43. Tate
TATE
Iknock twice on her front door, the brown paper bag in my left hand already warming my palm through the grease-spotted bottom.
The scent of garlic and herbs drifts up from the containers inside—nothing fancy, just the kind of comfort food that fills a house with the right kind of noise.
The kind that says someone cared enough to think ahead.
The lock turns, and Jordyn opens the door with that particular expression she wears when she's been thinking too hard about something. Her smile appears a half-second too late, practiced but not quite reaching her eyes.
"Hey." She steps back to let me in, her gaze dropping to the bag. "You didn't have to?—"
"Figured you guys might be too busy to cook." I brush past her into the living room, already scanning. "Not to mention too tired."
Brody's backpack sits open on the coffee table, homework scattered in his precise way—pencils lined up, papers organized by subject. Normal. But there's something in the air, a tension that wasn't here yesterday. "Chinese okay? I got that sweet and sour thing Brody likes."
"Tate brought dinner!" she calls toward the hallway.
Footsteps thunder down the hall, lighter than they should be for a eight-year-old but full of enthusiasm. Brody appears in the doorway, still in his school clothes but with his shoes kicked off somewhere between here and his room.
"Did you get the fried rice with the little green things?"
"Peas," I say, setting the bag on their small dining table. "And yes, I specifically asked them to make sure there were plenty of little green things."
He grins, that rare full smile that transforms his whole face. "Mom says they're good for my brain development, but I just like how they're all the same size."
"Consistency is underrated." I start pulling containers from the bag, the ritual familiar now. White and fried rice, sweet and sour pork, beef and broccoli, egg rolls that Brody will eat exactly half of before deciding he's full. "Your mom help you with your math homework yet?"
"We did it together after school." He climbs into his chair, immediately starting to arrange his napkin and chopsticks in the precise pattern that makes sense to him. "I got all the multiplication tables right except the sevens. Sevens are weird."
"Sevens are weird," I agree, catching Jordyn's eye as she moves around the kitchen, gathering plates. She's quieter than usual, her movements a little too controlled. Like she's holding something back.
The containers open with small pops of steam, filling the space with warmth. Brody serves himself with careful concentration, making sure nothing touches anything else on his plate. Jordyn takes smaller portions, pushing rice around more than eating it.
"How was the station today?" she asks, and there's something in her tone—too casual, like she's working to keep the conversation in safe territory.
"Quiet. Wes spent most of the afternoon reorganizing the equipment bay. Again." I spear a piece of broccoli with my chopsticks. "I think he's nesting."
That gets a small laugh from her, the first real one since I walked in. "Nesting?"
"It's what he does when he's thinking too hard about something. Cleans, organizes, rearranges everything until it makes sense in his head."
Brody looks up from his methodical eating. "Like when I line up my books by color and size?"
"Exactly like that." I reach over and straighten one of his chopsticks that had shifted slightly. "Sometimes our brains need everything in the right place before we can figure out the big stuff."
The conversation settles into comfortable rhythm—Brody talking about a fire safety presentation at school, me telling him about the new ladder truck we're getting next month.
But I keep watching Jordyn from the corner of my eye.
The way she checks her phone twice during dinner.
The way her attention drifts even when she's nodding at the right moments.
Something happened today. Something that's sitting behind her eyes like a storm cloud, waiting for the right moment to break open.
I don't push. Don't ask. I wait.
Because I know she'll tell me when she's ready.
Later, after the plates are cleared and the leftover containers are stacked in the fridge, Brody retreats to his corner of the living room.
The blue light from his tablet flickers across his face as he settles into the familiar rhythm of his evening routine.
Headphones on, noise cancelled, a documentary about ladder truck hydraulics playing just for him. He’s safe. Contained.
Jordyn watches him for a long moment, her shoulders still tight with a tension that has absolutely nothing to do with a long day.
Then she exhales. It’s not a sigh of relief.
It’s the sound of a dam groaning under pressure, a deep, shuddering release of air she’s been holding for hours. Or maybe years.
She sinks onto the couch opposite me, her hands twisting in the worn fabric of her jeans.
"He called today."
The words are so quiet I almost miss them. I wait. Don't push. Just give the silence enough room for the rest to follow.
"Kyle." She says his name like it’s a piece of glass she’s trying to dislodge from her throat. "Brody's father."
And then it starts. Not in a neat story, but in jagged pieces. A rush of memory and rage.
"He saw the article from the fundraiser. Saw the pictures." A bitter laugh escapes her, sharp and humourless. "Suddenly, he wants to be a father. After all this time. Said he didn't even know where his own son was. Like I was the one who left."
Her gaze is fixed on the wall behind me, replaying a scene I can't see. The words spill out, catching on old wounds she never lets anyone touch. She talks about the diagnosis. The way Kyle’s face changed that day, going from concern to a cold, distant calculus.
The argument. His final words echoing in the empty apartment he left behind.
"‘I didn't sign up for this.’" Her voice drops, mimicking his flat tone. "Like Brody was a car lease. Something you could just walk away from because it had an unexpected defect."
I don't move. I don't speak. I just sit here, a steady object in the storm of her history, allowing her to finally let it all go.
She tells me about the years that followed.
The scrambling for jobs that would tolerate her sudden departures for therapy appointments.
The nights spent researching, learning, becoming the advocate, the protector, the entire world for a little boy who just needed one safe place to land.
She doesn't cry. The emotion is too raw for tears, it's pure, uncut anger, hardened by years of solitary survival. It’s the story of a warrior who never asked for the war.
Her words land in the quiet space between us, each one a stone dropping into still water.
Underneath the surface, a cold fury begins to build in my gut.
It’s a familiar kind of anger, the slow-burning type that comes from witnessing an injustice you can’t immediately correct.
The image of some faceless man walking away from this woman, from that little boy in the other room, plays in my head.
My jaw tightens. My hands rest on my knees, but my fingers press into the denim, holding back an urge to clench into fists.
I keep my expression even. My job right now isn’t to add my rage to hers.
It’s to absorb the shock, to be the solid wall she can finally throw her weight against. I meet her gaze, letting her see that I’m not just hearing the story; I’m understanding the years packed inside it.
The exhaustion. The fear. The sheer, uncut stubbornness that kept her standing.
She finally runs out of words. The furious energy that held her upright seems to evaporate all at once, leaving her hollowed out.
Her shoulders slump. Her hands, which had been twisting in her lap, fall still.
A single, ragged shudder works its way through her body.
It’s not a sob. It’s the tremor of a structure that has borne too much weight for too long.
She brings a hand up to cover her mouth, her knuckles white, her eyes finally closing.
The fight is gone, replaced by a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
I don’t offer platitudes. I don’t promise to punch him or make it all go away. The solutions can wait. Right now, what she needs is a foothold. I lean forward just enough to close some of the distance between us, my voice low and steady.
"You've already done the hardest part."
The words hang there, simple and true. She didn’t just survive; she built a world on the ruins he left behind. She got them here. He’s just a ghost rattling at a door she already locked.
Her hand drops from her mouth, and she takes in a slow, deep breath, her eyes still shimmering with unshed tears. She gives a single, small nod. The fight has left her, but in its place is a flicker of something else. Not hope. Something harder. Recognition.
I let the silence hold a moment longer before I rise from the couch. My joints pop softly in the quiet room. "I should let you get some rest."
I move toward the living room archway where the blue glow of Brody's tablet paints the walls. He’s in his worn pajamas, a weighted blanket across his lap, his expression serene as he follows the intricate movements of a digital engine schematic.
He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t need to. He knows I’m here.
"Night, bud," I say, my voice just loud enough for him to hear through his headphones. "Don't let the hydraulic schematics bite."
A small smile touches his lips, but his eyes stay fixed on the screen. He gives a tiny wave, a twitch of his fingers. That’s enough. He’s secure. Grounded in his world of order and logic.
I walk back to the front door where Jordyn waits. She looks smaller now, the anger that buoyed her gone, leaving only the woman who has carried it all alone for years. I don’t touch her.
Her eyes lock on mine. "Thank you."
It’s for more than the food. It’s for listening. For not running.
I just nod. "Get some sleep."
The door clicks shut behind me, the sound echoing in the cool night air.
The house settles into silence, a fortress holding its two occupants.
As I walk to my truck, something shifts inside me, a quiet recalibration of intent.
This isn't about being a soft place for her to land anymore. It isn’t just about making space for Brody or offering a meal.
Kyle isn't a ghost. He's a man. And men can be dealt with.
A new kind of weight settles on my shoulders, heavier than a tank of oxygen but just as necessary.
It's the sturdy, grounding weight of responsibility. I'm not just a visitor in their lives anymore, a friendly firefighter offering a tour of the station. I’m part of the foundation now, whether she knows it or not. The safety I help provide isn’t just emotional.
It has to be real. It has to be a line drawn in the dirt between them and the world that wants to hurt them.
I slide into the driver's seat, the engine turning over with a low rumble. This changes things. This makes it real. And I’m already in it. Deep.