We’re technically not in my hometown, but we’re in the closest big town to it. I can’t believe I never knew this place existed.
But I’m not here to think about the history of this place. I’m here to learn about him, and what makes him exist…what makes him tick?
They say time flies when you’re having fun and it seems like we’re waited on almost instantly and I don’t waste any time getting started.
“What made you get into firefighting?”
He exhales hard. “This is a discovery date, isn’t it?”
“Discovery date?”
“Yeah, we need to learn more about each other…more than just our lust for the other.”
“Although that’s a pretty good starting point.” I wink and bring my water glass to my lips before he quickly raises his, offering a cheers, and we clink glasses.
He sets his water glass down and exhales again.
“I lost someone a long time ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“No, it’s okay. You deserve to know.”
“Maybe not before we’ve even had our appetizers though.” I want to turn the conversation to a lighter tone, but now there’s an unanswered question that I need answered. The human mind doesn’t like unclosed loops and right now my mind has a very big one in regards to his backstory. “How about this…why haven’t you married?”
“You came prepared, didn’t you?”
I laugh, glad he’s taking this all in stride.
“Remember the fire captain’s memorial?”
“Yes.”
“That was the fourth anniversary of his death. And it was also the fourth anniversary of my first day on the job.”
I want to stop him but apparently I’ve picked two topics that while serious, I didn’t know would be this heavy. And I can see that he’s ready to continue so I just listen intently and respectfully.
“I grew up in a different part of the state and when it came time to be a fireman there weren’t really opportunities there. I moved to the big city, worked there for a few years, and then decided the big city wasn’t really for me. When I saw the position open up here I jumped at the chance. I had experience with some advance techniques in a place where there are a lot of fires. It’s hectic and it’s constantly a battle. Every day feels like a war against the flames. Well, I arrived and got a hotel for two weeks, which would give me time to get my feet wet at the station and look for a place in the meantime. It turns out that’s not really how things worked out.”
He takes another sip of water and I follow his lead, trying to mirror his behavior to make him feel more comfortable. I’m definitely a psychology and body language geek at times and that little tip has always stuck with me.
“So the first day on the job is slow…until it’s not. We get our first call and we’re off. I’m not completely up to speed yet so it’s sort of a trial by fire kind of thing, definitely no pun intended. So we’re racing to the engine and I’m the last guy. This is already off to a bad start.”
He pauses, breathing out yet again. I want to reach my hand out to him and offer some support, but the table is too long. Plus I’m frozen in my seat listening to his story.
“The guys are completely silent on the way. I’ve never experienced anything like it. They’re silent, but very intense. Their teeth are gritted, they’re hands are wrapped around the grips on the side of the truck so hard it’s like they’re going to squeeze through metal. That right there told me something was up. What? I didn’t know.”
Another pause.
“The moment we arrive we’re already getting the ladder in place and I realize what’s going on. It’s the captain’s personal residence. I see him in the window, yelling, ‘Get the kids!’”
He shakes his head.
“He’s just repeating it over and over and we’re raising the ladder as fast as we can, but it’s not fast enough. The floorboards cave in just as the ladder’s reaching the window and the other guys are bringing out the inflated jumping matt. Everybody was busting their butt to make this rescue…and we didn’t. We just needed a few more seconds…just a few more. The same few seconds we lost because they were waiting on me to get on the engine.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, leaning into the table and extending my hand, but he doesn’t move a muscle when my tiny hand covers the top of his.
“The investigators said the extra time wouldn’t have mattered, but for all I know they were doing a solid for my own psyche and maybe even the insurance claim. Who knows? All I do know for sure is that hit me like a ton of bricks. And not just me, the city. Captain Callahan was one of those happy-go-lucky Irish guys that everybody likes…not just likes, loves. And now he’s dead and his kids too.”
“But his wife?”
“She was at the grocery store picking up the birthday cake for their oldest daughter.”
I’m not sure if I want to cry or vomit. It’s like all the energy has left my body, and what was in the room just got sucked out. My weight all goes into my hand and arms as I really lean into the table.
“But the investigators also found out that it was arson. The thought at first was maybe one of the kids found candles or something, but there were no candles. The only candles were with the cake which sat in the back of Captain Callahan’s wife’s car as she cried her eyes out when she returned to see her house up in smoke. And the fucking newspaper ran a photo of it too.”
I feel his fist immediately harden underneath my hand, the heat from his hand radiating into my palm.
“So, feeling guilty I did exactly what I should and shouldn’t have done, depending on your code of honor. I went looking for that arsonist. I searched surveillance footage in town. I checked records. I even set up a trap, an old abandoned building that would have been prime picking for someone like that. I told the city workers to stop mowing the grass around it, but I still made sure there was a big dirt circle around it so if he did light it the fire wouldn’t jump and harm anyone. Well, the prick took the bait and I had the whole place under surveillance. I caught him and beat him to within an inch of his life, and I would have finished him too if your brother and two other guys hadn’t pulled me off him.”
He tips his entire glass of water back in one swallow, although there’s no sound. It’s natural, like something a man of his size might do.
“I was suspended with pay for six months, which actually made it worse in some of the taxpayers’ eyes. So now there’s some new fireman, who’s gone rogue, and practically killed someone from the community. I couldn’t believe it. The guy, although he doesn’t even deserve to be recognized as a human being in my eyes, is an arsonist. But apparently he had some mental issues, which were very questionable, never previously documented, and only showed up after the fact. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that people with mental situations need to be evaluated a bit differently than an everyday citizen, but I smelled an absolute liar.”
Then he goes silent, but I’m so fascinated by this that I can’t help myself. “Where is he now?”
“Don’t even get me started.”
“He’s not in jail?”
“He’s out.”
“What in the…”
“Your cream of mushroom soup, ma’am, and your beef tartare ,sir,” the waiter says, reminding me that he told me he eats one main as an appetizer and a second as his meal.
But that conversation seems like it was a lifetime ago, even though it was no more than ten minutes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your meal, but I’m always going to treat you like an adult, like you deserve. And that starts with letting you know what you’re getting into.”
I nod. “Thank you, and now it’s my turn to do the same.” I stare at my soup, glad that I prefer it cold because I can already tell it’s time to settle in.
This is gonna take awhile.
CHAPTER 13
Jonah
“When I was a ki
d my dad was relentless when it came to homework, and not just the kind that teacher’s assign,” she begins. “My dad was also a teacher so he placed an extremely high premium on reading and education. After dinner he would give me additional things to read and learn, which often pushed my bedtime later than it should have been for a child. But the one thing was that he always sat there with me. He’d be there in his La-Z-Boy, his feet up and if I stopped to take a bathroom break or anything he’d asked me what I’d learned so far. The thing about it was I couldn’t just recite what I’d read. He never accepted that. He pushed me to think, and really give answers that showed I not only read and processed the materials he had picked out for our mandatory evening sessions, but that I also really put a tremendous amount of thought into them. It was exhausting to say the least, and by the time he finally did dismiss me so I could go to bed I was both mentally and physically exhausted. I knew what passing out was before I even knew the term.”
I nod, letting her know I’m following along. And I’m not just following along, I’m processing her words and thinking about them tremendously, and quickly discovering why she’s now so mature for her age, so thoughtful, and so bright. I wonder if it’s like one of those overbearing parent things like Tiger Wood’s dad or something like that, but I know for sure in one way it’s not. She’s definitely not the type to have that Michael Jackson type of melt down, which many psychologists attributed to his father “stealing” his childhood. Regardless, I don’t care about those guys stories. I only care about hers.
“Needless to say I hated it. I mean, I was allowed to play and have friends during the time after school and up until dinner, and on the weekends, but that was it. Often by the time the weekend rolled around I was so exhausted I would sleep in, and then kind of ironically, I’d read more. But I read for pleasure and escapism then, which is probably why I picked up my first romance novella and then became hooked.”
“Makes sense.”
“But what didn’t make sense at the time, but clearly does now, is that my dad was preparing me for the real world. He was preparing me to be a thinker and to be tough. Some nights my head would fall forward on that desk and he’d come over and calmly straighten me back up in my seat and hold the pages for me…but he wouldn’t let me stop reading until I’d completed his lesson for that day. Mission accomplishment was always above troop welfare he’d sometimes say, which I realized later was a common phrase from the Marine Corps, where he’d served before becoming a teacher.”
“So a disciplinarian who dishes out tough love.”
“Exactly, but apparently not tough enough. As much as I despised what he was doing I admired his dedication to me. He didn’t have friends really, and didn’t do much other than devote his life to my brother and me. Once he passed away I realized that although his methods were unorthodox to say the least, he’d done an incredible job…not to toot my own horn or anything like that. But then that brought up two issues. One, I have a sort of admiration and reverence for teachers and two, I looked up to older people who used their wisdom to positively affect younger people.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem though. That sounds great.”
“In theory, yes,” she says, exhaling hard and moving slightly in her chair. “Until Geoff.”
“Geoff?” My hands tighten again and my jaw sets. I have no idea who this Geoff fucker is but I can see he’s hurt her, and that just makes me want to destroy him. And if she tells me the kind of story that’s already written all over her face I’m going to do exactly that.
“Geoff was my freshman year chemistry teacher at college…and sophomore year too. He was basically the dean of the department yet also taught a lot of classes, or at least the ones that were mandatory. That should have been my first clue right there. He needed control in every way.”
“I hate this guy.”
“Me too, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. So it’s not a thing were you can take his class just freshman or sophomore year and then escape him. Nope. He has control over your entire academic career, each and every year and from the top too. So he basically owns your future, and controls it for years…at least if you’re in the chemistry department which is where forensic science was grouped into at my college.”
I shake my head. Damn, I’m getting angrier still, although I didn’t think that was possible.
“The thing was he was an educator of course, so I revered him based on my dad, and he was older. Two great qualities. No, I didn’t have any sort of romantic thoughts or anything like that about him, but those two things, coupled with the fact that he was very well respected and had put out award winning research papers, well…he was kind of a god on campus.”
“He really built up this whole image that allowed him so much power.”
“Exactly. I just wish I could have seen it at the time.”
I reach my hand over to hers, just as she’d done for me minutes ago. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know,” she says, not missing a beat. “I’ve already relieved myself of that burden and I’m not going to carry a victim mindset…which is why I came back here in the first place.”
“So you’re…here now…to stay?”
“No, or at least I wasn’t.”
My eyes open wide not believing her words. If she’s planning on leaving then she better bet that I’m leaving with her. My record, minus the incident I told her, is spotless. I’m a good fireman, great to tell the truth although I’d never be pompous enough to make a claim like that. There are a lot of great firefighters, men and women, and never would I try to compete with them or upstage them. I’m surrounded by heroes, and modesty and gratitude for the right to be around them each day is truly a privilege.
“So, where does that take you…us?”
If she’s looking for a way to back out of what’s happening between us I want to hear it, not because I’ll accept it, but because that just gives me a chance to tell her how we can come to a solution…together.
“Well, my record is at the school so I know he can access that, although I don’t live in the house that the school has on file. My plan is, or was, I’m not sure now, to come back here and make some money for a month and then start college again far away from here and even farther from him.”
“Daphne?”
She nods slightly. “Yes.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me…or some things.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” I release her hand and form fists. “You’re on the run. What happened? What did he do to you?”
She says nothing and for the first time I hear a clock ticking in the background, the seconds passing, but I’m not relenting. I want to know what this prick is about so I can return the favor and give him a taste of his own medicine.
“I thought it was an accident at first, until I saw the pattern.”
“What pattern? What accident?”
“I noticed that when we had to pair up and I would be in a pair with a boy from class he’d be different…more edgy.”
“Jealous.”
“Exactly, but I didn’t understand how serious it was at first. At first we were allowed to pick our own partners, but then he changed that rule and always put me with other girls…but that was after his true colors showed.”
“What. True. Colors?”
“Sophomore year we were in the lab and I was paired up with a guy and we were doing a lab that involved acid. It was actually kind of fun and I was enjoying myself. Geoff came over and said we were doing it all wrong. There was a sink right in front of us and he said we had to dump it out and start all over. My partner and I both took off our gloves and went to wash our hands thinking he was going to dump it in the bigger sink by his desk. The sinks at our desks were pretty small and he’d kind of already turned his body like he was moving away. Well, my partner washed his hands first, but he did it really fast and just as he pulled his hands back I slid mine in…and Geoff dumped the beaker
in our sink.”
“So you…”
She rolls her wrists over, placing her knuckles on the table and I see burns on the insides of her forearms.
“That…” I taste blood as my upper teeth bite into my bottom lip.
“It’s not a big burn area at all and it truly seemed like a mistake at the time, but in hindsight I should have dropped the course right then and there and started searching for another college. But once you’ve invested so much time and money into college in the first place you don’t just back out when one thing goes wrong, even if it’s pretty serious. It’s just too expensive for starters, and knocks back your graduation date too...which makes it even more expensive in the long run, in both money and time. Looking back I’m practically the girl in the scary movie who’s too stupid to live.” She pauses as my rage continues to fill me, my blood’s boiling as it shoots through my veins, sucking up all the oxygen in my body, including the oxygen my brain needs to think rationally and to speak, which I can’t at the moment I’m so damn furious as this prick. “And I’m sorry you had saw...this. I know it’s ugly to look at.”
Brother's Fireman Friend (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 106) Page 7