Risa Nye

Risa Nye

There’s no question where it begins. Before is everything that happened up to the fire, and After is the rest of my life.

It’s the way we mark time: a child’s birth, a death in the family, moving to a new neighborhood . . . it helps us set a reference point for things we try to remember. Was so-and-so’s baby born yet? No, because we lived in that little house then, and we have that picture of all of us and she was still preg-nant. That sort of thing. And I have those kinds of markers, too. But for me, October 20, 1991, is not just a marker, but a chasm, with everyday concerns on one side and a life shaken loose from its moorings on the other.

That October, I lost my house. When I say, “It’s been almost 20 years,” out loud, I still can’t believe it. In the intervening years, the trees have grown tall; the neighborhoods have been rebuilt. No traces of the scorched, blackened hills remain, except in my memory. I’m the first one to smell smoke in the air, to see a black plume in the distance, to sense the danger of eucalyptus trees too close to rooftops. Any time disaster strikes and I see images of displaced people standing in front of the smoldering remnants of their homes, I stand with them and feel the hopelessness and loss all over again. “These things happen to other people,” they start to say, but by then, they realize it isn’t true anymore. They are other people, like all of us.

Someone’s basement beer stash, singed but still neatly stacked. Photo by Andreas Jones.

After the fire, my husband and I embarked on an adventure we never anticipated. Though we used to daydream about building our own house someday, the reality of actually doing it under the stress of loss was not part of the fantasy. Luckily, I kept a journal during the construction year, so in case I am ever tempted to romanticize how smoothly it went, I can remind myself of the delays, the screw-ups, and the tears.

The first Thanksgiving we spent in our newly rebuilt home had us searching in closets that no longer existed for things we no longer had: that big white tablecloth, the gravy boat that matched the china, the big wooden carving board, candles. Even now, it still happens. Just last December, I mentioned the nice brown lacquered bowl we used to put the Christmas cards in. “Do you remember it?” I asked my husband.

He did. “But I guess we don’t still have it . . .”

The fire’s intense heat left behind some unusual shapes. Photo by Raphael Shevelev.

And the big wooden salad bowl we now use for large dinners has a small crack in it, just like the bowl we used to have, the one we got for a wedding present. But we don’t remember how this one got damaged, while we clearly recall when the other one got tossed, along with the salad, by a tipsy friend at a party long ago.

As the years go by, the line between Before and After seems less clear, but there are always reminders. Recently, I was thinning out some files in a large drawer devoted to my children’s report cards, papers, and school pictures. My youngest had the fattest file, going back to first grade. The older two had far less in theirs. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore, but any mementos I kept for those two from their school days are no longer here. Their little art projects, clay handprints, valentines, handmade Mother’s Day cards, letters to the tooth fairy—these small treasures were links to the kids’ childhoods, their first efforts at art and storytelling. Wouldn’t it be fun to show their children someday—the stories and pictures Granny saved all those years? It might have been, but I won’t have the chance.

After the fire, we gradually acquired replacements. I vowed to remember where and when I got each new pair of earrings, each new vase, or set of candlesticks. For a while, I did. But now it’s been almost 20 years and I am forgetting the stories and the circumstances. Maybe I’m getting closer to Now, and further from After.

—Risa Nye

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