Chapter 30Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 2006When Celeste turned the corner of the house, she saw her father, E.Q., feeding a fire in the fire ring at the far end of the yard.
Dressed in a red flannel shirt and faded bluejeans, he raked leaves out of a wheelbarrow into the big cement ring. The flames crackled and danced when the dry leaves hit, and more smoke billowed out. There was quite a cloud of smoke already, spilling out around front and over into the neighbors' yards. There was so much smoke that when Celeste and her brother and sister had first pulled up, they'd wondered briefly if the house was on fire.
For a moment, Celeste felt like she'd slipped back in time. The smell of the burning leaves, the sight of her father feeding the flames, the sound of the crackling fire and the rak
