‘Where are you going, Jerry?’ She was holding a paring knife in her hand.

‘I’m going to that fire,’ my father said loudly from the bedroom. He was excited. ‘I’ve been waiting for my chance. I just heard thirty minutes ago that there’s a place. I know it’s unexpected.’

‘Do you know anything about fires?’ My mother kept watching the empty doorway as if my father was standing in it. ‘I know about them,’ she said. ‘My father was an estimator. Do you remember that?’

‘I had to make some contacts in town,’ my father said. I knew he was sitting on the bed putting on different shoes. The overhead light was on and his bag was out. ‘It’s not easy to get this job.’

‘Did you hear me?’ my mother said. She had an impatient look on her face. ‘I said you don’t know anything about fires. You’ll get burned up.’ She looked at the back door, which he’d left partway open, but she didn’t go to close it.

‘I’ve been reading about fires in the library,’ my father said. He came down the hall and went into the bathroom, where he turned on the light and opened the medicine cabinet. ‘I think I know enough not to get killed.’

‘Could you have said something to me about this?’ my mother said.

I heard the medicine cabinet close and my father stepped into the kitchen doorway. He looked different. He looked like he was sure that he was right.

‘I should’ve done that,’ he said. ‘I just didn’t.’ He had his shaving bag in his hand.

‘You’re not going out there.’ My mother looked at my father across the kitchen, across over my head in fact, and seemed to smile. ‘This is a stupid idea,’ she said, and shook her head.

‘No it’s not,’ my father said.

‘It isn’t your business,’ my mother said, and pulled up the front of her blue apron and wiped her hands on it, though I don’t think her hands were wet. She was nervous. ‘You don’t have to do this. I’m working now.’

‘I know you are,’ my father said. He turned and went back into the bedroom. I wanted to move from where I was but I didn’t know where a better place was to be, because I wanted to hear what they would say. ‘We’re going to dig firebreaks up there,’ he said from the bedroom. I heard the locks on his bag snap closed. He appeared again in the doorway, holding a gladstone bag, a bag his father had given him when he had gone away to college. ‘You’re not in any danger,’ he said.

‘I might die while you’re gone,’ my mother said. She sat down at the metal table and stared at him.