Chapter 33 #2
The solicitor had stepped down back in the spring, health finally catching up to him.
With Bryce's name pulled from the ballot after the arrest, the seat sat open through the worst of the summer, the Carolina Furniture Depot fire, the nine funerals.
By August the city was ready to decide something small and ordinary after deciding too many terrible things in a row.
I was folding laundry on the living room floor when the news came on. Rosie was on the couch behind me with her crayons, working on a drawing she'd been at for two days. The fan in the window was doing what it could against the afternoon.
The anchor said her name and I looked up.
A woman I didn't know. Dark suit. Hair pulled back. She was shaking hands with somebody off-camera, then she was at a podium saying something about service. She was gone and the anchor was back.
Havensworth's first woman Solicitor.
The graphic under her name said it plain.
I sat there with one of Rosie's small socks in my hand.
I thought about Bryce sitting at the mahogany desk explaining dangerous precedent to me.
I thought about his posters, the blue and white ones that had been on every other lawn in January.
I thought about the sixteen-year-old girl I'd been in a Havensworth hallway, and the grown woman I'd been in his corner office with my hands folded in my lap so he couldn't see them shake.
None of what I felt was triumph. It was something quieter.
This city had made room for a man like Bryce for a long time. It had made room for his father, his father's friends, and the whole soft architecture that kept the Montgomerys standing. I hadn't thought it could do anything else. I'd spent half my life being sure it couldn't.
It could.
A first. In Havensworth. In August of 2007.
"Auntie Jamie, look."
Rosie held up her drawing. A woman in a blue dress with a badge on her chest. A small crowd of stick figures in front of her, hands in the air.
"Who's that, sweetheart?"
"The lady on TV. She's the new boss."
I smiled. My throat tightened.
"Yeah, baby. She is."
I went back to folding. Rosie went back to her drawing. The fan kept turning. Outside, a lawnmower started up two houses down, and Havensworth went on with its afternoon.
The guys tried to reach him. Sam tried. But Sean just shook his head. Said he was fine and he just needed time.
Then one shift, he showed up at the station. Not in uniform. Just jeans and a jacket.
He found Sam in the bay.
"I'm done," Sean said. No preamble. No buildup. "I can't do it anymore."
Sam didn't ask why. He already knew.
Sean looked around the station. The trucks. The gear. The life he was leaving behind.
"I keep hearing them," Sean said quietly. "The radios. The Maydays. I hear them when I'm trying to sleep. I hear them when I'm awake." He shook his head. "I can't go into another building. I just can't."
Sam didn't try to fix it. There was nothing to fix.
"What are you going to do?"
Sean shrugged. "My brother's got a shop up in Greenville. Says he could use the help." A ghost of a smile. "Might be nice. Quiet."
Sam nodded. Extended his hand.
Sean took it. Pulled him into a hug. Held on for a moment.
"You're a good man, Reeves. Take care of that family of yours."
"You too."
Sean stepped back. Looked at the station one more time. Then walked out.
The crew gathered that weekend. Not a party—just drinks at the bar.
They raised a glass to Sean. To the years he gave.
To the nine who didn't walk out.
To Jack, who'd walked out of his fire and never made it past the hospital.
To the ones who were still here, still showing up, still running into burning buildings because someone had to.
Sam came home late that night. I was on the couch, reading.
He sat down beside me. Didn't say anything for a long time.
"Sean's gone," he finally said.
"I heard."
"He couldn't take it anymore. The sounds. The memories." Sam shook his head. "I get it. I do."
I put my book down. Turned to face him.
"Do you ever think about leaving?" I asked quietly.
Sam was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at me.
"Sometimes," he said. "When I wake up at 3:00 a.m. I can still hear the PASS alarms. When I see a building that looks like the Carolina Furniture Depot and my chest gets tight." He swallowed. "But then I think about the guys who need me. The calls we run. The people we save."
He took my hand.
"And I think about you. And Rosie. And what Jack would want."
"What would Jack want?"
Sam was quiet for a moment. Thinking. Not performing an answer—reaching for one.
"He'd want me to be the man he believed I could be. The one who doesn't walk away just because it's hard.“
I leaned into him. Put my head on his shoulder.
"Then that's what you'll be."
He kissed the top of my head.
"That's what I'll be."
Nine men didn't come home. Sean walked away.
Graff retired. The department would never be the same.
Neither would any of us—Sam would carry the parking lot in his chest for years, and I would be the one who reached for him in the dark when he woke up hearing alarms, and Rosie would grow up in a house where Uncle Sam sometimes had a look in his eyes that meant give him a minute.
But we were still here. Still together. Still holding on.
And that had to count for something.