“You’d think after being brothers as long as we have you’d learn that I don’t let things go very easily. Now stop avoiding my question and tell me about your time with the good doctor,” he repeats my words back to me, not letting me escape his inquisition.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one else is coming in and set the coffee pot back into the maker and push start on the small machine.Need to ask the captain about upgrading that soon, I think to myself. Looking at Carter, he raises a brow at me and nods his head, waiting.
I can’t help but recall the way she pressed her thin, silver frame glasses back up on her nose or how she looked almost shrunken in her oversized chair. How she had her blonde hair twisted behind her head and secured with some kind of clip I see more and more women wearing these days. But mostly, I can’t stop thinking about how she watched and waited. She was quick to the draw on some things but mostly, she waited. Things felt slower in her office and that isn’t something I’m used to. It’s probably why I felt so uncomfortable. My mind has become accustomed to always being on alert, ready for anything, that simply sitting and doing nothing felt more unnatural to me than texting Carter back in a timely manner.
“It was fine,” I finally answer, keeping my wordsshort.
“I’m going to need more than that. Three word answers will not suffice in this situation,” he rebuttals, pulling out the fixings to make himself breakfast.
“I really don’t want to talk about this here?—”
“It’s okay that you went and saw the union shrink,” he says more loudly than before. His eyes are wide as he speaks as if to say ‘I will talk louder unless you fess up and tell me what I want to know.’
“Okay, okay, stop it, you asshole,” I growl under my breath. “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you shut up.”
He gives me a satisfied smirk. “Thank you very much. Proceed.”
Sighing hard, I pour myself a fresh cup of black coffee and lean against the kitchen counter. “She called me a liar.”
He bursts into a cackle that I’m sure everyone in the firehouse can hear, doubling over and smacking his knee. “She did? Oh my gosh, I like this girl. What’s her number? I wanna call her up and compliment her for not standing down to a giant oaf like you.”
“Oh fuck off,” I grunt before taking a long pull of my coffee.
“I’m sorry, but that’s funny. Your psychiatrist calling you a liar? Aren’t they supposed to like, hold your hand and tell you you’re perfect?”
“I think they’re supposed to kindly tell you everything that’s fucked up about you,” I joke.
“What made her call you a liar?”
I pause and think back to our conversation. How she read me clear as day, calling out the fact that my nerves, which are usually solid and dependable, are, at best, frayed at the edges like an old overworn T-shirt. How she called me out for how I seemed uncomfortable and on edge. How she told me I was ‘worn down by life.’
“Something about my nervous system,” I say, trying to brush past this conversation as quickly as possible.
“Your nervous system? What about your nervous system?”
“I don’t know, man, I wasn’t really paying attention.” I scurry out my response and fill up my mug so I can escape to the garage. “Hurry up and make breakfast then meet me downstairs. I’m going to call the huddle soon.”
“Uh—okay? I guess this conversation is over,” he calls down the hallway but I’m already leaving him behind.
I shake my head trying to shake loose everything she said to me as I walk towards the stairway to rally the troops for another day.
The conversation is over.
Just like my time with the good doctor.
6
HANNA
“It’s open!” I call out when I hear a knock at my front door.
Standing in the kitchen of my apartment, I smile at my dad when he walks in. When I take in his outfit, I realize he has on his favorite pair of New Balance sneakers with his socks pulled high as if he’s ninety-seven and suffering from circulation issues. Really, he’s hardly sixty and in better shape than most men his age. Since it’s Saturday morning, he’s coming by so we can go on our weekly walk around downtown before he and George go about their weekend plans. Our little morning ritual is something we started once he and Mom got divorced. I think he asked me on the first walk because he was worried about how I was processing the divorce and his coming out so late in life. With both of us being very open, emotionally aware humans, talking about our feelings isn’t something we struggle with. One walk turned into two, then three, and after a few weeks, the habit stuck and is now something we both equally look forward to.
“There she is, my beautiful daughter.” I can’t help butsmile back at him as he steps towards me and pulls me into a hug.
“Hi, Daddy,” I hum into his ear and give him a squeeze.
He and I have always been close, even when I was little. I know girls tend to gravitate more towards their mothers and while I admire my mom more than anyone, I’ve always been a daddy’s girl.
