Chapter 20 Sloane #2
This was the place we'd fought to save. The place that had brought us back together, that had given Garrett a family when he'd lost his, and given me back something I thought I'd never get.
The apparatus bay was transformed. White lights strung from the ceiling, woven through the ladders and hoses like stars caught in a net. Flowers everywhere, white roses, pale blue hydrangeas, greenery spilling from buckets that had held tools the day before.
It wasn't traditional. It wasn't fancy.
It was exactly right.
I stood at the entrance, bouquet trembling in my hands, and tried to remember how to breathe.
My mother found me first. She came around the corner in the navy dress she'd bought three months ago, the one she'd called me about six times to second-guess, and the moment she saw me, her face crumpled.
"Oh, sweetheart."
"Mom. Don't. If you start, I'll start, and I just got my mascara right."
She laughed through her tears and cupped my face in her hands. Studied me the way she used to when I was small, like she was checking for something only mothers could see.
"He waited for you." She said it quietly. "All those years. I used to pray for that boy, did you know that? Even when you wouldn't talk about him. Even when your father wanted to fly to New York and drag him back to you by his collar."
She smoothed a strand of hair from my face.
"I prayed he'd still be there when you were ready."
My throat closed. She didn't know the half of it. The letters I'd stopped answering. The calls I'd let go to voicemail. The years of silence that must have destroyed him.
When I'd finally told them, the depression, the miscarriage, the real reason I'd left, my mother had gone quiet for a long time. Then she'd said: You should have let us carry some of that, Sloane. That's what family is for.
I'd spent eight years learning she was right.
"I know, Mom." I kissed her cheek. "I know."
She squeezed my hands once more and went to take her seat.
I watched her slide into the front row beside my father, who was already blinking too fast. My brother sat one row back, his wife beside him, their two kids fidgeting in clothes they clearly hated.
My sister caught my eye from across the aisle and pressed her hand to her heart.
My family. The ones who'd held the door open every single time I needed to come home.
My brother had been the hardest sell. When I'd called to tell him Garrett and I were back together, the silence on the line had stretched long enough that I'd checked to make sure the call hadn't dropped.
You left that man in pieces, Sloane, he'd said finally.
Two months after you came home, he showed up at the house.
Did you know that? Drove down from New York, stood on the porch, and asked to see you.
You were upstairs in bed. Hadn't eaten in two days.
And Dad had to stand in the doorway and tell him you weren't ready.
Tell him to go home. A pause. I watched that man walk back to his car, and I have never seen someone look like that.
Like the ground had opened up underneath him.
Another pause, longer. He deserves better than halfway.
If you're doing this, do it all the way.
I hadn't known.
Garrett had driven five hours to DC. Stood on my parents' porch. Been turned away. And in all the months since we'd found our way back to each other, he'd never once mentioned it.
Not during the late nights reviewing case files. Not during the conversations where we'd finally cracked open the past.
He came for me. And I wouldn't even come downstairs.
He'd carried it quietly. The way he carried everything. And he'd chosen not to make it a weapon.
I'd promised him I would. And when he'd met Garrett again for the first time in years, over dinner at my parents' house, I'd watched my brother shake his hand, hold it a beat too long, and say, Welcome back. That was enough. From him, that was everything.
On the other side of the aisle, Garrett's mother sat with her husband, Richard. She'd flown in from San Diego three days early, insisted on helping with every detail, and cried the first time she saw the firehouse decorated.
She and I had our own reckoning to navigate. A quiet lunch, just the two of us, two weeks after Garrett told her we were engaged. She'd sat across from me at a café in Park Slope, stirring her coffee for a long time before she spoke.
I'm not going to pretend I wasn't angry with you, she'd said.
When you left, it nearly broke him. And he'd already lost so much.
She'd looked up at me then, and I'd seen Garrett's eyes in her face.
That same steady gaze that missed nothing.
But he loves you. He's always loved you.
And I've watched my son go through the motions of a life for eight years, and I will not watch him do it for more.
She'd reached across the table and taken my hand.
So. Welcome to the family. Again. Don't make me regret it.
I'd laughed. Then cried. Then she'd cried. And by the time we'd split a piece of cake, something between us had mended.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. But enough.
Now she sat in the front row, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, Richard's arm around her shoulders.
Beside her, an empty chair. A single white rose laid across the seat.
For Garrett's father.
"Ready?" My father appeared beside me, straightening his tie for the tenth time. His eyes were red.
"Dad. Are you already crying?"
"No." He cleared his throat. "Allergies."
He offered me his arm. Squeezed it against his side when I took it. "Your mother and I had a bet. About how long it would take you two to figure it out."
"Who won?"
"She did. She always does." His voice roughened. "I thought it would take longer. She said the minute you two were in the same room again, it was over."
He looked down at me, and the tears he'd been fighting slipped free.
"I'm proud of you, sweetheart. Not for the career or the awards. For being brave enough to go back."
I leaned my head against his shoulder. Just for a second.
"Yeah," I whispered. "I'm ready."
The music started. Not a wedding march, something softer. A song we'd danced to years ago, in our old apartment, when we were young and stupid and certain we had forever figured out.
The doors opened.
And there he was.
Garrett stood at the front of the bay. Shane beside him. Both in dress uniforms.
His eyes found mine immediately, and something in his face crumpled. Joy and grief and love, all tangled together.
His mother pressed her fingers to her lips. My mother gripped the armrest.
I walked toward him. Past Maya, who was already crying.
Past Brian, who was pretending he wasn't. Past Ava, one hand resting on her pregnant belly.
Past Rodriguez, standing at attention like he was guarding something precious.
Past my brother, who gave me the smallest nod.
Past Garrett's mother, who was smiling through her tears.
Past all of them, to the man I'd loved for ten years.
"Hi," I whispered when I reached him.
"Hi." His voice was wrecked. "You look..."
"I know."
He laughed. Wet and broken and perfect.
We turned to face the officiant. A friend of Rodriguez's, a chaplain who'd served with the FDNY for thirty years. He said the words that people always said at weddings. The promises and blessings and official declarations.
But all I could see was Garrett. All I could hear was my own heartbeat and his breathing and the quiet certainty that we'd earned this moment with everything we had.
Then it was time for the vows.
"I promise to stay," I said. The words I'd written and rewritten a hundred times, trying to get them right.
"I promise to choose you, every day, for the rest of forever.
Through fire and grief and everything in between.
I promise to run toward you instead of away.
To trust you with the hard things. To build a life that's ours, not mine or yours, but ours.
" My voice broke. "I promise to be your home. The way you've always been mine."
Garrett was crying. I'd rarely seen him cry — not when we lost the baby, not when Rebecca died.
But he was crying now. And he didn't bother to hide it.
"I promise to catch you when you fall. To run into every burning building for you. To fight for us, even when it's hard." He took my hands. Held them tight. "Especially when it's hard."
"I promise to never let you go. Not again. Not ever." His voice steadied. "You're my heart, Sloane. You always have been."
The chaplain said something about rings. Shane handed Garrett the band. Maya handed me the one I'd picked out for him.
We exchanged them. Made the promises official.
"By the power vested in me," the chaplain said, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The firehouse erupted.
Cheering. Applause. Shane's whoop echoing off the ceiling. The fire engines' horns, two short blasts that made everyone jump and then laugh.
Garrett kissed me. Deep and thorough. His hands cupping my face. His mouth smiling against mine.
"I love you," he said.
"I love you too." I laughed through my tears. "Husband."
"Wife." His grin was blinding. "I like the sound of that."
We turned to face our family.
Shane and Maya, their baby boy asleep in the stroller between them. Zoe with her arm around Lily, both grinning. Brian and Ava, her belly round with their first child. Rodriguez and Maria, their kids already sneaking toward the dessert table.
The people who'd become my people somewhere along the way.
Later that night, after the dancing and the cake and the toasts that made me cry all over again, we stood on the sidewalk outside the firehouse.
The city hummed around us. Cars passing. Distant sirens.
"So." Garrett looked at me. "What now?"
My husband. The word still felt new in my mouth. Strange and right and exactly where it belonged.
"Now we go home. And we start the rest of our lives."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
He pulled me close. Wrapped his arms around me. We stood there for a long moment, swaying slightly, like we were still dancing even though the music had stopped.
"I've been thinking. About the tree."
The tree. A tree for our baby. Somewhere we could visit. Somewhere we could sit and remember.
"What about it?"
"I found a place. A community garden in Queens. They have a memorial section. We could plant it there." He pulled back enough to look at me. "If you want."
My throat tightened. "I want."
"And the scholarship. Emma's scholarship. I talked to Rodriguez. The department has a foundation that can help us set it up."
I reached up. Touched his face.
"I love you. Have I mentioned that?"
"Once or twice." He grinned. "But I don't mind hearing it again."
"I love you."
"I love you too." He kissed me softly. "Forever.
Forever. The word didn't scare me anymore.
I took his hand. Laced my fingers through his.
"Take me home," I said.
And he did.