The orange-and-red hall runner bunches at the center, and I kneel to examine its mud-caked tassels. The toe of a boot print blurs like someone was running and tripped as the rug slid across the floor. There are ruins of grass and a small pebble from the front walk. They could belong to anyone—a firefighter, my mother, Teddy, the insurance inspector—so many people have been in and out of the house after the damage was done.

I’m aware of my mother’s eyes on the front windows, the urgency in her expression when I shut the car door even as she fumbled for papers to grade.

I stand. The alabaster walls seem to bow inward. The plants on the windowsill look sick. The pale sofa’s askew and shuffled two feet forward. There’s a vase in pieces next to my bookshelf. I search my memory. Did something wake me that night? A crash before the white-hot blaze? But instead, I see firefighters in tan suits and astronaut helmets barreling through the entryway and careening with unfamiliar objects as they head for the stairs.

I grab a duffel bag from the closet, a stack of papers and my wallet from the dining room table, and then I follow their trajectory, tracing the dark scratches on the wall and dusty boot prints on the birch steps leading to my room. A large hole’s been sawed into the Sheetrock, but I wait until I’m at the door, no longer on its hinges, to peer in.

The far corner is an indistinguishable mash of wood and paper so wrong and unnatural that I can’t remember how it used to look. A twisted bar of metal reminds me of the standing lamp. The mattress fans like swan’s feathers atop busted wire netting. Paint swells into large blisters on the side of my dresser and the remaining shards of the mirror lie at its feet. Parts of the ceiling hang down, exposing the ribs of the attic. And suddenly I do feel as if I’ve gotten off lucky. A twinge of sympathy for the house.

I’ve been told to leave my clothes—that even if they appear undamaged, soot may live in their fibers and wearing them might threaten my already weakened lungs. I pick my way through the room over to my desk. The wood’s splintered and the knobs are melted into flat faces. I wedge my fingers between the boards and poke around until I find my checkbook and the square box with my passport and birth certificate.