by Dana Corbit
“She has a broken heart?”
Reverend Fraser held his hands wide. “I usually try not to get involved in my daughter’s love life, except for giving her dates the third degree—that’s my privilege as a dad.” He paused, smiling. “Dinah says it’s hard enough getting dates when she has to bring young men home to the minister’s house. But this is different.”
Alex shook his head; none of what the other man was saying was making sense. “No disrespect intended, sir, but you might have misunderstood something your daughter said.”
Again, Reverend Fraser smiled. “That’s just it. She didn’t say anything. But she’s just been throwing herself into her work and trying to make a second career out of volunteering at church.”
“From what I’ve seen, Dinah always gives one hundred and ten percent in both of those places.”
“She knows those things won’t fail her.” The minister didn’t say anything about the men in Dinah’s past who had fallen short. “She says she’s fine, but she’s not fine. I hear her crying in her room at night.”
“Crying?” As Alex mentally replayed that last conversation between them, he couldn’t think of any reason she would have had for tears unless…
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand. When I suggested we needed to slow down until I got my head on straight about finding my birth mother, she made it sound as if there wasn’t anything significant between us.” Again, her comment that they hadn’t made any promises rang in his thoughts, and again those words smarted. “I don’t understand her at all.”
“Son, I probably could write a few volumes about what I don’t understand about women. This time, though, I don’t have to guess.” He turned his hand palm up in a gesture of simplicity. “My daughter was embarrassed about her feelings and didn’t want you to know you hurt her.”
It made sense, and Alex could relate to the sentiment. He hadn’t wanted her to know she’d hurt him, either. Did it also follow that Dinah cared as much as he did? He was still pondering that possibility when the minister spoke up again.
“You mean this break you suggested really was about your questions about your own history and nothing else?”
“Of course it was. What other reason would there be?” But as soon as he said it, that other reason became clear. “She couldn’t possibly think I was pulling away because of her family, could she?” How could she believe it was anything other than his identity crisis?
“It wouldn’t be unheard of,” the minister said, one side of his mouth lifting.
“But I told her—”
The older man was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter what you told her. What matters is what she heard.”
“It’s ridiculous. She has to know that.”
“Irrational maybe. The way most of our fears are irrational.” He paused as if to wait for Alex’s attention before continuing. “Unlike most of us, my daughter has fears that are based on experience, and she’s finding it hard to get past those.”
“What do I have to do to convince her that I’m not like those other men she’s known? Not like that Bill.”
Instead of reacting in surprise to his revelation as he expected, Reverend Fraser smiled. “I sensed that you were different, and if Dinah will only trust her instincts, she’ll realize it, too. I came here to assure you that as long as you really care about our daughter, you don’t need to feel any pressure from Naomi and me.”
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about, either. I’m in love with your daughter.” Funny, he’d never pictured himself saying words like that, and he’d certainly never expected to confess it to anyone’s father before he even told her, but the words felt so natural to speak aloud. “I hope to have a future with her, but I can’t move forward until I find out who I am.”
“You already know who you are, even if you never find your birth mother. You’re a good and honorable man, who puts others’ needs ahead of his own.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Dinah knows. If you weren’t all of those things, our wise Dinah would never have fallen in love with you.”
Alex swallowed, the minister’s words giving him hope. “I just hope she can wait. Until I find my answers, I don’t have anything to offer her.”
Resting both hands on the edge of the table, the Reverend pushed himself up to standing. “Talk to her, Alex. Let her know how you feel and that you’re not going anywhere. Dinah already knows who you are. You never know. She might even be able to help you restore your lost faith.”
“How did you…”
“I’ve been doing God’s work for a long time.”
Alex was digesting that when another thought struck him. “Does Dinah know you’re here?”
“Are you kidding? And give her proof I’m a meddling father?”
“So you don’t want me to mention your visit when I talk to her?”
Reverend Fraser grinned, as he must have realized that Alex had said when and not if. “Why don’t you wait to tell her that until, oh, about your fifth wedding anniversary?”
The October sun shone a little brighter the final Friday morning of October as Dinah wrote a list of science vocabulary on the dry-erase board in her classroom. She realized all that extra brightness might have come from inside her, but she didn’t care.
After school today, she and Alex were going to meet, and she was so excited to see him again that she had to struggle to stay focused on the science chapter.
“Who can tell me a good way to remember the difference between rotation and revolution?” She glanced around the room and waited for the usual five hands to pop up with the answers, but this time she had no takers. “Come on, guys. Remember, the top?”
“Rotation spins like a top,” Austin Carlyle called out from the front row, putting extra emphasis on the first t in rotation and the first letter in top.
“You’re right, Austin. ‘Rotation’ is the way the earth spins, or rotates, on its axis. Next time, though, I need you to raise your hand when you have an answer.”
At least he remembered her mnemonic device if he’d forgotten the classroom rules. She went on to repeat the differences between the scientific terms, hoping her students would soon remember the concepts as well as the devices they used to remember them.
But even as she went on with the lesson, her thoughts returned yet again to Alex’s cryptic telephone call last night.
He’d said they had a lot to talk about, that he thought she had the wrong idea about something, that there were a few things upon which they both could agree. Thinking about those things tempted her to hope, and that much hope was rendering her useless.
“Who can tell me how many days it takes for the earth to make one full revolution around the sun?” she said, determined to stay focused.
Chelsea was the first one to lift her hand that time. Dinah couldn’t help smiling at the little girl who’d come so far in these last weeks, who was returning to her old self despite all the uncertainties in her life. Together, she and Alex had helped the child reach this new place, and no matter what happened from this point on, at least Chelsea would be okay.
“Yes, Chelsea?”
“Three hundred sixty-four and a half.”
“That’s right. Great job.”
After the science lesson, Dinah sat at her desk so she could record spelling scores in her grade book while monitoring her students as they completed their independent study work.
After a few minutes Dinah stood to announce recess when a sound she’d hoped never to hear again without prior warning erupted around them.
Another false alarm? Dinah didn’t bother trying to keep her groan silent because no one could hear it, anyway.
“Okay, everyone, please line—” she began, but stopped when she realized her students were already lining up next to the door. They’d even grabbed their coats this time and were pulling on the sleeves as they stood in line. If there was one good thing that had come from their frequent �
�drills,” it was that her students had the procedure down pat.
It didn’t make any sense, though. Alex’s fire safety presentations had seemed to be so successful at first. She’d really believed that the children understood now the importance of keeping everyone safe and the peril of false alarms. It broke her heart to think that one of her students, or one of anyone else’s, may have missed the point.
Trying to keep her disappointment in check, she switched off the classroom light, locked the door and started toward the exit with her twenty-four students behind her. No, she amended the number to twenty-two, accounting for the two absences from the current stomach flu making the rounds at school.
As she neared the end of the hall, a strange scent invaded her senses, like plastic packaging set too close to the fireplace on Christmas morning. She had to be imagining it, she told herself, as she hurried to the open door, her students following closely behind her. This was probably just another false alarm and another humiliation for the staff.
She stepped outside into a wind so fierce it stole her breath away. In the distance, the sounds of approaching sirens battled the wind for dominance. In a matter of minutes, the engines and squads would race into the parking lot, firefighters sitting at the ready, only to confirm a false alarm and return to the station. At least she wanted to believe that was how it would happen.
Just as she’d done on each occasion before, Dinah led her class to their place by the flagpole and had her students turn back to face the building. She opened her grade book to check the names on the list against the line of students standing next to her.
“It smelled funny inside,” one of the boys was saying as she passed him.
“Maybe it’s a real fire,” another answered.
She tried to ignore the comments that gave voice to her suspicions as she started down the list. She was only halfway down the list when something inside her stomach clenched and her skin went cold. Where was Chelsea? Anxious, she scanned the rest of the line, the students numbering only twenty-one. At once, she could picture on the board the name of the last person to use the restroom pass: Chelsea W.
It was such a strange repeat of history, and yet it didn’t feel the same at all. Chelsea would never pull the alarm again; Dinah didn’t doubt that for a minute. Chelsea would never want to embarrass Alex that way again. So if she was still inside, she was either too scared or too hurt to come out.
“Look, there’s smoke,” someone nearby announced.
“No.” The word rushed out of her but the sound of the wind covered it.
Panic felt like a pair of hands gripping her throat from behind, but she shook away its hold. She had to focus. If she lost control now, she couldn’t help Chelsea. She listened as the sirens drew nearer. They were close but not close enough. Chelsea needed help right now. Catching sight of Shelley Foust’s row of kindergartners next to her, Dinah stepped over to her.
“Shelley, I need you to watch my class.”
“Fine. But why?”
“I have to go back in.”
“Dinah, you can’t. It’s the real thing this time.”
“I have to. Chelsea’s in there.”
Without a look back, Dinah rushed across the parking lot to the side entry, yanked open the door and let it slam behind her. At once she was surrounded by darkness and weighted silence in the hallway. Already, the building had lost power.
Dinah became still, waiting until her eyes could adjust. The darkness wasn’t complete, she discovered, as light filtered through the windows beside each classroom door. Anyway, she knew this place well, even in the dark.
Because that haze was probably smoke, she crouched to the floor and started in the direction of the third-and fourth-grade restrooms. Her eyes and nose burned. Lord, please help Chelsea to be okay, and be with her so she isn’t frightened. Amen. After she’d finished, she realized she hadn’t prayed for her own safety. God probably got the idea, anyway.
“Chelsea. Where are you?”
She heard nothing but the sound of her own voice and some mechanical-sounding pings. Staying low to the ground slowed her progress, but she continued toward the third-grade classrooms.
Only when she was almost there did she begin to second-guess herself. Just because Chelsea had been headed toward the restroom earlier didn’t mean she was still there. What if she’d made it out after all—with one of the other teachers?
What if Chelsea had been outside with her class all along, and Dinah had overlooked her in a panic? What if Dinah had just made the biggest mistake of her life, and she and Chelsea would both have to pay for it?
She reached the end of the hall, not sure which way to go. Should she move forward or try to back her way out of the building? Panic welled in her throat, or maybe that was the smoke. She couldn’t tell.
“Chelsea? Are you in here?” she called out again.
Nothing.
Her lungs were beginning to ache. She reached up to pull the collar of her sweater over her mouth and nose. She was just across the hall from the restroom, convinced she wouldn’t find anything inside, when she heard the scream.
Chapter Fifteen
F or the first time in his life, Alex hoped someone had tripped a pull station on purpose to wreak havoc. He should have been furious that Station Four had been called out for another alarm at Grove Elementary, especially after he’d made it his personal mission to ensure it wouldn’t happen again, but he didn’t care.
Let it be a false alarm, he repeated like a mantra. It was almost a prayer.
Still, as he crouched low in one of Engine Four’s jump seats, he couldn’t help willing the truck to move faster. That sixth sense he’d developed on the job—the one he’d come to trust as implicitly as he trusted his fellow firefighters—told him this just might be the real thing.
“Radio to Engine Four,” came a call from the emergency radio. “Per the RP, flames and smoke are visible in the building.”
Alex’s breath caught, and dread welled inside him. He needed to get there, to no longer rely on the second-hand reports of the “RP,” or “reporting person.” He had to see for himself what was happening at Grove Elementary. Had all the false alarms made the students and staff complacent? What if someone had thought it would be fun to hide inside the building instead of going outside with his class?
Trent Gillman, the driver, who would also be the most senior firefighter on the scene and would be setting up the command structure on the ground, had already assigned one of the others to speak by cell phone with the school principal. If they could locate the building plans, they might be more likely to find the seat of the fire sooner.
As soon as they pulled into the parking lot, they could see the flames shooting from the roof. While a few of the firefighters unrolled and charged the lines, Alex jogged in the direction of the staff, looking for the custodian and the building plans the staff had located.
As he hurried past the lines of children and educators, he couldn’t help scanning for the third-grade classes. Dinah would be there, Chelsea would be there, and he could be reassured that they both were safe.
Only when he reached their class, he didn’t see either of them. He looked to the back of the line and followed it with his gaze to the front again. Where were they?
A young teacher he hadn’t met before hurried over to him.
“You’re Alex, right? I’m Shelley, Dinah’s friend.”
He nodded. “You don’t know where—”
Without hesitation, she turned and pointed to the building. “Dinah’s in there. She went after Chelsea.”
The words struck him like a two-by-four to the gut. Alex felt paralyzed with a fear he’d never experienced, even in the most dangerous fires. But he’d never loved like this before, and these were two of the people he loved most in the world.
Then, as if to confirm what he already knew, the radio secured at his shoulder squawked then. “Radio to Engine Four. There’s a report of two persons trapped inside the building.
”
“They’re going to be fine.” He said it as much to convince himself as to reassure the teacher.
With that, he rushed back to the firefighters charging the lines. He’d never been so tempted to run into a building without having water available—the ultimate mistake in firefighting—but he would wait, if they hurried.
“Dinah’s in there, Trent. Dinah and Chelsea. I have to go in.”
Trent started shaking his head. “I don’t know, Donovan. I think you’re too close to this one. You might be less help—”
“I also know more about this building than anyone else in the department. And I know where Dinah’s class is.” He looked frantically at the front of the building. “We’re wasting time. We have to go in now.”
Trent gave him the nod, and he and Cory Long joined two other firefighters in dragging the hose into the building. Together, Alex and Cory entered on their hands and knees, following the line of the wall and one of them always keeping a hand against it. Already smoke filled the hallway, stealing whatever remaining light they might have found there.
At the first intersecting hall, Alex knew to turn right and head toward the third-grade classrooms, but when they reached Dinah’s class, the door was still locked. If they weren’t there, where were they? Breathing in a gulp of the canned air from the SCBA only reminded him that Dinah and Chelsea had no fresh air at all. They had to find them…before it was too late.
“Dinah? Chelsea?” he called out, his words garbled by his mask. “Are you in here? Are you hurt?”
“Keep moving, Donovan,” Cory told him, his voice equally distorted. “They have to be somewhere.”
Just ahead of them, a ceiling beam gave way, falling to the floor with sparks spraying in all directions. Flames shot from the ceiling above them, and it was only a matter of time before the fire surrounded them. Maybe Dinah and Chelsea were already surrounded.
Dear God, please help us find them. Please, Lord. I’ll do anything. Please. Before it’s too late. It can’t be too late. I have to have the chance to tell her I love her.