Chapter 8
Jamie
Megan's kitchen smelled like garlic bread and something tomato-based simmering on the stove. The boys were at school, Danny was off-shift, and for the first time since the funeral, I felt like I could breathe.
Megan had grown up with three brothers. She used to tell me she'd prayed for a little sister every night until the day my mother brought me home from the hospital. Then she marched next door and offered to babysit.
She was seven. Our mothers laughed about it for years.
But my mom was happy for the help, and Megan's mother and Loretta were happy to supervise.
Megan held me while my mother showered. Helped with diapers and bottles.
Sat beside my crib and read picture books out loud to an infant who couldn't understand a word.
By the time I was old enough to walk, she'd already decided I was hers.
I was more than happy to fill the role. My mother was wonderful, but there's something different about an older girl who lets you sit on her bed while she does her makeup, who paints your nails and tells you about boys and treats your problems like they matter.
Megan was fourteen when I was seven. By the time I was old enough to understand what love looked like, she and Danny had already been together for years.
I used to watch them together. At neighborhood cookouts, across the fence, through my bedroom window when he'd pull up in his truck to pick her up for a date.
The way he looked at her. The way she pretended to be annoyed by him and couldn't hide her smile.
I remember thinking that's what I want. Someday, I want someone to look at me like that.
All these years later, nothing had changed. Danny still looked at her that way. And Megan still pretended to be annoyed by it, rolling her eyes when he refilled her water glass without being asked, swatting his arm when he kissed her temple on his way to the fridge.
"Stop it," she said. "We have company."
"She's not company. She's Jamie."
I laughed. It felt strange in my throat, rusty from disuse. "He's got a point."
Megan pointed her fork at me. "Don't encourage him."
The pasta was good. The conversation was easy.
We talked about her boys, about how the older one was turning into a teenager overnight and the younger one had discovered a passion for building elaborate Lego structures and then refusing to let anyone touch them.
We talked about my job, about the series that had just been syndicated, about the life I'd built in New York.
Megan nodded. Then her expression softened. "How are you holding up? Really?"
"I'm okay."
"I know you are." She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "But you don't have to be. Not here."
Something loosened in my chest. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"I miss him," I said. "Every day. I wake up and for a second I forget, and then I remember, and it's like losing him all over again."
Megan nodded. She didn't try to fix it or soften it. She just held my hand and let the words exist.
"You could always count on him," Danny said quietly.
"Yeah." My voice cracked. "He was."
We sat with that for a moment. The kitchen was quiet except for the low bubble of the sauce on the stove.
Then Megan leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. Her face shifted into something harder, the way she got when she was about to say something that mattered.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Of course."
"I've been doing this job for fourteen years now.” Megan had been working as a 911 dispatcher since she was old enough to work.
“And I love it, most days. But there are calls that stay with you.
" She paused. "The ones where you can hear something going wrong, and you're sitting there with your headset on, and there's nothing you can do. "
I watched her face. The tightness around her eyes.
"What do you mean, nothing you can do?"
"Dispatchers don't send backup. That's the captain's call. If a crew is inside a structure and things go sideways, I'm listening to it happen. I can hear the chaos, the shouting, the alarms. But I can't send help unless the incident commander requests it."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It's how Havensworth works." Danny's voice was calm.
Factual. "Different stations used to be separate departments.
Different neighborhoods, different tax bases.
When the city absorbed them, they kept the old structures.
Each station still operates like its own little fiefdom. Captains call their own shots."
"So if a captain doesn't ask for help..."
"Then help doesn't come." Megan's jaw tightened.
"I've looked into it. National standards say you should have four firefighters per engine.
Havensworth runs with two or three. National standards say dispatch should be able to coordinate resources across the whole department.
Here, we're fragmented. Different stations, different protocols, different radio systems that don't always talk to each other. "
I thought about what she was describing. The chaos of a fire unfolding. A dispatcher who could hear it all but couldn't act. Crews arriving from different stations with no unified command.
"That's insane," I said.
"That's Havensworth." Danny shrugged. "It's not malicious. It's just how things evolved. Nobody sat down and designed it this way. It just happened."
"People have tried," Megan added. "Every few years someone brings it up. Better coordination, updated protocols, more staffing. It gets talked about in meetings and then nothing happens."
The journalist part of my brain was already connecting dots, seeing the shape of a story underneath what they were telling me.
"Thank you for telling me this." I traced the edge of my water glass with my finger.
If things had been different—if the system worked the way it should—would Jack have had to go back in alone? Would there have been another way to get that little girl out?
"A woman came to the funeral. Jenna Weston. She's the one Jack carried out of the fire. She brought her daughter Quinn. The little girl Jack went back for."
Megan went still.
"She looked about seven or eight," I continued. "Quinn. She was quiet the whole time, just holding her mother's hand. But she came. They both did. To thank us."
The silence stretched.
"Why didn't Jack get line of duty?" Megan asked. Her voice was careful. Controlled. "I've been wondering since the funeral. No honors. No recognition. Why?"
I took a breath. "According to what Sam told me, the building was unsafe. Command ordered everyone out. Jack went back in anyway."
"To save a child."
"Yes. But the city attorneys called it insubordination. If they classified it as line of duty, they'd be admitting liability. Opening themselves up to a lawsuit."
Megan's face hardened. "That's bullshit."
"Meg." Danny's voice was soft. A gentle warning.
"No, I'm serious." She leaned forward. "What Jack did was heroic. He heard a little girl screaming and he went back for her. That's not insubordination. That's exactly what firefighters are supposed to do."
"I know."
Megan's jaw tightened. "I think about it all the time.
What happens if Danny doesn't—" She stopped.
Her voice caught. Danny reached over and took her hand, holding it steady on the table.
She didn't pull away. "Our youngest is eight.
Same age as that little girl Jack saved.
If something happened to Danny, I'd have two boys to raise on my own.
And I'd need to know the system would be there for us.
That's why I looked into it. National standards, benefits, all of it. I needed to know what we'd have."
The kitchen was quiet.
"Line of duty means benefits," Megan continued.
Her voice was steady again, but her hand stayed in Danny's.
"Death benefits, pension continuation, education fund.
Jack paid into that system his entire career.
Rosie is entitled to what he earned. They're not just dishonoring him.
They're taking money out of his daughter's future. "
I hadn't thought about it that way. The financial piece. I'd been so focused on the injustice of the ruling, the insult to Jack's memory, that I hadn't considered what it meant for Rosie's future.
"Have you thought about pushing for reclassification?" Megan asked.
I looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Appeal the decision. Fight it. Make them acknowledge what Jack really did."
I thought about Rosie. The photo of Jack she kept on her nightstand. The way she said Daddy was a hero whenever she looked at his photo.
She was right. It was obvious. Jack died saving a child. That should mean something. It should be on the record.
"I'll look into it," I said.
Megan nodded. Satisfied. Like she'd known all along what I would say.
Rosie was coloring at the kitchen table when my phone buzzed.
Sam
Found something else of Jack's at the station. I'll bring it when I come by later.
I set the phone down and watched Rosie work. She was intent on her drawing, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth the way Jack's used to when he concentrated. She didn't know she did it. She didn't know how much of him lived in her small gestures.
The afternoon light slanted through the kitchen windows. Loretta was out for the day. It was just the two of us, and the house felt bigger without another adult in it. Quieter.
I picked her up from preschool an hour ago. Made her a snack. Sat with her while she colored.
But I kept thinking about what Megan had said. The fragmentation. The chaos. A system where help didn't come unless someone thought to ask for it.
And Jack. Going back into a burning building because no one else was coming. Because a little girl was screaming and he couldn't stand there and listen to it.
He died a hero. The city called it insubordination.
Rosie deserved better than that. She deserved to grow up knowing her father's death meant something. Not because I told her, but because it was written down.
The doorbell rang.
Rosie's head came up. "Who's that?"
"Let's go see."
I opened the door and Sam was standing on the porch with something small in his hand.
"Uncle Sam!" Rosie pushed past my legs and wrapped herself around his knees.
Sam crouched down and hugged her back, one arm around her small frame. "Hey, Rosie. Are you being good for Auntie Jamie?"
She nodded solemnly. "I'm coloring."
"Yeah? Can I see?"
She tugged his hand. "Come inside first."
Sam looked up at me over her head, something tender crossed his face. I stepped back to let him in.
Once Rosie had dragged him to the kitchen to show him her crayons, he turned back to me and held out his hand. A watch sat in his palm. Silver band, simple face, worn around the edges from years of use.
"It was in his bunk," Sam said. "Someone found it when they were cleaning out.”
I took it. The metal was warm from his hand. I turned it over, feeling the weight of it, the smoothness of the band where Jack's wrist had worn it down.
"Thank you." The words came out rough. "For bringing it."
Sam nodded. Behind us, Rosie was already back at the table, pulling out more crayons.
"Uncle Sam, look!" She held up her drawing. A house with a red roof. Stick figures in the yard. One of them was wearing what looked like a firefighter's helmet.
Sam crouched down beside her again. "What's this?"
"That's Daddy," she said, pointing. "He's waving at me from the clouds."
Something crossed Sam's face. A flicker of pain, quickly buried.
"That's really good," he said. "He'd love it."
Rosie nodded seriously. "I'm going to make him lots of pictures. So he can see them."
Sam looked at me. I looked back. Neither of us said anything.
After a while, Rosie went back to her coloring, and Sam and I drifted toward the living room. Close enough to keep an eye on her, far enough to talk.
"I had lunch with Megan and Danny today," I said.
"Yeah? How are they?"
"Good. The boys are getting big." I paused. "Megan told me some things. About the department. The way things work."
Sam's expression shifted. Guarded now. "What kind of things?"
"The fragmentation. The staffing issues. Dispatchers who can't send backup without the captain's say-so." I watched his face. "She said she's looked into it. National standards versus how Havensworth operates."
Sam was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. "She's not wrong."
"So it's true. The system is broken."
"Parts of it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's complicated. There are reasons things are the way they are. History. Politics. Budget. It's not as simple as just fixing it."
"But people know. People inside the department know it's broken."
"Some do. Yeah."
I thought about what Megan had said. About LODD. About what Rosie was owed.
"I'm going to push for reclassification," I said. "Jack's death. I want it recognized as line of duty."
Sam's eyes met mine. He didn't look surprised.
"That's worth fighting for," he said.
"And reform. The protocols. The staffing. All of it." I kept my voice steady. "So this doesn't happen to someone else's brother."
Sam went quiet. Something shifted in his posture. The guardedness was back, but there was something else underneath it now.
"Jamie..."
"I know what you're going to say."
"Do you?" He looked at me. "Havensworth doesn't like outsiders telling them what's broken. And you've been gone a long time."
"I'm not an outsider. Jack was my brother."
"That's not how they'll see it."
I was quiet for a moment. The words landed harder than I wanted them to.
"So I shouldn't try?" I said. "I should just let it go?"
Sam didn't answer.
"I'm going to do this," I said. "Whether you help me or not."
He looked at me for a long moment. Something conflicted in his expression. He wanted to protect me. He knew he couldn't.
"I know," he said quietly.
The tension sat between us. Neither of us moved to break it.