Chapter 8
Ty
The Watershed on Friday night is operating at full occupancy, which is to say Derek has assumed command, Big Jim has stopped pretending to discourage him, and Harrison's ledger is out.
I'm at the bar next to Rivera, in my hoodie, drinking the Mirror Pond Big Jim poured without being asked — because I've been coming here for eight years and he's pared my order down to a single glass of Deschutes.
I stopped objecting because objecting is futile and also because he's correct about my taste in beer.
Hanna isn't here. Hanna has decided, the way she decides every other Friday, that she's going to not be at the Watershed tonight.
I don't know this for certain. I haven't asked and I haven't gone looking.
I've been sitting at this bar with my friend next to me and my beer in my hand, trying to have a Friday night that isn't constructed around the absence of a specific woman, and it isn't going well, and Rivera has been not acknowledging that it isn't going well, and I appreciate him for it.
"Okay." Derek climbs on top of his chair. "Gentlemen. And Gemma. And Beck. And Aiden. And — "
"Derek, get off the chair."
"Can everyone hear me?"
"We can all hear you."
"I'm convening a meeting."
"Oh, god," Harrison says.
"I'm convening a meeting of the Station 7 Informal Matchmaking Committee."
"Derek," Harrison says.
"Larsen — our Larsen, the new one, the paramedic one — is over one month in and we've made exactly zero progress. I'm unhappy about this. As chair of the committee — "
"You aren't the chair," Gemma says.
"As self-appointed chair of the committee — "
"Appointing isn't the same as self-appointing, Derek."
"I have tenure on the committee, Gemma. I've run the committee since we were trying to find Aiden a girlfriend — "
"You weren't on that committee."
"I was silently on the committee."
"Derek, sit down."
Derek doesn't sit down. Derek has waited weeks for this particular set piece, and he has, I note, a clipboard, because Derek has arrived to this meeting with a clipboard.
"I have," Derek announces, "candidates."
"Derek — "
"Candidate number one. Mike, my cousin. He owns a Subaru. He has all his teeth. He — "
"No," Rivera says.
Rivera hasn't raised his voice. He said the word into his beer without looking up, and Derek has stopped mid-sentence, because Rivera's no is an established procedure: if Rivera says no, you cross the name off.
"Fine." Derek draws a line through the clipboard. "Candidate number two. Terrence, out of Station 3. Paramedic. Certified in advanced life support. Tall. Great shoulders."
"Terrence still lives with his mother," Beck says, mildly.
"Yes. But — I view this as a pro. It means he's close to his family."
"Terrence is thirty-eight." Beck sets his glass down. "He lives with his mother because she can't get up the stairs, which means she's physically dependent on him, which means Terrence also sleeps on the couch. I know because I've been to that house on a welfare check, Derek."
"Noted." Derek crosses Terrence off the clipboard. "Candidate number three. Brody, from the sporting goods store. He knows everything about crampons."
"Why is that a selling point," Gemma says.
"Hanna is an outdoorsy woman."
"She's a former Portland paramedic who likes throw pillows and true crime podcasts. She told me yesterday she hates hiking."
"She's from Copper Ridge, Gemma. She's genetically outdoorsy."
"Derek."
"She can be both."
"She specifically cannot be both. She said, and I quote, 'I would rather do literally any other physical activity than hike.'"
"Ugh." Derek crosses off Brody with visible grief. "Candidate number four. Daniel Park, works with my cousin at the city. He's — "
Cal, to my right, has been very quiet for the last four minutes.
Unusual. Cal is never quiet for four minutes at the Watershed.
He's in a hoodie and a backwards Mariners cap, slowly destroying a coaster by peeling the layers with his thumb — the cardboard is down to its innermost layer — watching Derek run his list with an expression I can't quite read.
With no warning, he says, loudly, to the entire bar, "Why is nobody asking what Hanna wants. "
The bar goes still.
"I mean, actually," Cal says. "Has anybody asked her?"
Derek, on his chair, clipboard in hand, opens and closes his mouth.
"I'm asking," Cal says, "because I was just at dinner at my mother's, and I tried to make a list, and my mother kicked me under the table, and my sister looked at me like I was an idiot.
I left that dinner thinking, I'll go ask Derek, because Derek is running a committee — but maybe Derek and I and the whole committee should — "
"Calvin."
" — ask her."
"You could also just leave it alone," Gemma says, gently, from behind the bar.
"I could also leave it alone. Yes. That's also — "
" — the thing a respectful brother might do — "
" — an option — "
" — given that she's a twenty-nine-year-old woman with a career — "
" — I hear you, Gemma, I'm not — I'm not pushing — "
Deluca, who's been at the end of the booths with his usual neon drink and his usual expression of a man one grade below understanding what's happening at any given moment, lifts his hand.
"Yes, Deluca," Derek says, because Derek will always call on Deluca.
"I have a candidate," Deluca says.
"Proceed."
Deluca straightens up, beams, and says, with the bright innocent confidence of a man who truly doesn't know what a room is carrying:
"What about Ty?"
The Watershed stops.
It stops the way an auditorium stops when the fire alarm goes off mid-play — the way a dinner table stops when someone says the wrong word and everyone simultaneously does math. The jukebox is playing Fleetwood Mac. Rivera, next to me, has been singing it under his breath. He keeps singing.
Cal's face does a thing.
"What," Cal says.
"Ty." Deluca presses on. "He's nice. He's — "
"What," I say.
" — he's stable, and he makes good coffee, he has a car that — "
"Deluca." Cal's voice drops to a register I've heard him use maybe twice. "Stop."
"I'm just saying — "
"That is my sister. And Ty is like my brother. That's disgusting."
The word lands in the Watershed, and I don't make my face do anything about it. I sip my beer. I swallow. The Mirror Pond has the temperature and taste and carbonation of every other sip I've had at this bar, and it's, for this single moment, the worst beer I've ever drunk in my life.
I've known Cal Larsen since we were kids.
I know what he means when he says that word — he means it would be wrong, it would be weird, it would wreck things.
He doesn't mean it as cruelty. He's never once, in thirty years, been deliberately cruel to me.
He means it the way a man who loves his sister and his best friend in equal and uncomplicated measure means it: as a thing that goes without saying.
A category that's been settled so long it doesn't require examination.
He looked at Deluca and said disgusting the way you say obviously — not as a verdict, as a reflex.
The reflex is the part that stays with me.
Because it means that in all the years Cal has been loving me — driving for hours to funeral homes, calling at two a.m., stocking my fridge without being asked — he has never, once, looked at me and thought the thought that I've been holding back for ten years.
It's never occurred to him as a possibility.
And it isn't going to occur to him at a Watershed table on a Friday night, over a pint of Deschutes, no matter what Deluca says.
"Disgusting," Cal says again, because Cal will repeat a word if he feels the room hasn't understood the first time. "That's — Deluca, they're family. That would be — that would be — "
"I said I didn't understand, Cal."
"Never ever ever. Never. Okay?"
"Okay," Deluca say.
"Never," Cal says.
"I said okay."
"Everybody clear?"
Everybody is clear. Everybody is also looking at me — not obviously, not capital-L looking, but Harrison has glanced, Rivera has glanced, Gemma behind the bar has glanced.
Beck has drawn himself up an inch taller in a way I'll come to recognize as his body language for I'd like to address this privately.
Aiden is looking anywhere but at me. Riley, next to Aiden, is looking directly at me with her arson-investigator eyes and giving me nothing, which is also a look.
I pick up my beer, take a sip, and turn to Harrison. "My shift is tomorrow."
"Yep."
"Early start."
"Yep."
"I'm heading out."
"Smart." Harrison doesn't look up from the ledger.
"Goodnight, gentlemen."
Nobody says goodnight. I walk out of the Watershed in a straight line, get into my truck, put my hands on the steering wheel, and watch my knuckles go white on it. I breathe.
The parking lot is quiet. Inside, through the window, I can see Derek still on his chair — he's moved on to a new bit, something involving a napkin — and Cal back in the booth with a fresh beer, and the rest of the crew arranged around the bar the way they always are on a Friday, the way I've been in this parking lot watching through this window on some version of Friday night for years.
They're all still in there. I'm out here.
The distinction isn't new. I've just never sat with it long enough to feel the shape of it.
My phone buzzes.
Hanna: You okay?
Hanna: I heard.
I look at the screen for a long second.
Me: Who told you.
Hanna: Riley.
Of course Riley. She texted Hanna inside of eleven minutes, from inside the Watershed, because Riley is a real friend and a professional who clocks a scene.
Me: I'm okay.
Hanna: You aren't fine.
Me: I'm steady.
Hanna: Ty.
Me: I'm fine. It was expected. That's what Cal would say. He'd say it in that order. I heard it coming.
Hanna: That doesn't mean it didn't hurt.
Me: It's nothing, Hanna.
Hanna: Okay.
Me: Are you okay.
A long pause. The three dots appear, disappear, appear, disappear. Finally:
Hanna: No.
Me: I'm sorry.
Hanna: Don't be. It's not your fault.
Me: Not my fault doesn't mean I'm not sorry.
Hanna: Yeah.
Hanna: I know.
Hanna: That's the problem.
I put the phone on the passenger seat and drive home. I miss the stop sign on Pine — the red light has been out for three weeks, and the city stuck a temporary sign in its place, and it's already in my rearview before I register not stopping. I spend the rest of the drive paying closer attention.
I pull into my driveway of the auto parts store I live over and don't get out. Four minutes, alone in a truck in your own driveway at night, is a long time.
My phone buzzes again.
Hanna: Are you home.
Me: Yes.
Hanna: Can I come over.
Me: Hanna.
Hanna: Just to — not to — I'm not — just to sit on your balcony.
Me: Hanna.
Hanna: Please.
I look at the text, then at the dark house.
I think about all six of her rules. I think about rule three, about the specific word disgusting coming out of my best friend's mouth an hour ago in a bar full of our colleagues.
I think about the weight of sitting on my balcony with Hanna Larsen on a Friday night while her brother is still back at the bar finishing his beer.
The weight is significant. It's also bearable, because I've just measured it against the alternative, and the alternative — not having her on the balcony — is heavier.
Me: Come over.
Hanna: Fifteen minutes.
Me: Ok.
I go inside, turn on the balcony light, and put the kettle on.
Then I think about the kettle and what it means, and I turn it off.
Then I think about the off kettle and what it means, and I turn it back on.
I laugh one short laugh at myself, alone in my kitchen, because I'm a thirty-three-year-old firefighter who just let a kettle decide whether he was ready to be honest with himself.
When the knock comes minutes later, I open the door without asking who it is. Hanna is there in her work fleece and jeans, and her face has the specific clarity it gets when she's been crying and has finished crying and has walked up to the door on purpose.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I'm not coming in." She tucks her hands in her pockets.
"Okay."
"I'm going to sit down. With you."
"Yeah."
I sit in the chair. She sits next to me and doesn't touch me, and I don't touch her. The balcony light is on, the night is cold, and Mrs. Hallaway from next door is walking her terrier in the dark without seeing us, because Mrs. Hallaway's eyes aren't what they used to be.
"I'm sorry," Hanna says, eventually.
"It's not your fault."
"It's a little my fault. Because if I had just — stayed, if I hadn't — "
"Hanna."
"Yeah."
"Are we doing this."
"Doing what."
"The thing where we talk about it."
She exhales — almost laughs, shoulders moving. "No. Not yet." A beat. "I just wanted to sit here."
"Okay."
"Is that weird."
"Yes." I look at the dark street below. "It's okay, though."
"Yeah."
We sit in the cold under the light while Mrs. Hallaway's terrier barks at nothing two doors down, and we sit for a long time, neither of us talks, and neither of us needs to.
Eventually Hanna stands, walks back to her car, and I watch her taillights turn off my street.
I go inside, turn off the kitchen light, and go to bed.
I don't dream about anything. In context, that's a mercy.