Chapter 20
The alarm went off at 3:05 a.m., shocking Warren’s system from deep slumber to alertness with a jolt. The men from C Shift hurried to the apparatus floor in their turn outs, listening to the instructions from dispatch. A house was on fire, with flames showing five miles away, on a cul-de-sac not far from Laurie and Alison’s house.
“It’s the engine today, boys. Hop in,” Warren called, knowing that other units were rushing too.
A typical house fire in Harper Landing needed two engines, a ladder truck, a couple of aid cars, a command unit, and around fifteen firefighters, whoever was available and had the right equipment assembled to form a full team to fight the fire. Sometimes that meant calling in help from local cities, depending on the nature and quantity of emergencies.
As Dennis took the wheel, Warren typed into the mobile data terminal while he conferred with dispatch.
“We’re going to be the first on the scene,” Warren said, mentally preparing himself to be the incident commander. “Next units are trailing us by six minutes.”
Warren’s shoulders tensed as they drove through the familiar streets toward Alison and Laurie’s neighborhood. He knew their house wasn’t burning, but that was a small relief. Someone’s family would be irrevocably changed this morning, and Warren understood how that felt. In the distance, he saw an orange glow brightening the sky with a light rivaling the rising sun.
“I see it,” Saul barked. “That’s one helluva blaze!”
“It looks like a split-level,” Dennis commented, “like that one from April where everyone but the teenager died.”
Warren clenched his jaw. He didn’t need the reminder.
Neighbors were gathering along the sides of the streets, wearing bathrobes and slippers. Dennis made a difficult turn and pulled the rig into the cul-de-sac to park at the best angle for hydrant access, while still leaving room for more vehicles to come.
Warren estimated that the hydrant was located two hundred feet from the blaze. He listened to the news from dispatch. “All five family members are accounted for,” Warren repeated.
“I bet that’s them over there.” Saul pointed at a group of sooty figures, the woman sobbing, the man pulling his hair, and three boys locked arm-in-arm.
Before he got out of the rig, Warren radioed in his report. “Engine Two at location,” he said. “Fully involved split-level. Second-in engine to lay supply line. Engine Two will be pulling an attack line. I’ll be conducting a three-sixty.”
Split-level homes were common in the Puget Sound area. Most of them dated back to the 1960s and 1970s. Opening the front door would lead to a staircase that went upstairs or down. The upstairs floor plan was nearly identical in every home in the neighborhood. But the downstairs had been left up to the homeowners to finish as they saw fit.
Warren jumped out of the vehicle to do the size-up then ran over to the family. “Is everyone out of the building?” he asked the couple, wanting to confirm the information from dispatch.
“Yes.” The man nodded. “We barely got out the front door before the stairs caught on fire.”
“This can’t be happening!” The woman blinked rapidly, wiping tears and soot out of her eyes with grimy hands. She collapsed to the ground and screamed. “No! This isn’t true!”
“I need you and your neighbors to stay back and out of our way.” Warren spoke in a firm, steady voice, loud enough for all the onlookers to hear.
“We’ll stay back,” said an old man with a potbelly. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“There, there, dear,” said a woman with white hair. She knelt on the ground and embraced the hysterical mother. “At least you have your sons.”
“Good.” Warren nodded, his eyes darting to the three boys before he looked back at the fire, studying its volume and intensity but also analyzing the exposures.
What isn’t on fire yet, but could be? Taking a three-hundred-sixty-degree survey of the surrounding area, he saw century-old Douglas firs and Western cedars towering over the home. The trees were part of a greater canopy that stretched across the neighborhood. If they didn’t get the fire under control soon, the cul-de-sac would go up like a bonfire. With rescues unnecessary, confinement was Warren’s highest priority.
Warren got back on the radio to let dispatch know what he’d discovered. “Dispatch, Engine Two. Fully involved. Occupants are confirmed out. Engine Two needs a supply. Going defensive. Pulling exposure line to Bravo.”
Hopefully, the five hundred gallons of water in the engine would be enough to put the fire out before the second engine even got there. Warren trotted back to his crew.
“Those shake shingles are going up like tinder!” Dennis exclaimed.
“The Bravo side of the house is three meters away from a garden shed.” Warren’s mind raced as he pictured the many explosive items that could be stored in that shed: lawn mowers, gas tanks, and propane for the grill.
Sirens sang in the distance as Saul ran up to the hose bed and helped Warren pull the attack hose to the right of the blaze. They strapped on their self-contained breathing apparatuses. Adrenaline made them barely notice the weight. Dennis operated the pump panel. Putting a large volume of water on the fire as quickly as possible was their primary goal.
Warren aimed the nozzle at the left side of the house, the Bravo side, and let her have it. Saul faced backward and leaned against Warren, forming a human brace to support him as he controlled the hose. It took both of them to handle the one hundred fifty pounds per square inch of water pressure coursing through the line.
The fire blazed so large that entering the house wasn’t possible. They focused on suppressing it from the exterior. Both men sweated as fire, exertion, and the hot summer morning cooked them in their heavy gear. By the time the battalion chief arrived and took control as the new incident commander, the fire had stopped spreading. Additional crews helped them extinguish the blaze completely.
Hours later, after they’d helped overhaul the scene, Warren, Dennis, and Saul loaded up their equipment and drove back to Station Two. Cleaning their gear and equipment took their last bits of energy. As tempted as they were to collapse in their recliners and rest, the men showered off the saltiness from the fire, knowing that there was a high chance their bodies were covered in carcinogens they couldn’t see. They brushed their teeth because the tastes in their mouths were so foul.
It wasn’t until seven a.m., when Saul was napping in his room and Warren and Dennis were sitting at the kitchen table, that Warren was able to drink a cup of coffee, eat a piece of toast, and slow down.
“At least nobody died,” Saul said, spreading Irene’s homemade raspberry jam on a piece of toast.
“ At least you have your sons,” Warren remembered the old woman saying a few hours before. People had told his mother those same words after the fire when he was a boy. Only in Warren’s case, it wasn’t true. Astrid and Larry didn’t have their children, not for two whole years after the fire. Life for their family was never the same again.
Warren grunted. “Yeah,” he said, not wanting to talk about it further.
There were too many memories, too many painful things he’d witnessed, not only in his own life but in his past twenty years of firefighting, to make processing this easy. It was never easy. Deaths and burns were obviously traumatic, but seeing that mother sobbing on her knees and begging the universe for answers was traumatic too. It would take weeks, months, or maybe even years of trauma before that family pieced their lives back together again.
The two men lapsed into silence until Dennis’s phone buzzed, interrupting their contemplation. Warren supposed he ought to check his messages, too, but his phone was in his locker. Alison would be worried. She’d probably heard the news on the scanner by now but wouldn’t have told Laurie or Mikaela what was up.
And there was Dawn, beautiful Dawn, whose sweet lips he could still feel pressed against his own. Warren closed his eyes, savoring the memory. But he felt so low, so discouraged and depressed, he wasn’t sure it was fair to burden her with his unhappiness.
“Would you look at this? Irene texted me a screenshot from Harper Landing Moms.” Dennis slid his phone over so Warren could see the picture.
It was a nighttime photo of Dawn, Sierra, and Mark posed in front of a tent like a happy family. Seeing Mark beside Dawn, instead of himself, only brought Warren down lower.
“That girlfriend of yours started a protest at the beach,” said Dennis. “Matt posted about it on Harper Landing Dads this morning.” Dennis took his phone back and clicked through the feed until he came to another picture of Dawn and Sierra, this time without Mark, looking tired but happy in the morning light.
“Good for them,” Warren said flatly. “Maybe it’ll make a difference.”
“Irene said it already has. More campers are on their way.”
“Cool.” Warren rose to his feet and put his dishes in the dishwasher.
“I thought you’d be more excited about this. Irene went on and on about what a cute couple you were at that party on Saturday and how you and Dawn kept sneaking kisses when you thought nobody was looking.”
“I’m tired, Dennis.” Warren closed the dishwasher. “I’m going to take a power nap before we go home.” He headed to his room before Dennis could answer.
But before he could sleep—or attempt to sleep—Warren checked his phone. Sure enough, his inbox was full.
How are you doing? Alison had texted.
Fine, he lied. How’s Mikaela? he asked before remembering that she was probably still asleep.
Warren waited for Alison to answer, but she must not have been near her phone.
Exhausted and in a poor state of mind, he clicked over to read Dawn’s texts. There were a lot of them.
The worst thing has happened! Dawn had texted last night. They voted yes on the bridge. Can you believe it?
Thirty minutes later, she’d added. I have a plan. I’m not done fighting yet. Sierra and I are going to camp out on the beach to protest.
Mark’s joining us because he doesn’t want us there alone overnight, she texted next.
I miss you, she’d written that morning, adding three heart emojis. So much.
His heart softened when he saw that. Warren didn’t know what he’d done to deserve a woman like Dawn missing his company. He was still the kid couch-surfing in his uncle’s living room. The man watching his ex-wife drive away. The fire captain extinguishing a blaze but unable to stop a family’s life from being destroyed. He was all those things and so much more. Dawn deserved better. But so did Mikaela.
Warren called Dawn. “Hey,” he said, his voice husky. “I miss you too.”
“I’m so glad to hear your voice,” she said cheerfully. “Warren, you wouldn’t believe it. More protesters are starting to arrive.”
“That’s great. I’m proud of you.”
“I’m proud of me too,” said Dawn. “I never thought I could do this.”
“I knew you could from the moment I first saw you.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Warren closed his eyes, the sound of her voice steadying him. “Mikaela and I will camp out with you tonight. Could you save us a spot?”
“I sure will,” she said. “Right next to mine.”
A little bit of the sadness weighing Warren down lifted off his chest.
Warren left work half an hour later, picked up Mikaela, went home, and crashed on the couch. He slept for six hours straight, only vaguely aware of Mikaela binge-watching The Great British Baking Show next to him. He woke up mid-afternoon, ravenous, and wolfed down the sandwich Mikaela had made him for lunch.
“We’re still doing this, right?” Mikaela asked as she watched him eat the sandwich. “Camping out on the beach?”
Warren nodded. “Yes, absolutely. But only if you want.”
“Of course I want to go.” She stood from the barstool. “I’ll go get my sleeping bag.”
It took another hour to gather their gear and pack more sandwiches. They both looked forward to the adventure. Mikaela had charged up her phone and packed her instant camera with two extra rolls of film.
The trouble was, Warren wasn’t sure where to park his car once they arrived at the beach. Parking downtown had a three-hour limit. There was a bus line, but Warren preferred his own wheels, especially since there was always the chance that Mikaela could have an allergy attack. As they drove closer to the water, he ran through his options. He could park on the street and take the chance of being towed. He could commandeer the visitor parking spot at Station Two, but that would mean a long walk. Dawn’s driveway was also a possibility, but that journey would be even longer. Warren’s stress level rose as high as the incline of Ninth Avenue, and when they turned onto Main Street and crested the hill, he still didn’t have a plan. But then an idea struck him, and it was just weird enough that it might work.
Warren turned left onto a cross street and kept driving until he reached the Harper Landing Sons of Norway Hall, four blocks from the water. Sure enough, the parking lot was wide open. There was only one lonely car in the lot, an ancient Volvo plastered with bumper stickers.
Warren parked next to the sedan and rolled down the windows. “This will only take a second,” he told Mikaela.
“Okay,” she said, not looking up from her phone.
Warren climbed the steps to a front porch that appeared recently built. The rest of the building was decrepit with peeling paint and old casement windows. Warren shuddered to think what the electrical wiring must look like. The lot was a prime location, close to Main Street with an astonishing view of the water, but that didn’t mean the lodge’s financial situation was robust. When Warren had emailed the president, Erik Erikson, last week about the possibility of joining, the man had seemed surprised that Warren was contacting him.
“Hello?” Warren knocked on the front door then pushed it open a minute later when nobody answered. “Is anyone here?” Still not hearing anyone, Warren tried again, this time in Norwegian. “Hallo ? ”
A tall, thin man with a gray beard walked into the main room to greet him. “Hallo,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Hello, sir. My name’s Warren Berg.” He held out his hand to shake. “I was wondering?—”
“Warren Berg?” The old man’s eyes lit with glee as he shook Warren’s hand. “I’m Erik Erikson. I believe we emailed. Boy, you weren’t kidding when you said you were serious about joining.”
“Well, yeah.” Warren nodded. “I am. But that’s not why I’m here.” He explained his parking dilemma and asked if his Xterra could stay overnight.
“I don’t know.” Erik rubbed his chin. “Our folk-dance club meets Thursday nights.”
“Halling? That’s one of the reasons I want to join the lodge.” Warren danced a few steps. “My daughter’s interested too.”
“Our youth group would love another member.” Erik clapped his hands. “Right now, we’re down to six kids, and”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“two of them are Swedes. But nobody’s perfect.”
“Truth,” said Warren, suppressing the urge to laugh.
Erik looked out the front window at the parking lot and then back at Warren. “Yes, you can park here. But let’s get you and your daughter registered as members before you go.”
“ Takk ,” said Warren. “I appreciate it.”
Warren filled out some paperwork and handed over his credit card. Once he was an official member, he headed back to the SUV. He gave the lightweight sleeping bags to Mikaela and loaded everything else on his back and into his arms.
Their progress was slow as they walked towards the beach, but each step they took filled them with excitement. Hope was in the air, fresh as the scent of salt and seaweed.
“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” said Mikaela. “I’m so excited. I told Emilie, and she’s really jealous.”
“How’s Emilie doing?” Warren asked. “I haven’t heard you mention her name in a while.”
Mikaela adjusted her grip on the sleeping bags. “She’s been busy. We’re kind of growing apart.”
“That can be tough.”
“Yeah,” said Mikaela, “but it’s okay. Now that I’m going into middle school, I want to be friends with people who make better choices.”
“Good thinking,” said Warren, pleased to hear her say that. “You’re becoming wiser than me.”
“Huh?” Mikaela looked sideways at him. “But you always make good choices.”
Warren shook his head. “Not always. Sometimes, I screw up. I’m sorry I didn’t let you invite your own friends to your birthday party, instead of mine. That was selfish of me.”
“Oh.” Mikaela bit her bottom lip for a second. “Thanks.”
“And maybe I could have let you go to the end of Sierra’s birthday party, for the pizza and cake. I still think those trampoline places are dangerous, but I could have helped you go for part of it.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to eat the cake anyway because of the cross contamination.” Mikaela frowned. “But you always send me with something I can enjoy instead. Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you mad at Sierra’s mom for choosing the trampoline place?”
“Mad at Dawn?” Warren shook his head. “Nope. Nobody’s perfect,” he said, remembering Erik’s words. Especially Swedes. He smiled, thinking of Mrs. Olson’s suspicions about Dawn the day they visited her estate sale in Ballard.
But when they reached the beach and saw dozens of campsites spread out across the sand and protestors everywhere they looked, he knew he was wrong. Dawn was about as perfect as a person could get, as far as he was concerned.
There she was at the center of everything, speaking passionately to the crowd, with Sierra at her side. Warren couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he saw her audience listening. Every few minutes, they would erupt into cheers, shouting “Save the beach!” She was smart, fierce, and beautiful, plus a damn good mother. Warren began to walk faster so he could hear what she was saying.
“Slow down,” Mikaela pleaded. “These sleeping bags are getting heavy.”
He tempered his pace. “Sorry.”
A few minutes later, they reached a clear spot of sand where they could place their belongings. Mikaela stood on the cooler so she could see better, and Warren shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand.
“And that’s why what we’re doing here matters,” Dawn said in a loud, clear voice. “This beach belongs to all of us, and we can’t let it be destroyed. Take a picture. Tell your friends. Email the city council and demand they listen. Tell them to tunnel under Main Street if they have to but to keep their construction projects away from this shore.”
“Save the beach! Save the beach!” Chants came from everywhere and didn’t stop until a coal train approached and it became impossible to hear.
Warren covered his ears with his hands and counted the cars as they passed. One... two... three... He got all the way to sixty-one before the noise stopped.
“That’s the real problem,” Dawn called when the train was gone. “We can’t let coal trains ruin Harper Landing!”
“Save the beach!” Sierra cried, riling up the crowd once again.
Warren joined the chanting, his deep voice traveling far. “Save the beach! Save the beach!”
Dawn looked in his direction, her eyes lighting up with recognition, and she smiled. She pulled her hands to her chest, made a heart sign, then pointed at him. Sierra ran across the sand and started helping Mikaela with the sleeping bags, leaving Warren to manage everything else on his own, which he was used to. But then he saw Dawn marching across the driftwood in his direction. She picked up the cooler.
“That weighs a ton,” said Warren. “How about you take Mikaela’s duffle bag instead?”
“Sure.” She set down the cooler and rose onto her tiptoes. “But how about a kiss first?”
Warren scooped her into his arms and pressed his lips firmly to hers. He wanted to deepen the kiss, to explore her mouth with his tongue and run his hands up her shirt and feel the smooth skin of her back, but he held back out of respect for their surroundings and the fact that their daughters might be watching. Plus, Dawn was a community organizer now. She had a reputation to maintain that probably didn’t include making out with him in the center of an environmental protest.
“Where to?” he asked when they pulled apart. He picked up the cooler.
“Over here.” Dawn grabbed the duffle bag and led him over to an expensive-looking tent. Unlike the Coleman he’d bought from Walmart, Dawn’s tent had a complete rainfly.
Matt Guevara waved as they passed. “Hey, neighbor!” His sleeping bag lay on a yoga mat with a blue tarp over it.
Warren nodded. “Hey, yourself. Glad to see you.”
They passed other people Warren knew, too: Marlo Jonas and Ben Wexler-Lowrey, Aaron Baxter, the man who ran Wanderer’s Home, the kid whose parents owned the Smoothie Hut. Warren even saw the teenage hostess from the Parisian Café, sitting on a blanket and playing cards.
“I’m glad you guys got here in time for the live music,” said Dawn. “The Monte Cristos are playing later.”
“Can Mikaela share a tent with me?” Sierra asked.
“Um...” Dawn looked at Warren.
“Is it a three-person tent?” Warren asked. “Maybe that can be the girls’ tent, and I’ll pop my tent up next to yours.”
Dawn nodded. “Good idea.”
The sleeping arrangements didn’t matter much since no one got much shuteye, not with the Monte Cristos playing until eleven or the coal trains coming at regular intervals, making such a racket that everything rattled. It was way past midnight when Mikaela and Sierra finally fell asleep.
Warren and Dawn sat on her camping chairs in front of his tent, talking quietly as the protest slumbered.
“I brought you a surprise,” he said, reaching into the cooler.
“Oh yeah?” Dawn wrinkled her forehead in confusion when he handed her an insulated mug. “Why did you have a thermos in the cooler?”
“Take a sip and find out.”
“Okay.” Dawn slid the top open and took a sip. “Beer.” She giggled. “Is this Redhook?”
Warren grinned. “I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
“Good thing you’re a firefighter and not a policeman.” She took another swig and handed the mug back to Warren. “Alcohol’s not allowed on Harper Landing Beach.”
Warren took a drink. “I can put it back in the cooler if you want.”
“Don’t you dare.” She snatched the mug back. “After the past twenty-four hours, sitting on the beach with you and sharing a beer with our girls sound asleep nearby is heaven as far as I’m concerned.”
“Me too.” He relaxed as much as he could in the camp chair, which was so small that his knees went up to his chest.
“How was your day?” Dawn asked. “How was work?”
“Fine.”
“That’s it? Fine?”
Warren nodded. “Yup.”
Dawn passed him the mug of beer. “Huh,” she said.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that there was a post on Harper Landing Moms about a house fire, and I wondered if you might have been there.”
“Were you worried?” He looked at her closely for her reaction. The last thing he wanted was to add to her stress.
“A little,” Dawn admitted. “But I messaged Irene, and she said not to worry, that you would tell me if I needed to know.”
The tension in Warren’s shoulders eased slightly. “I like Irene, and I know it’s hard for her to be a firefighter’s wife. It’s hard for anyone to be involved with a firefighter.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.” Dawn rested her elbow on her knee and leaned closer to him. “Were you at that fire today?”
“First on the scene.” Warren drew a line in the sand with his foot.
“You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.”
Warren wasn’t sure if he wanted to or not. He never used to tell Raquelle about his job. She never wanted to know. But he was trying to do things differently now, to be more communicative, especially with the woman who mattered in his life. Dawn was made of tough stuff. He knew she was capable, but was she strong enough to bear all the darkness he’d seen?
He let out a deep breath. “There were three boys,” he said. “And they reminded me of me and my brothers as soon as I saw them.”
“Oh gosh.” Dawn held his hand.
“Nobody was hurt, but they lost everything.” Warren meant to just tell her about the past twenty-four hours and leave it at that, but once he started talking, he couldn’t stop. “Their house was a mid-level split, and last April, one just like it burned up because a lint trap caught fire in the dryer. The dad had thrown in one last load of clothes to dry before they went to bed, and then, poof. Not enough smoke detectors. They didn’t close their bedroom doors. The fire ripped through the house like a tornado.” Warren closed his eyes, picturing the charred figures.
“I heard about that one,” Dawn whispered. “Only the teenager survived, right?”
Warren opened his eyes. “Yeah, because he’d sneaked out after curfew.” That story reminded him of another one. Last month, a teenager had blown his face up when his vape pen exploded. Before he knew what he was doing, he told Dawn about that incident too.
The stories kept coming and coming, pouring out of Warren like water pounding through an attack line. He bombarded Dawn with the worst things he’d seen in his past twenty years of service. When he was done with those, his voice was so raw with emotion that his throat hurt, and he couldn’t stop the tears from forming. He told her about the friend he’d lost in a three-alarm fire in a Mill Creek apartment complex. He told her about two more buddies who were on disability, one for a broken back and another for PTSD.
“You see?” Warren asked. “Do you understand what Irene meant when she said it was better not to know?”
“That’s not what she said.” Dawn squeezed his hands. “She said you’d tell me if I needed to know.” Dawn leaned forward and kissed the tears on his cheeks. “I love you, Captain Berg,” she whispered, “and you can tell me anything.”
Dawn’s words were balm to his soul. “I love you too,” he said huskily. “Jeg elsker deg,” he added in Norwegian.