I look back at the screen. “I have to go.”
Ava’s smile becomes wicked. “Is she there?”
“No.”
Pippa lifts one eyebrow.
“Yes,” I say. “Goodbye.”
Chloe says, “Tell her we said thank you for the beard.”
I end the call before anyone can make my situation worse.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
Then Pippa pushes away from the doorway and walks over.
“I’m not trying to kill you.”
I put the phone face down on my thigh. “You heard that.”
“I heard enough.”
“In my defence, I was speaking from a place of physical decline.”
“You’re tired, not dying.”
“That feels like a matter of perspective.”
“It isn’t.”
She stops in front of me, blocking a slice of sun. I should probably get up, but my legs are still negotiating their return to public service.
Pippa looks towards the yard, then back at me. “Everything you did this morning was basic. Controlled. Short. Supervised. The sort of thing trainee firefighters do againand again until their bodies know what to do before their pride gets involved.”
I sit a little straighter.
Her voice is not harsh. That somehow makes it land more.
“And on a call,” she continues, “people are doing harder versions of that while they’re under pressure, while something’s changing, while someone might be hurt, while heat, noise and smoke are taking more from them every second. The kit isn’t the job. It’s what they wear so they can even begin the job.”
I look down at my hands. There is a faint mark across one palm where the hose rubbed through the glove.
A tiny thing.
Ridiculous, really.
It does not feel ridiculous.
“I know,” I say, then stop, because I don’t. Not properly. That is the point.
Pippa waits.
I try again.
“I didn’t know,” I say. “Not like that.”
Her expression shifts. Barely, but enough.
