The Fireman's Wife

by Jack Riggs

  Maybe that's one reason I stay out here in the middle of nowhere. I know, when it's time for Kelly to go, there will be no hesitation in her steps. She'll be okay when she leaves because she'll take some of this place with her. The marsh gets into your bones and settles there, good or bad. I want her to come back often. I want her to need salt in the air for the world to seem right.

  I wait, watching her climb the stairs, the darkness at the top swallowing her before I turn away. Down at the pier, Clay's engine sputters to life, the small flat- bottom scow disappearing into the marsh before I can join them. Cassie sits alone at the edge of the pier. The few lights I've strung up along the dock fight to push back the night. From the porch, I can tell she is dressed up more than she should be for a softball game, her skin white, almost glowing under the sundress she wears.

  Suddenly I am aware of the afternoon again, the call about the boy drowning off the pier, how I felt something wrong, a fireman's sixth sense that told me danger was too close. My throat clinches up as I find the reason for my hesitation this afternoon. I watch Cassie light a cigarette. She pushes a hand through her hair then looks toward the house waiting for me to walk down so it can all begin.

  The sudden feeling of loss takes my breath away.

  Cassie

  PECK COMES TOWARD THE PIER, the silence broken only by the sound of Clay's boat fading in the distance. He blamed the tide, said he needed to make it out before the water was too low, but I wonder if Clay just didn't want to face Peck, afraid of what might happen in the darkness of the marsh. It doesn't really matter, though, his words from this afternoon are still there to hold me steady, to remind me of what I have chosen, what I must do. If you pretend nothing's going on, then nothing's going on.

  Before today, we kept our visits in the shadows, alone in places where we would remain strangers to those who might see us together. We would come no closer than Georgetown, though even that was not far enough away. People from Garden City and Surf-side have business in Georgetown all the time, but we were lucky and never got caught. Sometimes we'd drive to Pawleys Island at night and walk the beach while Peck was on duty and Kelly sleeping. We were almost caught there once when Kelly showed up in a car full of her friends and parked on the other end of the lot.

  She has always been forbidden to do such a thing, to ride out to the beach after dark. But Ellen Thomas has her license and is a troublemaker, always coaxing Kelly to be an accomplice to her crimes. That night I hid on the floorboard of Clay's truck until Kelly was on the beach and we could drive away. I couldn't punish her for fear of being found out myself, nor would I ever let Clay take me to Pawleys Island again.

  After that, our trips moved farther south toward Charleston and north just across the state line to Calabash, North Carolina, all day trips to small, out- of- the- way motels. Rooms that were dark and sullen, so dirty and dangerous tourists would never think of staying there. It was always exhausting and guilt- ridden, but the pleasure of having Clay, pretending we were on our own, rehearsing plans that are now truly going to happen, made it worth the risk.

  I watch Peck walk quietly along the dock, his eyes cast downward, the marsh so quiet it puts an ache in my bones. The sharpness of this moment makes me shake even though the heat has refused to let go of the air. He comes to stand next to me. The muscles along his jaw ripple like waves, his back rigid and wet with sweat. “Couldn't he stay to say hello?” he asks, then offers a cigarette before I can answer. When I accept with a shaky hand, Peck notices, holds the cigarette back. “You cold?”

  “No,” I say, “just tired.”

  He gives it over then, lights the tip. The flame of the match forces me to close my eyes.

  “He was here to see you,” I tell him, which is true, at least in part, “but he needed to get away, make sure the tides stayed in his favor.”

  He looks a minute longer, calling me a liar with his eyes. “You don't have to explain yourself,” Peck says.

  “I'm not explaining myself,” I snap back. “Just thought you'd want to know, that's all.”

  He turns, his arms catching the weight of his body as he leans against the rail. When he spits into the water, he smiles like he's keeping a joke to himself. It raises the heat along my neck until my face burns. I get up and stand beside him, the air dark and hot, smelling of wet mud as the tide pushes out. I want to come right to the point and tell Peck that I'm leaving to meet Clay in Walhalla, but I can't do it. It frustrates me, my indecision, the fear really of telling Peck to his face. I've tried before, but it never goes right, and with Kelly up at the house, I just can't do it again. She doesn't need to hear it when our marriage finally fails.

  Peck's wearing a T- shirt, the sleeves pulled up to his shoulders, his hair tousled like he just woke up. Jeans hang on his waist without a belt to hold them. I know he's been in the water. “You think being on that surfboard is more important than being at your daughter's game?” I say, wanting it to hurt.

  Peck doesn't move, just turns his head to look, his eyes tired and narrowed. “No, I don't, Cassie. I had no choice.”

  “There's always a choice, Peck. You chose surfing instead of your daughter.”

  “You got Lori's call about the drowning?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Well, then you know where I was. You know what I had to do.”

  There's silence then. I won't ask about the boy drowning. I don't want to know about a tragedy like that, so close to home, a child wandering off somehow and then it being too late to do anything about it. I can't imagine that happening to Kelly, but it could. Peck taught her to surf when she was ten, but trying to watch that small spot of a girl struggling to get out beyond the break was too much for me. It kept my heart in my throat. Even now, though she is strong and athletic, ready to be taller than me, I don't like her doing it, pushing out there at all hours of the day and night if we'd let her.

  Tragedy shows no favorites, Peck says. We have to be ready for anything. Of course he's talking about the station, accidents and natural disasters, hurricanes and fires that don't ask you anything before wreaking havoc upon your life. But it can be meant for other things too. I've seen tragedy in the mountains when death stalked those who never saw it coming, took them with a whisper, not a shout like the accidents Peck sees.

  I want my daughter safe, the world so much more dangerous than a fifteen- year- old could ever imagine. I want Peck safe too, even though it's harder to feel that right now. What I feel mostly is the impossibility of staying here any longer, the urge to leave almost desperate. “Did you see Kelly?” I ask.

  A small breeze breaks across the marsh lifting the strands of hair around Peck's face. “Yes, she told me about the game, said some girl hit her hard.”

  “It was early,” I tell him. “She settled down.”

  Peck looks at me then, his blue eyes so sharp even in the darkness that I have to look away. “Kelly said you had something to tell me.”

  Up at the house, there's a light on in Kelly's room, her window open, so I try to be careful, weighing my words. “Yes, I do,” I say. “There was a coach from North Carolina at the game. He saw Kelly pitch and wants her to come to his camp.”

  “And where would that be?” Peck asks.

  “Up in Cullowhee, near Momma.”

  Peck thinks about this for a minute, studies me with his eyes, then says, “I think that's a good idea.” His response surprises me. Still, I'm careful not to mention Clay, not give too much away. “It'll be good to have more time up there,” he says. “That will make Meemaw happy.”

  Whiteside Cove is a day's drive from Garden City Beach, but to me, it's a whole world away. That place put a mark on me so deep that I have yet to figure out the flatness of the low country.

  Peck can see a storm coming for miles before it hits the marsh. He told me once he could hear the tide rise and fall, knew where it lay by just standing quietly and listening, never looking at a chart or a clock. I told him that was the craziest thing
I'd ever heard. “You can listen to anything you want,” I told him, “but I'm suffocating out here.”

  He said he understood, but I had my doubts, and so after my father died, I started going back to the mountains every summer to escape the heat and the ugliness of the marsh. In the last couple of years, the trips have been even harder because when I return to Peck, I'm like a cornered dog. I'm just all twisted up inside. Peck sees it in me every day. It's been a fight from the beginning to stay here as long as I have.

  “I think it would be good for Meemaw and Kelly both,” I say, trying to agree. Peck squints at me, smoke from the cigarette curling into his eyes when I show him the application papers for the camp. I tell him that it will last for two weeks, that we will need to extend our stay in the mountains because of it.

  “That's a lot of her summer, Cassie.”

  “She'll love it, Peck. Besides, it will be good for her game.”

  “Her game,” he says, laughing dismissively under his breath. “She's only fifteen.”

  “But this is when it starts. Clay says they look at girls Kelly's age. He knows the coach, says he's one of the best.”

  Peck turns away when I mention Clay, looks out on the marsh. “He said all that?”

  “Yes,” I tell him. “He went to school in Cullowhee. Did you know that?” The question goes too far, of course he knows. Peck looks back at me, his stare reprimanding, reminding me there arem still parts of his life that I should leave alone. He was as close to Clay as he was with Teddy. They all fished and swam the creeks together, surfed along the beaches, and lifeguarded in the summer until Clay left for college. The great distance, the changes that occurred over four years’ time changed their friendship forever. Clay tried to push against the grain of things when he came home, expected more because of his college degree. He expected Strachen to recognize how much more he brought to the table. “An educated fireman ought to get a station,” he told me after Peck got the call to run Garden City Beach. They had a falling-out shortly after that and Peck seemed hurt when I tried to argue Clay's point.

  “You can't fight a fire with books, Cassie,” he had scoffed. “Next time you see him, tell him that.” The words next time stunned me. Clay Taylor and I had begun to talk about things, accidental meetings that became planned and calculated so we could be together for longer periods of time. It wasn't an affair yet. We wouldn't sleep together for some time. But there was enough going on that I was scared Peck was calling me out that afternoon. Tonight, as back then, he's hurt by my words, by my taking sides with Clay. He turns to walk across the dock. “What else?” he asks.

  “What else what?”

  “What else did old Clay want? If he was here to see me, he sure didn't wait around very long.”

  “He's going to quit,” I tell him.

  “Quit what?”

  “Quit you, Peck. He's quitting the force.”

  “Well, he doesn't need to tell me that. He needs to tell Surf-side.”

  “He has,” I say. “Today in fact, then he came out to tell you, and when you weren't here, he left.”

  “He knew where I was.”

  “He thought you were already off,” I lie. “He was out here about three, went on to see Kelly play and I'm glad he did because he knew that coach. That was worth it, don't you think?”

  I look up to the house. The light in Kelly's room is off now, but I bet she's there, watching, listening from the window.

  “What's he going to do with all his spare time now,” Peck asks, “help our daughter get a scholarship to college?”

  “He just knew the coach, Peck. You don't have to be so ugly about it. He's going to Walhalla. He's going to be chief up there.”

  “That's convenient,” Peck says. “Walhalla's less than two hours from Whiteside Cove.”

  “He's getting a promotion. You got what you wanted, so why can't anyone else have something? Can't you be happy for Clay?”

  “He was needed at the station today when that boy drowned, that's all I know.”

  “He's got the time,” I say.

  “Time? Time for what?”

  “Vacation time, time off, Clay said he had time off.”

  “You know a hell of a lot about his time off, about becoming chief in Walhalla,” he says. “Why all of a sudden have you become interested in a fireman and his promotions? Seems to me just yesterday you didn't give a rat's ass about mine.”

  I look back to the house and see Kelly moving in the darkness, listening to things a fifteen- year- old should never have to hear. “I'm leaving tomorrow,” I say. “She needs to be there Sunday to check in. He's holding her a spot.” I wave the papers to Kelly's camp in front of him hoping they might hide my lie, but Peck's not buying any of it.

  “Are you coming back this time?” he asks. His eyes hold me, dare me to take the next step.

  “I don't know,” I say and then hold my breath for the weight to fall.

  He stays where he is, looks away, releasing me for the moment. His toe pushes against the weathered wood like he's grinding a cigarette dead. “You know, today, taking that call on the drowned boy I felt something—” But then he doesn't finish his thought.

  It hurts to see Peck like this when he's not in control. I think about taking it all back, telling him of course I'll come home from Momma's. But I don't. I stay strong, and hold my ground. It's enough, I keep reminding myself. Fifteen years of trying to stay is enough.

  When I don't respond, he seems to accept what has not been spoken outright. “All right then,” he says, his hands lifted into the air. “I'll stay at the station tonight, but you tell Clay he better not come around, just tell him to keep away from me.”

  “He told Surfside he'd work this week for his notice.”

  “You tell him, I got it. He can go with you tomorrow, promote himself in Walhalla a week early.”

  I sit on the bench, weakened, head in my hands, afraid Peck might offer something more and I won't be able to fend him off again. Instead he smiles, a hand thrown up in a wave as he turns to walk back toward the house, leaving me alone with my little mess.

  Peck

  INSIDE, KELLY'S WAITING, something I didn't want to have to deal with, but here it comes. “Where are you going?” she asks when I walk through the door.

  “Nowhere special, just back down to the station.”

  “I thought you were off duty,” she says, more a statement of fact than a question.

  “Well I was,” I say, opening another cold one. “But Clay's just quit the force so we're shorthanded. I got to help carry the load. You know how that is.”

  “I don't want you to go,” she says.

  I look at her on the landing, leaning against the rail. It makes me ache to know what her mother and I are doing to her. But there's really no choice. “Sorry,” is all I can say, “it's just a matter of circumstances.”

  Kelly moves down the steps in her stocking feet, sits on the bottom of the stairs, her body nearly invisible in the dark shadows. “I wish you never made lieutenant. I just wish you were a fireman like you used to be.”

  I come over, take a seat beside her. “Well, young lady,” I say, “you get more because I work more, so don't be forgetting that.”

  She grabs the beer from my hand, takes a quick swallow to make a point. Her face turns up like the brew's spoiled, so I don't have to say anything about her insolence.

  She leans into me, wraps her arms around her bare legs. “I don't want to go to the mountains,” she says. “I don't want to go to some camp for two weeks. Let me stay here with you.”

  “You can't do that, angel. You know how Momma is about you going up there to visit Meemaw. Besides, a two- week softball camp sounds like fun. You'll have a blast.”

  “Then you stay here,” she says. “You take me tomorrow. That's only fair.”

  “I'd love to, baby” I tell her, “but I've got to go help at the station. That's the honest truth.”

  Kelly raises her face to look at me, her cheeks
moist with tears. “Don't lie to me.”

  “Honey, I won't lie to you. I've got to go because of Clay.” Kelly puts her face into my shoulder, and it really pisses me off that she understands my lie in a way that makes it truth. I hold her for just a minute more and then I get up, tell her to go on to bed, that she's got to go with her momma. I can hear her door slam after she runs upstairs crying, but I don't have time to fix it right now.

  I don't take any clothes when I go. I've got a small stash at the station. I want to be gone before Cassie decides to come back inside and start the whole thing over again. I leave the house and don't look back until I'm in my truck driving away. The house remains visible through the side mirror until I take a curve and it disappears around a dark corner of sweeping Spanish moss and low- hanging oak trees.

  Alone, the wash of dashboard lights paints the inside of my truck a sick green. I turn on the police scanner like a habit to pull me up, get me thinking about anything other than Cassie and Clay going off somewhere together. She's going to leave me and I just can't fight for her right now. I've let her go until the space she put between us got too wide. Now Cassie needs something more than I know how to give. I love her more than life itself, that's a fact, but sometimes, I guess that just doesn't seem to be enough.

  After we were married and Cassie was disowned by her father, we moved to Garden City Beach. We weren't on the marsh then, just in a small house two rows back from the beach. It was hard, Cassie sick all the time carrying the baby. We didn't have good money coming in. I don't know what we would have done if my father hadn't helped out. Pops took some extra work in Georgetown at the steel mill, stayed over on weekends to make a little more so we could survive while I tried to get hired on with Surfside Fire. Pops didn't want me going to Georgetown, didn't want me working in a mill like he did all his life. “It breaks a man too far down,” he told me once. “It would be nice if you could take a step up.”

  Cassie and I split up three times that year before Kelly was born. It's a lie to say I gave her some room to breathe because we were damn sure broken up, so much to the point that Cassie moved all her stuff out twice during that time. And then after Kelly was born, we nearly killed each other because of the child's colic. She cried like she was hurt, like we were doing something to her that she didn't like. Cassie could never find the herbs in the low country Meemaw would have used to help calm Kelly down, and when she tried to call home, the phone either rang forever or was picked up and then put down immediately. No hello or good- bye—nothing. My mother tried to help, but Cassie was just beside herself and wouldn't listen to anyone.