The fire started at 4:47 a.m. on a Thursday in early November, the kind of dry wind that turned the desert into a tinderbox. Elara woke first to the smell of smoke, acrid and wrong, curling under the bedroom door. She bolted upright, heart slamming against ribs. Nova was already moving, instinct from years of track drills, scooping Sol from her crib in one fluid motion.
"Fire," Elara said, voice calm only because panic had frozen it.
They ran barefoot through the casita. Flames licked the kitchen wall where the old wiring had finally given up. The fairy lights sparked and died. Flash and Shutter streaked past their legs, yowling.
Nova shoved Sol into Elara's arms. "Courtyard. Go."
Elara hesitated one second. "Not without you."
Nova kissed her hard, smoke already thick. "I'll get the animals. Go."
Elara ran. Out the back door, into the courtyard where the agave stood sentinel. She dialled 911, voice shaking now, Sol crying against her neck. Sirens wailed in the distance.
Nova burst out seconds later, Flash under one arm, Shutter under the other, coughing but alive. The casita roared behind her, windows glowing orange.
They stood in the dirt, barefoot, in pyjamas, watching their home burn.
Everything.
The darkroom. The nursery prints. The wedding album. The grape ring pops in resin. The fairy-light bridge was rebuilt in the living room. The bed where Sol was conceived, where they had made love the night before.
Gone.
Firefighters arrived, hoses blasting. Lupe, among them, faces grimly. The town poured out: neighbours in robes, kids on bikes, Miss Connie in curlers waving a fire extinguisher like a weapon.
They saved the studio and greenhouse. The courtyard garden was scorched but standing. The casita itself was gutted.
Dawn came grey with ash.
They stood in the wreckage, Sol asleep on Nova's shoulder from exhaustion, cats huddled at their feet. Elara's hand found Nova's, rings blackened but intact.
"We lost everything," Elara whispered.
Nova looked at her, eyes red from smoke and tears. "No. We're standing right here."
The town didn't let them fall.
Lupe's garage became a temporary home: a loft above the bays smelling of oil and coffee. The queer youth centre offered the back room. Miss Connie insisted on her guest house. They took the loft. Needed the echo of engines to drown the silence.
Insurance dragged. Arson whispers because of Sienna's recent visit, but Lupe shut that down fast. "Old wiring. Town knows."
They rebuilt in pieces.
First the shock. Nights Elara woke screaming, reaching for Sol in flames that weren't there. Nova held her, rocked her, made love to her slow and desperate in the narrow loft bed, fingers gentle, mouth whispering "here, I'm here" until Elara came shaking and safe.
Sol asked for her crib, her books, and her "star blanket." They bought duplicates at Walmart at 2 a.m., Nova carrying her piggyback through aisles while Elara cried in the toy section.
Sex became survival. Quick in the garage bathroom, Nova's hand over Elara's mouth, fingers inside fast and hard. Slow in the loft after Sol slept, Nova on her back, Elara riding her face, coming with tears and relief.
The town fed them. Casseroles on the doorstep. Abuela and Aunt flew in, took over Lupe's kitchen, and produced feasts that fed half the block. Kids from the youth centre rebuilt the garden, planted new succulents in the shape of a heart visible from the sky.
They salvaged what they could. The grape ring pop, miraculously intact in its resin block, was found in the rubble like a talisman. A scorched print of Sol's first birthday, edges burned but faces clear.
Elara developed it again in Lupe's darkroom (a corner curtained off with blankets). Hung it above the loft bed.
Nova designed the rebuild. Bigger casita. Fireproof. Studio expanded. Nursery with skylight and built-in bookshelves shaped like track lanes.
They broke ground on Sol's fourth birthday. The town turned it into a party. Lupe brought the backhoe. Kids painted the foundation with handprints.
Construction sex became a ritual. After the workers left, they christened the beams and framing. Nova bent over fresh plywood, Elara's strap deep, dust in their hair. Elara against new walls, Nova on her knees, tongue relentless.
One night, rain rare and hard, they made love in the skeleton house, tarps flapping, mud under their backs, coming with thunder and the smell of wet earth.
The casita rose stronger. Adobe thicker. Wiring new. Fairy lights fire-rated. Darkroom with ventilation. Nursery painted soft dawn pink.
They moved in on the anniversary of the fire.
That night, the housewarming was just for them. Candles everywhere (battery ones). Mattress on the new floor. Sol is asleep in her new crib, monitor glowing.
They made love like rebirth. Slow. Reverent. Nova on her back, Elara above, strap deep and steady, rings clean and shining. Came whispering thank you to the house, to the town, to each other.
The catastrophe made them legendary.
The town told the story: the wives who lost everything and built it better, who made love in ashes and raised a daughter who chased bubbles through fire scars.
They hung the scorched print beside the new one: before and after.
Proof.
The home that burned taught them what they couldn't.
Everything else was just walls.