Common Core High School ELA Question of the Day

I returned to the ridge the summer after the fire, following the thin GPS line where roads had been. The house's footprint was a pale rectangle, like a scar you try not to touch. I told myself I was here to catalog losses for the claim, but what I wanted was to recognize something. The neighbor's wind chimes were a melted twist. The mailbox numbers were gone, yet I kept looking for our name as if the metal might remember. A county truck idled out of sight. I spoke with a man in an orange vest; I don't remember his words, only how he kept glancing at my hands. There was wind. Ash.

I found the spot where the kitchen table would have been and stood there, inventorying what wasn't there: the blue bowl, the uneven chair leg, the cracked tile that used to catch my toe. I thought of my mother's lists, her neat columns and careful check marks, how she had written backup next to the recipes she kept meaning to scan. On the ridge, I felt like a list with nothing left to tally.