Well done, Self.She didn't sound as if she was on the verge of bolting out of here like she'd seen a ghost.Specifically, her husband's ghost.
“Thanks,” he replied evenly.“You can set those anywhere.”
She stepped over to the counter where whoever had cooked supper used to lay it out buffet-style.She laid down the keys and forms softly, so as not to stir the thick layer of dust hiding the white quartz countertop the guys had installed just a few weeks before the fire.
Delivery completed.She could leave now.
But she didn't leave.
She turned and looked around the day room.
It was exactly as she remembered in some ways, and worse than she'd imagined in others.The eight recliners in an arc in front of the big projection screen on the far wall were dusty and forlorn, the indents of their occupants' bodies still visible beneath a layer of gray filth.
The row of hooks above the coffee maker still held a half-dozen mugs.Thankfully, Brent's oversized mug with the loud proclamation, “World's Hottest Fire Fighter” wasn't there.
It hadn't been returned to her with Brent's other personal effects.She supposed it was in the house, somewhere.Maybe still waiting in the kitchen sink to be washed or maybe in the dishwasher that had never been unloaded these past four years.
A few jackets hung on pegs by the door, name tags on masking tape above each hook too faded to read, now.A bulletin board still had a duty roster pinned to it, the paper yellowed and curling around the edges, the names of dead men written in JB's careful hand.
She spotted Brent's name on the roster.His day off was marked.Tuesday.The fire had been on a Tuesday.
He hadn't been on duty that day.He'd slept in the bunk room Monday night and had been hanging around the station Tuesday because his wife was mad at him and had locked him out of their house the night before.
Brent wasn't supposed to be here that day.He was supposed to be at home, his pager turned off.
If she'd let him stay?—
She shut that thought down with the sharp ruthlessness of four years of practice.
Grayson spoke behind her.“Are you okay?This must be difficult for you.Being back here like this.”
She nodded, at a loss for words.
Her gaze landed on the framed picture beside the television, and she almost broke.It was a photograph blown up nearly to poster size of the eight members of the Cobbler Cove Fire Department.They wore their turnout pants—heavy yellow canvas with reflective stripes around the ankles and held up by suspenders—and dark blue T-shirts with the logo of the Cobbler Cove Fire Department in white.
The guys grinned and mugged for the camera in dumb bodybuilder poses.
So full of life.So close—a band of brothers, they’d been.Best friends.Ride or die buddies?—
Bad choice of words.
They were all dead within a year of that photo being snapped.
They died together.Brothers to the end.
She turned her back on the picture.But not fast enough.Sobs welled up, startling her.It had been a while since she’d been slammed this hard by a wave of grief.
She fought it back inch by agonizing inch.
She.Would.Not.Give.In.
How long she stood there with her arms hugged tightly around herself, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her entire body hunched in on itself, she had no idea.But at last, the wave of grief retreated, pulling back from the jagged shore of her pain.
She felt scoured.Raw.
But she was still standing.
Eventually, she opened her eyes.Unwound her arms from her middle.Straightened her shoulders.Without looking at Grayson, she managed to say, “Yes.This is harder than I expected.”
