Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
OSCAR
VALERIE
Are you sure you’re ready to be back?
OSCAR
I’m good.
VALERIE
It’s only been a week sweetheart
I sigh down at the screen as I approach the side door of the station. We’ve been over this a hundred times already. I send off a final message, not wanting to get into this again.
OSCAR
Got to go, call you later.
I lock the device and slide it into my pocket, ignoring mom’s incoming reply.
I stare up at the red brick wall in front of me, the building I haven’t been in since that night. I swear it’s never looked so big before. The department told me to take as much time as I needed, but I was going crazy at home.
I’m not sleeping, I can hardly eat. Freya’s trying to take care of me, but I don’t want to dump all this on her. I needed to get out of the house, at least here, I can do something productive. Besides, I won’t have the thing that Mack built, the thing he gave his life for, go to shit on my watch.
There’s a flash of light, sparks as the beam comes down. I can hardly see it through the smoke but I can just about make out Mack’s face before he’s lost in the dust.
I gasp, jolting myself out of the memory. I can’t stop seeing it. I rub a fist over my eyes like I can wipe it away. With a deep breath, I convince my hand to reach for the handle and open the door.
The station looks exactly the same. It smells the same, that faint trace of disinfectant cutting through whatever’s cooking.
But it doesn’t sound the same. Usually there’s shouting, music blasting from the gym, the sounds of arguing and laughter in the same mix.
Now, it’s just quiet. Not silent. I can still make out conversations and doors shutting throughout the building, but it’s as if the soul has been sucked out of the place.
Fuck, I don’t know if I can do this.
I’ve spent days expecting the phone to ring. I haven’t heard from our area chief since he called and told me to come back whenever I was ready, but I know how these things go. Once he knows I’m in today, he’s going to ask me to take over as acting captain. My stomach sinks just thinking about it.
I pass by the open door of the lounge. Jenna’s inside with one of the EMTs talking quietly from either end of the sectional.
In the corner, there’s Justin, but when he sees me in the doorway he gives me a polite nod and leaves through the other door.
We haven’t really talked since trivia night, only enough to work together.
I don’t know what there is to say. We were never friends.
If he wants to clear the air, then he needs to come to me.
I’ll still be professional, I’ll have his back in the field the same way I would anyone on the crew, but he’s definitely getting cut from our trivia team.
It’s not like he ever knew the answers, anyway.
“Murph!” Jenna calls, spotting me leaning over the back of the couch. “Didn’t realize you were gonna be in?”
“Yeah, I got some paperwork to do.” I’m not allowed to go on calls for another week, so it’s just desk duty until then.
“Anything exciting?” she says with a smirk.
I manage a weak smile. “Finishing up Ryan’s probation shit.”
“He’s passing?” She straightens. “Shit, that’s fucking great.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Don’t say anything to him, alright? Let me get it all squared away.” Mack started the process a few weeks back, so there shouldn’t be much left to do.
Ryan’s a good kid, and a great teammate. Plus, the crew could really use the boost right now and making him a fully-fledged firefighter might be what we all need.
“‘Course not.”
“Alright.” I give the doorframe a tap as I step back. “I’d better get on.”
“Have a good one,” she says as I go.
I brace myself as I head down the hallway to Mack’s office.
The door’s shut and I wonder if anyone’s been in here, or if it’s just been sealed up like a crypt.
I trace a finger over the embossed lettering on the front.
CAPTAIN. I’m just glad it doesn’t say his name.
I don’t think I could make it inside if it did.
My chest clenches and I have to take some steadying breaths before I can make it inside.
The room’s exactly as I last saw it and my knees nearly give out. There’s even a half-drunk cup of coffee on the desk, dropped next to the coaster instead of on it. He must have put it down in a hurry when the alarm went off.
The strangest thing about the days after we lost my dad was finding all the random things that he’d been halfway through doing.
The half-read book on the nightstand, a plate of leftovers in the fridge.
We hadn’t wanted to touch any of it, not wanting to make it real.
It felt like maybe if we just left it long enough, that he’d walk back in and pick up where he left off.
I kind of feel the same way now. It feels wrong to be here, to be disturbing Mack’s system.
The shrill chirp of his PASS alarm keeps ringing, over and over, telling me he’s not moving. I try to lift the beam, to move any of the rubble, but I can’t get to him.
I fall into the chair. It’ll be okay. I just need some more time and I’ll be able to shake it.
I stare at the bookshelves, covered in all his pictures. Is Joni going to want those back? I should text her sister, see what she says. But later. Right now, I can’t handle the thought of them coming in and clearing them away, leaving the office like he’d never been here.
I keep glancing toward the door, my body expecting him to stick his head in and ask what I’m doing in here. I feel like a fraud. What business do I have trying to run anything in his absence? I just need to find Ryan’s paperwork, then I can get out of here.
It doesn’t take me long to find the form I need, not in his meticulously organized system.
When I pull it out, I find it already filled in and signed off.
Of course. Why did I ever think it would be different?
Mack would have had this ready and waiting for some big moment.
He was probably planning to order a cake.
I’m ready to start researching local bakeries when there’s a tap on the doorframe. I look up to see Ryan himself, hovering halfway over the threshold. I give him a smile, knowing exactly how he’s feeling.
“Hey, Murph,” he says, his tone as somber as I’ve ever heard it.
“Hi,” I reply, sounding about the same. “How are you doing?”
“Yeah, alright.” He pauses, thinking. “Actually, I’m doing pretty shitty.”
I huff out a grim laugh. “Sounds about right.”
“I saw your truck in the lot, wanted to see how you were.”
“I’m doing pretty shitty too.”
He crosses his arms, staring down at the floor. “You didn’t wanna take any more time off? Chief said we could have as much as we needed.”
“Nah, I needed to be here.”
“I get you.” He doesn’t say anything for a long minute, and when I look up, I see him shuffling around, staring down at his feet.
“You good?” I probe.
“Yeah, I just… there’s something I wanted to ask.”
“Of course.”
He finally comes into the room, closing the door behind him. I gesture to the seat across from me, like I’ve got the right to, and wait for him to sit. Even when he does, he still won’t quite look at me.
“I wanted to ask about that night.”
I have to force myself not to flinch. “Ask what?” I just about manage to keep my voice even.
“Is it my fault?” he spits out in a rush.
I frown at him for a second, trying to figure him out.
“Ryan, why would you think that?” My heart breaks for him a little. He looks so small in that chair, so scared.
“I was in that room before you guys. I should have seen that the roof wasn’t sound. If I’d noticed, then maybe—”
Ah, shit. “Stop,” I cut him off. “You’ll make yourself crazy if you think like that. You and I both know how fast things can change in that kind of situation. The beam was probably solid when you were there.”
“But, I—”
“Ryan, you can’t go there.” I lean in, hoping he’ll hear me.
God knows I know exactly how he feels. I’ve been over and over that callout a thousand times, wondering what I could have changed, how I could have done things differently so that Mack made it out.
I don’t want Ryan to have to go through the same thing.
“We all sign up for this job knowing the risks. Mack wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself. ”
“I feel like I let him down,” Ryan whispers, head hanging.
“You could never let him down. He saw exactly who you are.”
He looks up, eyes shining. “Who’s that?”
I almost laugh. It’s like Mack knew this conversation would happen. Maybe that’s why he left the paperwork, his final letter of recommendation written. I hold it out for Ryan. It takes him a second to reach for it, and longer to realize what he’s got in his hand.
“From Mack?”
“He knew you were ready.”
“Fuck,” he chokes out, voice thick. I watch as he reads down the page, taking in what Mack wrote about him. He probably gets through about half of it before scrubbing a hand across his eyes and rushing to stand. “I’m um… I’m gonna take this—” He gestures toward the door.
“See you later, man.”
“Thanks, Murph.”
He shuts the door behind him and I blow out a long breath, fighting back my own tears.
Fuck, I need to get out of here, this was a bad idea.
I stand, ready to bolt, when my phone starts buzzing in my pocket.
I sigh, fully expecting it to be my mother, but the number that flashes up is the area chief’s.
Of course he’d call now.
Maybe I can just send him to voicemail? No matter how much I tried to prepare for this call, I still haven’t figured a way out.
Oh, fuck it. I answer the call and press the device to my ear with a grimace. “This is Oscar.”
“Oscar, this is Chief Galloway.”
“Yes, sir, how are you doing today?”
“Yes, yes.” He sounds distracted. I’ve only met Galloway a handful of times.
He seemed nice enough, competent. He just has no idea what actually goes on out here.
I imagine it’s the same for most of the small towns under his jurisdiction; as long as nothing’s going wrong, he’s happy to let things tick over.
“Listen, I meant to get in touch with you a few days ago, but I’m sure you can imagine how hectic things have been over here. ”
I roll my eyes. Yeah, I bet this whole situation has been really tough on him.
“Now, I know this was kind of a given, but I wanted to formally offer you the role of acting captain.”
I stare down at my feet. No matter what Mack said, I know myself. I’m not ready to be a captain. I can’t take care of this place, not without him.
Even with Ryan just now, all I did was hand over Mack’s words. I didn’t have to do any of that myself.
But if I don’t do it, who will? Nobody else here has the training. They’d have to bring someone in from another town, and fuck knows what kind of changes they’d bring with them. I can’t let someone else come in and trample all over Mack’s legacy.
I remember when this was all I wanted, I was trying to make it here so fast that I forgot everything else. I stopped seeing my parents as much, I wasted what turned out to be the last few months with my dad, and for what?
Maybe I could have seen something before it was too late, I could have gotten him help. I let him die, and then I let Mack die, and somehow it means that I’m finally getting the thing I used to think was my due? How is any of this fair?
There were so many times that Mack pushed me to try and make captain, but he was seeing something that wasn't there. I know he thought I could do it, but what if he was wrong?
“You there, son?” Galloway asks.
“Yes, sorry sir.”
“You gonna let me down?”
Bastard. Of course he knows exactly what to say.
“No, sir.”
“Excellent, I’ll have the paperwork filed today.”