Chapter 1 #3
Loretta was sitting vigil in the chair beside his bed.
She'd been their mother's best friend, practically an aunt to Jack and Jamie, and when their parents died she'd helped Jack hold everything together.
Now she was holding Rosie, Jack's four-year-old daughter, asleep in her arms with her thumb in her mouth, unaware that her father was hooked up to machines that beeped too loudly in the silence.
Loretta looked up when I walked in. She didn't speak, but she nodded once, a small, tired acknowledgment. Thank you for coming.
Jack looked smaller than I'd ever seen him. Pale. Wrong.
But his eyes were open, and when he saw me, he smiled.
"Hey." His voice was rough. Scratchy. "You're supposed to be at your fancy party."
"Shut up." I crossed the room and gripped his hand, probably too tight. "What happened to you?"
"House fire. I got the mother out, but her daughter was still inside." He coughed, winced. "So I went back in."
Of course he did. Jack would always go back in. It was the best thing about him and the most terrifying.
"The floor gave out right after I got her through the window. Swallowed a lot of smoke on the way down." He shrugged, like it was nothing. "Docs say I'll be fine. Just need to let my lungs recover."
Loretta caught my eye over Rosie's sleeping head. Her expression said what Jack's wouldn't. That it had been closer than he was admitting. That she'd been scared in a way she didn't want him to see.
"I'm going to take this one home," she said softly, gathering Rosie closer. "Let you boys talk."
She paused at the door, one hand on my arm. The squeeze she gave me said thank you for coming and watch over him and I'm too tired to put any of this into words all at once.
Then she was gone, and it was just me and Jack.
He was quiet for a long moment, staring at the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was different. Softer.
"Going back into that building," he said. "I kept thinking about Rosie. About what would happen to her if I didn't come out."
"Jack—"
"I'm not being morbid. Just realistic." He turned his head to look at me. "This job is dangerous. We both know it. And Rosie's already lost her mom."
Sarah. Jack's wife. Lupus had taken her slowly, then all at once, and Jack had been raising Rosie alone ever since. The thought of that little girl losing both parents at such a young age made something crack in my chest.
"I need you to promise me something," Jack said.
"Anything."
"If something happens to me—" He held up a hand when I started to protest. "Let me finish. If something happens to me, I need to know Rosie's taken care of. Jamie will step up, I know she will, but she's going to need help. She's going to need someone who'll show up even when it's hard."
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.
"I'm asking you, Sam. Will you be there for them?"
The weight of the question pressed down on me. He wasn't just asking me to babysit, to help with homework, to show up for birthday parties. He was asking me to be family. To be the kind of man who stayed.
The kind of man I was still learning how to be.
"Yes," I said. The word came out rough, scraped raw. "Of course. Whatever they need."
Jack's hand found mine again. Squeezed.
"I know I don't have to ask," he said quietly. "I know you'd do it anyway. But I needed to say it out loud. I needed you to hear it."
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
We sat there in the silence, the machines beeping their steady rhythm, and I made a promise I didn't fully understand yet.
For a while, it seemed like everything would be fine.
Jack's doctors were optimistic. His oxygen levels improved.
He complained about the hospital food, which Loretta said was a good sign because it meant he was feeling well enough to be annoyed.
I visited every day, sometimes twice, and each time he looked a little stronger, a little more like himself.
I let myself believe the worst was over.
Then the infection set in.
Something the doctors hadn't caught, hadn't tested for, hadn't expected. His lungs were too damaged, too vulnerable. His body couldn't fight it off.
By the time they realized how bad it was, there was nothing left to do.
I was at the station when the call came.
Jack was gone.
I don't remember what Cap said after that. Something about taking as long as I needed. Something about the crew covering for me. His voice sounded far away, like he was speaking through water.
I drove to the hospital. I don't remember the drive either, just the way my hands wouldn't stop shaking on the wheel, the way I kept thinking this is a mistake, there's been some kind of mix-up, I'll get there and he'll be sitting up in bed complaining about the food.
Jack's room was empty.
The bed was stripped. The machines were gone. The chair where Loretta had been sitting was pushed against the wall like no one had ever been there at all.
A nurse found me standing in the doorway. Young. Kind face. I hated her for the pity in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry. His body has been moved to the morgue." She hesitated. "Are you family?"
"I'm—" The word stuck. What was I? "He's my best friend."
Her expression shifted. Softer now. Sadder.
"Can I see him?" My voice didn't sound like mine.
"I'm sorry. Only immediate family."
I couldn't even say goodbye.
I stood there for a long time after she left. Staring at the empty room. The stripped bed. The silence where the machines used to beep.
Then it hit me.
Loretta. Rosie.
Had anyone told them? Did they know?
The thought of Rosie knocked the air out of me. Four years old. She'd already lost her mother. And now her father was gone too. How do you tell a child something like that? How do you explain that the person who was supposed to keep her safe isn't coming home?
And underneath that, the thing I couldn't outrun:
Jack was on that call because of me. Because I'd asked him to cover my shift. Because I'd gone to a party I didn’t even want to go to for a woman I didn't love.
He was dead because of me.
I made it to a bathroom down the hall before I fell apart. Locked the door. Slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold tile floor.
And I broke.
I don't know how long I sat on that floor. Long enough for the shaking to stop. Long enough to remember how to breathe.
Then I stood up. Washed my face. Looked at myself in the mirror and didn't recognize the man looking back.
I drove to Jack's house.
The whole way there, I tried to figure out what I was going to say. How to put words around something this big. But every sentence I practiced in my head felt wrong. Too small. Too ordinary.
Loretta opened the door before I could knock.
She took one look at my face, and she knew.
Her hand went to her mouth. Her whole body crumpled. The sound that came out of her was something I never want to hear again.
I caught her before she fell. Held her in the doorway while she sobbed into my chest, her fingers gripping my shirt like I was the only thing keeping her upright.
It was a good thing Rosie was napping.
Eventually, Loretta calmed down enough to move inside. We sat in the living room, the house too quiet around us, trying to figure out what to do next.
"Jamie," she said. "Does Jamie know?"
"The hospital called her. She's flying in."
Loretta nodded slowly. Even in grief, she was planning and thinking ahead. Someone had to.
"She'll go to the hospital first," Loretta said. "She'll want to see him."
I knew what she was going to ask before she said it.
"I can't leave Rosie. Not right now. Not when—" Her voice broke. She steadied herself. "But Jamie shouldn't have to walk into that alone."
"I'll go."
So I went back to the hospital.
The waiting room was quieter now. Dim lights. Empty chairs. The hum of vending machines and the distant squeak of nurses' shoes on linoleum.
I found a seat near the entrance and waited.
I tried to think of what I would say to her. How to explain. How to offer something that wasn't hollow.
But every time I reached for the right words, the guilt dragged me under.
Jack was dead because of me.
The thought kept circling back, no matter how many times I tried to push it away. He'd been on that call because I asked him to cover my shift. I didn’t have to ask. The crew could have managed with three. They'd done it before.
But I'd asked. And Jack had said yes without hesitating, the way he always did, because that's who he was.
And now he was gone.
What was I supposed to tell Jamie? That her brother died because I attended a party? How do you look someone in the eye and tell them that?
"Sam?"
I was pulled from my thoughts when I heard her voice. I turned and there she was.
Jamie.
Beautiful even in grief.
I watched the hope drain from her eyes as reality sank in. Whatever she'd been telling herself on the flight over, whatever desperate bargain she'd been making with the universe—it died right there in the hospital entrance.
Her face broke. Not all at once, but piece by piece, like she was trying to hold it together and couldn't.
It cracked something open in my chest. All I wanted was to hold her. My body was moving before I could think about it.
She met me halfway, her arms wrapping around me, her face pressing into my chest.
I held her. It was all I could do.