Our apartments have the same layout, but that’s where the similarities end. Where my place is still half in boxes and only has essential furniture, hers is lived in. Comfortable.
Her life is written in the details. Grocery lists and kids’ drawings tacked to the fridge, scattered magazines on the ottoman, a phone charger coiled on the floor, and family photos on the wall. Feminine touches everywhere, but nothing frilly. Signs of her kid. A small purple backpack by the door, a doll face down on the area rug, and a pair of tiny ballet flats kicked off near the TV stand.
I try not to stare, but I can’t help cataloging every detail. This is where Lily lives. Where she laughs, cries, reads, sleeps.
My gaze returns to the pictures on the wall. I slow my walk as I take them in. Lily with a little girl who has her eyes and smile. Them at the beach with three other women, two older and one young.
And finally a man, her late husband.
Daniel Finnigan. The lieutenant who died four years ago, whose job I now have. He’s in several photos. Arm around Lily at a department barbecue. Cradling a newborn baby. Sitting on a firetruck with a toddler in his lap. He had dark hair and a square jaw. In every photo, he projects the kind of steady presence that doesn’t need words to command respect. His grin is unguarded, playful. He looks like someone who could break the tension with a joke just as easily as he could take charge.
A weird pressure creeps under my ribs. Am I intruding just by looking at these photos? This isn’t just her past—it’s her wound. And I’m the walking, talking reminder of everything she lost.
“That’s Daniel. My late husband.”
Her voice startles me, and I turn. She’s watching me, arms crossed over her chest, expression unreadable.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to?—”
“It’s fine.” She cuts me off, but not unkindly. “You were going to find out either way. Might as well address the elephant in the room.”
I nod, grateful for her directness even as I scramble for something appropriate to say.
“He was station 27’s lieutenant before Wilcox… Beforeyou.” Her gaze drifts to the photos, the corners of her mouth pulled tight, jaw clenched, fighting a battle with grief she must’ve lost a hundred times. “You have his job now.”
That difficult truth has been sitting between us since the hospital. Only I didn’t know about her dead firefighter husband then. But I do now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it in more ways than I can articulate.
She shrugs, but the casualness is forced. “It’s not your fault. It’s been four years. The squad needs a lieutenant. Life goes on.” Her voice catches on the last word.
I search for something to say that won’t sound trite. “Still sucks.”
Her eyes meet mine, surprise flickering across her face, and the line of her mouth relaxes. “Yeah. It does.”
“Glad we ripped off the Band-Aid,” I offer with a tentative smile. “Better to get the awkward stuff out in the open.”
“I appreciate that. But that’s as much talking as I want to do about the topic.”
I nod.
She studies me for a moment, then, as if to draw another line under the subject, turns and leads the way. “Bathroom’s this way.”
I follow her down the hall, relieved to be moving onto safer ground. “Show me this sink of mass destruction.”
The bathroom floor is still wet, and the cabinet looks like it’s been through a tsunami.
“I shut off the water supply,” she explains, “but not before it sprayed me in the face and flooded half the room.”
I set my toolbox on the floor and crouch down to inspect the damage. “Mind if I take a look underneath?”
“Be my guest.” She sits on the closed toilet lid, watching as I open the cabinet doors.
The space beneath the sink is cramped and damp. A puddle under a web of cracked seals and metal that’s seen better decades. Classic wear and tear that should have been addressed years ago.
“Found the culprit,” I announce, extracting myself from the cabinet. “Your drain assembly is shot. The gasket’s worn through, and the pipe’s corroded. When’s the last time this was replaced?”
“Never, as far as I know,” she says. “We’ve lived here ten years.”
