Free Glass House by Patrick Reinken Page A

it to have, and they’d given up a week
later, four layers down in strata and no closer to the first
one.
    They painted the kitchen terra cotta, and it
was still that color – a muted, earthy red-brown that was
highlighted with cream trims. The only thing missing in the room
was a stained glass window they planned for over the sink. That was
Ben’s last project, never to be completed.
    A fan was perched on the kitchen counter.
Megan clicked it on, and its head began to twist slowly from side
to side, a nearly imperceptible whir coming as it moved each
direction, hit a louder tick , and started back the other
way.
    There wasn’t any air conditioning. Only
fans. At least one in each room, with window boxes in the bedrooms
and the attic. There wasn’t a modern furnace, either. Only the
black octopus in the basement, its arms reaching up from the
central core and stretching to the corners of the floors above
it.
    At night in the summer, she melted in the
Kansas humidity, the fans churning away and the heat never
stopping. The windows had to stay open, and the cicadas would
rattle in the trees outside. Every now and then the cry of an
ambulance would rise in the distance, grow louder as it hurried
along Sixth, and fade as it slipped away. The bugs would stop when
the ambulance was at its peak, but they’d step it back up again
when it was disappearing, like mourners who’d hushed to watch as a
procession came by.
    In the winter, the oppressive heat was
replaced by a chill, the fans by a space heater or two, the
numerous windows now closed but frosty at the bottoms. No cicadas,
of course, but the sirens still came like clockwork, building and
wailing and fading.
    Megan listened to the fan’s little noises. A
picture of Ben was on the window sill, and she picked it up. It was
the same as the one in her office, the photo that Jeremy Waldoch
stuck his thumb on.
    She studied the image and thought they
looked naïve. She and Ben, with South Carolina’s morning sun and a
boat in the background, looked like wet-behind-the-ears-kids who’d
dressed up to play married for the day. For a few years, maybe.
    Then someone decided to fly a plane when
they probably shouldn’t have.
    Megan had done her time in the county
attorney’s office. She got her trial experience and added a line to
her résumé, then she’d gotten out, getting married and making her
way a little in civil practice. Some more money, a future that was
a bit more polished, and it was coming together.
    That’s when Ben got on the plane.
    He was her boyfriend in high school first,
followed by a period in college when they went different ways and
eventually didn’t speak. But the relationship rekindled when she
returned for a summer, and he ended up supporting her through law
school. About the time of her jump to the firm, they put off a
wedding for six months and the possibility of kids for a couple
years. She’d earn some extra cash, they’d pad their savings account
for the first time ever, and he could take a class or two if he
wanted. Work toward an MBA he always talked about getting.
    She started her new job, the half year
passed, and the wedding and South Carolina honeymoon followed. They
settled into the routine they’d planned, with a few more months
going by as Ben studied and worked. Another few, and he buried his
grandmother. A year, then his mother.
    Even with the bumps, it was his time to work
on a career for a while, and he did it full out. Just as the pilot
shouldn’t have flown that day, Benjamin Davis shouldn’t have gotten
on the plane. He should have taken his time and driven. It was only
an hour to Kansas City, and he should have just hopped in a rental
instead of catching the commuter on his connection from
Chicago.
    The storm itself wasn’t that bad. The wind
was manageable and the visibility acceptable. Air traffic control
tracked the plane all the way in from KCI, and no one had the
slightest idea there was any real problem until the