“Are you guys talking about my birfday?” Jo gasps.
We’re still working on that “th” sound because I don’t correct her when she says it wrong. I want to pretend those two letters never existed.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because it’s in two weeks,” she reminds us.
“No.” I shake my head. “There’s no way. Tinkerbell never gets older. She has to stay four forever.”
Jo frowns. “I don’t fink I like that part about being Tinkerbell very much.”
“Good thing you can be whatever you want to be, Josephine McCafferty Morgan,” Jack says.
“Daddy, do you promise you’ll be back for birfday cake?”
Jack rests a palm on my back. “He wouldn’t miss it, right, rookie?”
He gives me a fatherly look of pride.
I crouch down low so I can look Jo in the eyes as I say it. “Not for the world.” She wraps her little arms around my neck and squeezes. I fake wheeze for air because it makes her laugh.
Hailey leans in and kisses me. Then she says my three favorite words: “I love you.”
“Remember me, Red.” I swat her butt then tip my helmet to Jack. “Superintendent.”
“Make us proud out there.”
Whenever he says “us,” I know it means more than just the people in this room. I did three more years with Iron Summit before I got a spot as a smokejumper. I promised Hailey the day we got married beneath the pine trees on the shore of Payette Lake that I’d be around, for her, for our daughter. So, I go and do what I love, but then I come back to this cabin, Hailey’s childhood home, to be with the people that I love.
“I’ll be back by the time everyone arrives,” I tell Jo. She’s the one who has the hardest time with me being gone.
“Yay! Mo and Bo will be here! And Aunt Karen, too,” Jo says, bouncing up and down.
“Yes, they will!” I say confidently.
Both of our parents show up now for Jo in a way they never really did for us. But that’s the beauty of second chances.
“See you all soon,” I say, before slipping out the front door.
It’s harder now to do the daredevil things I once loved. There are two beautiful girls on the other side of every decision I make—a constant voice in the back of my mind reminding me to stay safe for them, to come home to them.
Two posts with a pavilion roof welcome me to the McCall Smokejumper Base, and just as I do every time I come to work, I haul my gear slung over my shoulder to the locker room.
“What are you doing?” Murphy asks to the rectangular door next to mine. His phone is pressed to his ear as he unloads his gear inside of it.
He’s the only one from our original crew who stuck with fire. I think of the guys, and while I miss them, we still get together from time to time.
We’ve watched Daniels purchase land like he always said he would. He grew his mustache back and gets to wear those damn overalls he loves every day. It turns out they look pretty good on a potato farmer.
We’ve gotten the privilege of seeing Evans model forGQand give him crap all the time for it. Except for Christmas, when he gifts us all a generous supply of Hanes briefs.
We sat in the audience of Marshall’s graduation from Harvard. He works for NASA now as a mechanical engineer.
And we all showed up with “It’s a boy!” balloons the day Jackson became a dad.
I’m proud of how far we’ve come. Especially Murphy. Coming out couldn’t have been easy, but he did it for Ramirez.
“We’re not getting a damn cat! Drop it,” he barks into the speaker. He gives me a disgruntled nod before closing his locker door. “I love you too, baby,” he coos, and ends the call.
