Her mother had kept a framed poster of Bob Marley in every bedroom since college and she’d put him over this bed after Dune’s father died. No one else Dune knew framed $3 posters, but her mother, Kama, liked things to give the appearance of togetherness.

Her mother would never be in an unseemly pile of nightgown, cold greasy skin and soiled underwear at her daughter’s feet.

Dune looked behind her. Down the hallway, through the kitchen, keeping out of sight of Mama Vivian, down the back porch stairs, through the tall grass, across the yard to the makeshift pyre.

She would do this. No one else would help her. She didn’t want anyone else’s help.

She would let her mother go.

Her flames were small in the spread-out city, black swirling up against the grandiose purple dusk that had swallowed the sky during her slow dragging.

Bonfires and barbecues were a part of Detroit’s summer evenings—usually with cheap beer and a car sound system providing the music. There were less and less places to gather without needing to secure a permit or make a payment.

There were other kinds of fire.

Many nights, Kama had thrown Dune in the back of the car to chase smoke across Detroit’s flat wide cityscape. Kama wanted Dune to know their Black city well enough to pinpoint the fire’s neighborhood from across town. Closing in on a burning house, or abandoned warehouse, young Dune would be captivated by the way flames teased, licked up the outer edges and furled out of windows, always up. The sounds of the fires were oceanic, roiling and massive, crashing down floors. Sometimes brick would glow, but not give.

The fire department would spray water around the edges, letting the empty buildings become ash and air, trying to stop the damage from spreading any further. Neighbors would huddle on nearby porches, theorizing with Kama on arson and what the city would do with the plot of land, hoping it wouldn’t be another skeleton of char or some flavorless condo; unclear what they hoped it would be. Kama’s energy flowed outward, Dune’s flowed inward, a perfect pair.

She watched the stars cross the night sky. Tonight, Dune’s fire was no smoke signal, no cry for help or company, no crisis—she hoped her smoke would keep everyone far away. Tonight, her mother wasn’t blazing across town. She was the fire.

Dune had been sitting at the massive oak dining room table in the kitchen of the house she’d been born in, swiping through photos on her phone. She needed to find a new profile pic, one without Marta in it. Marta had been Dune’s true love and then Marta had been a cheating bitch. It was time to break up on the internet.