This story is published in collaboration with the Austin-based literary journal American Short Fiction. The grandfather and his grandson lived at opposite ends of a whitewashed wood-frame house on the southeastern edge of a small oil-patch town. A few years before, half of Terenceville had burnt down. The fire had been started accidentally by a boy playing with lighter fluid and matches behind a lean-to covered in dead grapevines. From there it was easy work for the tireless Panhandle winds. Errol Finney and his grandson, Roy, each kept to his half of the house. They did not eat or watch television together and seldom spoke, both comfortable with a nod or head-shake the few times circumstances forced an exchange. The fire began in the late evening of…
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