14. Tate
TATE
"Yeah, buddy. We can do that." The words are out before I fully think them through, but the look that flashes across Jordyn’s face—a splinter of hope wedged in a wall of exhaustion—tells me it's the right answer. I nod toward the main bay, the source of the engine hum and the occasional shout.
We move from the relative peace of the rescue bay back into the station’s thrumming heart.
The air here tastes different, a mix of diesel, cleaning fluid, and stale coffee.
A couple of off-duty guys are talking near the kitchen, their laughter a sharp burst of sound.
I deliberately slow my pace, letting a few extra feet open up between us and them.
I position myself on Brody’s left, creating a small buffer between him and the cavernous, echoing space.
It’s a trick I learned with Eli. You don’t remove the noise; you just become the quieter thing next to it. You become the anchor.
"It looks big," Jordyn says, her voice a little thin against the bay’s ambient noise.
"It is," I confirm. "But it all breaks down into steps.
Everything we do has an order." I point to a series of yellow levers near the truck's midsection. "When we get to a scene, this is one of the first things we do. See these big metal feet? Outriggers. They have to go down before the ladder goes up. One, two, three, four. It’s always four. That makes the truck stable, so it can’t tip. "
Brody’s eyes follow my finger, then move to each of the four massive stabilisers. He’s building a map of the process in his head. I see it in the slight furrow of his brow.
I lead them past the cab to my locker, which stands open.
My bunker gear waits inside—pants pooled around boots, jacket hanging ready.
"This is where my gear goes. It's always the same.
When the alarm sounds, you don't have time to look for things.
" I touch the thick fabric of the pants.
"Boots inside the legs, always. You just step in.
" I gesture with my hands. "Step, pull, suspenders. Three moves. Then the jacket. It’s not about being fast. It’s about not having to think. The pattern does the work for you."
Brody looks from the gear to my face, then back to the gear. He’s quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the empty boots. He's not just seeing equipment. He's seeing a system. An answer to the chaos.
Brody’s gaze stays locked on the empty boots, his small body perfectly still. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jordyn tense, her hands twisting the strap of her purse. She opens her mouth, probably to fill the silence, to smooth over the pause she assumes is a problem.
I give her a small, almost imperceptible shake of my head.
Then I slide down the cool, painted metal of the locker beside mine, folding my long frame until I’m sitting on the concrete floor.
I rest my elbows on my knees and wait. The sound of the bay fills the space—a distant radio crackle, the soft hiss of an air compressor kicking on.
I don’t watch him directly. I just exist in the same space, letting him own the quiet.
It’s almost a full minute before he moves. His finger, small and hesitant, lifts and points to my jacket.
"How do you know which one is yours?"
The question is so precise, so logical. Jordyn lets out a breath, a tiny puff of air that speaks volumes.
"See the name stencilled on the back?" I lean forward just enough to point. "MCCRAW. We all have our names on our gear. And my helmet has the number of my truck on it. Ladder Seven."
His eyes flick up to the helmet on the high shelf. He doesn’t say the number, but I see his lips form the shape of the word. A piece of data locked into place. He takes a small step closer, his sneakers silent on the polished floor.
"What’s in the pockets?"
The question hits me with a jolt of familiarity.
It isn’t the typical kid’s question, not what’s that tool for?
but a question about order, about placement.
It’s the exact kind of thing Eli would ask, needing to understand the system before he can trust any of its parts.
This isn’t a mystery to me. It's a language I've spoken for twenty years.
"In my right pants pocket," I say, keeping my voice even, "I keep a webbing strap, a pair of wire cutters, and a wooden door chock. Always the right pocket."
Brody’s own hand goes to his right pocket, his thumb brushing over the denim as if tracing the outlines of the tools I named. He’s running the sequence, feeling the logic of it.
"Why?" he whispers.
"Because in a fire, the smoke gets thick. Sometimes you can't see your own hands," I explain. "You have to know where your tools are without looking. You have to trust they’re where you left them."
He looks up then, his gaze meeting mine for a solid second before skittering away toward Ladder 7. "The pattern."
"Exactly," I say, a genuine smile pulling at my mouth. "The pattern does the work for you."
I stay on the floor, giving him the space he just claimed.
Across the bay, Jordyn is a statue of crossed arms and knotted brows.
She’s been watching our exchange, her posture coiled tight, ready to spring forward and intercept a meltdown.
But it never came. Now, something in her guard loosens.
Her arms uncross, her hands falling to her sides.
Her gaze drifts from Brody to me and back again, a flicker of something raw in her eyes.
It's the look of someone watching a stranger effortlessly navigate a maze they’ve spent years mapping alone.
A disquieting mix of relief and resentment.
She thought she was the only one who spoke this language.
Brody turns from my locker, his focus shifting back to the engine.
He takes a small step, then another, his initial hesitation gone.
He walks the length of Ladder 7, a small satellite orbiting a red planet.
His hand hovers an inch from the paint, feeling the sheer size of the thing.
The bay, with its echoing sounds and vast, open spaces, doesn't seem to press in on him anymore. It’s as if he’s found the structural beams in the chaos, the grid lines holding it all together.
He stops near the rear of the truck, his head cocked.
"Where does the water go in?"
I push myself to my feet, the concrete cool against my palms. "You see that big metal cap? That's the intake. The hydrant hose connects there."
His eyes follow my pointing finger, then scan the truck. "And it comes out of the top?"
"Sometimes. Or it can come out of these smaller ports here," I walk over and tap a smaller valve. "It depends on what the fire needs."
He nods, accepting the logic. His movements grow bolder. He steps closer, his fingers now brushing against a folded yellow hose packed neatly into a side compartment. He runs his hand over the coarse, woven material.
"What is this for?" He doesn’t look at me, his attention completely absorbed.
"That's a supply line. It carries the water from the hydrant to the truck."
He traces its path from the compartment back towards the intake port. A line connects. A system reveals itself. He looks up at me, a hundred more questions forming behind his eyes, each one building on the last. He isn't panicking. He’s organizing. He’s making the space his own.
Brody's questions keep coming, each one building like steps in a careful sequence.
He wants to know about the ladder's extension mechanism, about the compartments filled with axes and pike poles, about the radio frequencies crackling from the cab.
I answer each one, watching his small frame grow more confident with every exchange.
He's found his footing here, in this structured chaos of tools and protocols.
"Can I see inside the cab?"
"Sure thing." I open the heavy door, the hinges groaning slightly. "This is where the engineer sits. He's the one who operates the ladder from here."
Brody peers into the cab, his eyes scanning the array of switches and gauges. "What does this one do?"
I straighten to point out the aerial control panel, and my gaze drifts past him toward Jordyn. What I see there stops me cold.
She's standing exactly where I left her, arms wrapped around herself like she's holding something in.
But it's her face that hits me—the careful mask she's been wearing since they walked in has slipped.
Her eyes shine with an intensity that makes my chest tighten, bright with something she won't let spill over.
She's watching her son engage with my world, watching him ask questions without fear, watching him belong somewhere for what might be the first time in too long.
Her lips are pressed together, not in disapproval but in the desperate effort of someone trying not to break apart in public. She blinks once, hard, and I catch the slight tremor in her exhale.
I've seen this before. The moment when a parent realizes their kid isn't broken, isn't too much, isn't the problem everyone else made them believe. The moment when they see their child through someone else's eyes and discover he's not a burden to be managed but a person to be understood.
"That controls the outrigger extension," I say to Brody, my voice steady even as something shifts in the space between Jordyn and me. I don't look at her directly, but I feel her presence like heat from a fire. "You press this button, and the stabilizer legs extend automatically."
Brody nods, filing the information away. "What if the button breaks?"
"There's a manual override. Everything has a backup system."
She turns slightly, pretending to examine a display case filled with old department patches, but I catch the way she swipes quickly at her cheek.
The gesture is so small, so private, that witnessing it feels like an intrusion.
But I can't unsee it, can't unfeel the way it settles something deep in my chest.
Neither of us acknowledges what just passed between us, this wordless recognition. But the air has changed, charged with an understanding that wasn't there five minutes ago. She's not just watching her son anymore—she's seeing him. And somehow, impossibly, she's trusting me to see him too.