the rain falling. The clouds had now moved inland almost all the way to Alpine. Once the rain would move over the crest, the work of the firefighters would become easier. Another one for the collection! What number comes after baker's dozen?

Maggie heard the thunder a split second before she heard the shatter from the kitchen—a plate, a glass, or the vase her mother relished from her wedding? Unsettled, she let go of Josephine onto the dry dusty soil.

Out through the kitchen door, covering her mouth, mom stumbled down the stairs.

Maggie heard thunder once again. In the driveway, half-a-mile downhill, a police car left a dust cloud trail as it slowly approached.