Brotherhood of District 23 Complete Series

by Amy Briggs

  “Yea, I am.” I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat at the large table.

  “Must have been a hell of a night out for you to call out sick on a Sunday of all days,” he said.

  “You could say that,” I muttered.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just not completely awake, I guess.”

  “So, tell me about Vivian. You’ve seen her a few times, and you weren’t here yesterday, so something must be going on there?” You’d think that men didn’t gossip like women stereotypically did, but you’d be wrong. We are just as bad, if not worse sometimes.

  “She’s pretty awesome,” was all I said. I was still worried she wasn’t going to talk to me or want to deal with my shit since she still hadn’t returned my text or call yet.

  “Come on, tell me more!” he teased.

  “I don’t know. She’s a great girl. Too good for the likes of me,” I confessed. “I haven’t talked to her since Saturday night though so we’ll see.”

  “Why not? Did something happen?” Matt sat down and gave me a genuinely concerned look. “Look, I know I gave you a lot of shit about it, but if she’s the girl, then I’m all for it.”

  I took a long sip of my coffee, letting it awaken my senses before continuing. In that moment, I decided that the new me, the me who connects with people, the me who was honest was going to be honest about everything. “It wasn’t an argument or anything, but I left her place under kind of shitty circumstances Saturday and we haven’t talked since. I’ve tried to text and call, but she isn’t getting back to me.”

  “Did you say something stupid? We’ve all been there,” he joked.

  “Well, more like I didn’t say anything at all.” I paused. Matt was looking at me intently, genuinely concerned and interested, so I went ahead and told him what happened. “The long and short of it is that we were talking about some things, getting to know each other and all, and the subject of her brother came up. Turns out he was also a Marine. Here’s the thing, when he came back from his deployment in the Middle East, he killed himself.”

  “Jesus Christ, that’s awful.”

  “Yeah, it is. And it’s more common than you would think and I didn’t handle it well at all. Did you know that twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide? Twenty-two a day,” I informed him, shaking my head at the staggering statistic.

  “What the fuck? No, I didn’t know that,” he said, shocked.

  “Yeah, it’s an epidemic. In any event, this kid came back and did what he did. When she told me, I froze. I didn’t know what to say; it hit me hard and I didn’t even know the guy. She was telling me something important, something that she didn’t go around telling people, sharing with me, and I handled it like a complete and total fucking ass.” I thought back to that moment and how I would do everything differently if I could have a do-over.

  “Well, she has to know that you’ve seen some shit in your lifetime. I’m sure she’ll understand. What did you do?” he asked.

  “I left. I told her I had to go. She was on the verge of tears, and I took off like a pussy. There’s really no excuse for it. I was shocked by his story, and it’s close to me. I didn’t know him personally, but I know others, plural, who have done the same thing. It’s a hard thing to have on your mind every day, and I should have told her that, but I didn’t.” I rolled my eyes at myself and took another sip of my coffee.

  Matt was silent for a moment, obviously processing what I’d said. Taking in a deep breath, he replied. “You need to fight for her.”

  “What?” I said, surprised, looking over my cup at him.

  “You heard me. You need to fight for her. For her to share something like that with you, knowing that you were also a Marine, that’s a big deal. People don’t go around telling that story unless they’re comfortable with you; that’s something that was hard for her, I’m sure of it. You’re one of the very few people she’ll meet in her lifetime who can understand what she’s been through. You need to fight for her. She’s special.”

  Still stunned, I replied, “I think you’re right. She’s not returning my calls at the moment, so I’ll have to take more drastic measures, it seems.”

  “Did you swing by her place yesterday?”

  “I sure did.” I laughed. We were obviously on the same page with that. I recalled a time that Matt himself had to camp out on Isabel’s front porch until she would talk to him. “Her car was there, but it looked like no one was home, so I guess she was out or something.”

  “Well, try to call her again today. And if she still doesn’t answer, show up at her place in the morning. You know I’ve done it, it usually goes in your favor after some sweet talking and begging if you have to. No shame in the love game man.” He grinned.

  “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” I sighed, appreciating this chat. In our younger years we would have never been so honest about our feelings, and the truth was that it felt good to be authentic about things like this. I genuinely appreciated having the ability to have this conversation with Matt.

  “Bro, all kidding aside, we’re not kids anymore. Finding a chick who has her shit together, who also appreciates who we are now, who we used to be, and who we want to be is clutch. Seriously, having a chick like that in your life is what it’s all about; there’s nothing better. I’m truly a better man with Isabel in my life. No bullshit,” he said.

  “I think you’re right, Matt. Hopefully, I’ll be able to fix all this bullshit. I feel like a fucking jackass.”

  “It won’t be the last time, believe me.” He laughed, teasing me. I cracked a grin myself.

  “Ain’t that the truth, bro.” I held up my coffee cup as if we were toasting.

  Through brunch with my parents, I had to pretend like I wasn’t upset. I had flown all the way to New Jersey to spend some quality time with them, and I wasn’t going to let Seth ruin it. I didn’t know when I was going to see them again, so I pushed the thought of him aside. I’d deal with it later.

  “Is everything ok, dear?” my mom asked.

  “Oh, yes, of course it is. I wish I was able to stay a little longer,” I lied. Well, it wasn’t totally a lie. In reality, I wished they’d come back to Florida so I could see them whenever I wanted. But I was still freezing and looking forward to getting back to my palm trees even though I was happy to be with them.

  “Why don’t you change your ticket?” She gave me a sly smile.

  “Mom, you know I need to get back to work.” I gave her a knowing smile.

  “I know, I know. It was worth a try, baby girl.”

  “Grandma seemed really good this morning,” I changed the topic. “She just seems tired. It’s hard to believe she’s so sick.”

  “She has her good days and her bad days. I think getting to see you made it a good day for her.”

  “Well, that makes it a good day for me too.” I smiled.

  “So, what’s on the agenda for you this week?” My dad asked in between bites of French toast drowning in syrup.

  “I’m going to try to expedite the paperwork for that gym sale so that’s done, and I have a few clients I’m showing properties to over the next few days. I think I’m going to stop doing open houses, though. They’re such a waste of time.”

  “Oh, really, how so?” he asked.

  “The last one I had, not a soul showed up.” Except Seth, I thought. “And the one before that, there was a weirdo who I don’t think was even in the market for a house. They just don’t sell houses anymore the way that they used to. Taking my clients to visit properties that are on the market is really where I’ve had the most success, so I think I’m just going to focus on that. Having that one on one experience seems to serve me way better, but I also think that moving into more commercial real estate would be a good move.”

  “Hmm. Well, make sure you’re safe at these showings. I don’t like weirdos showing up with my daughter around.” He looked at me with a raised brow.

  “I know, I know.
Anyway, I think that commercial real estate in the city is really taking off. There’re a lot of properties that are kind of run down, and there seems to be an influx of thirty-somethings who want to remodel and turn the properties into new businesses. I’d love to be a part of that. This gym concept is great and has a lot of potential if they get it off the ground. I had a lot of fun working with them.” My thoughts drifted to Seth again, and then to the message I received from Jess last night, changing my mood.

  “Well, meeting that firefighter probably didn’t hurt, now, did it?” my mom teased me.

  “I’m not sure that’s going anywhere, Mom. We’ve only been out a couple times. We’ll see how it goes. I just told you so you wouldn’t think I was turning into a spinster.”

  “Alright, dear, as long as you’re happy. I’ll mind my own business for now.” She smiled at me. “Now, eat. You’re too small, Miss Viv. You need to eat more.”

  I picked up my fork and moved eggs around on my plate. My stomach was revolting against brunch, which was normally my very favorite thing. The night before when I turned my phone on, I had a voicemail from Seth and a couple messages from Jess. I listened to the voicemail first, in which he said that he was sorry, he wanted to explain himself, and asked me to please call him, or come see him at the station to talk, which was definitely not happening.

  There was one message from Jess that changed everything about how I felt.

  The firefighter is out having drinks with a blonde lady, and they’re cozy AF. Fucking asshole. I’m sorry, Viv.

  In all honesty, he didn’t owe me monogamy; he didn’t owe me anything at all. He was free to date as many people as he wanted, or sleep with, or whatever. That didn’t take the sting away, though. I thought we had a connection. After the last night we saw each other, I guess I should have known that was just how he was. It got way too serious for him, and he cut and run. It was probably a good thing I hadn’t slept with him, because then I would have been that much more hurt than I already was. And it wasn’t for lack of trying; I certainly would have after that first date.

  Thanking my lucky stars he didn’t want to sleep with me, I forced some of my food down so my mother didn’t have an intervention on me. I pretended not to be totally crushed by the whole mess. I’d just cry to Jess later when she picked me up. My mom was going to head back to the house to take care of my grandma, and my dad and I were going to do a little shopping before he took me to the airport.

  When we said good-bye, my mom started to cry. “Thank you so much for coming to see us, baby girl. You made my day. I love you to the moon and back.” She’s said that to me since I was little, and it caused me to tear up too.

  “Mom, I’ll see you again soon, I promise.” I hugged her tight.

  “Let me know when you make it home safely.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  My mom’s birthday was coming up, so my dad and I went to the little shopping district in town to walk around, have coffee, and just enjoy some father-daughter time. While in one of the little shops, looking at some scarves I thought my mom would like, my dad said something out of the blue that I never expected to hear.

  “You know, Viv, it’s not our fault. The guilt that you carry over Michael isn’t your burden to bear.” He touched my arm gently, pausing to look at me.

  “What?” I stopped in my tracks, almost dropping the scarf I was looking at for my mother.

  “Michael was a troubled man, Viv. He was always a little bit troubled, and I tried to talk to him. In fact, when he came home from overseas, I tried to take him to see someone. I don’t think anyone, including him, knew what the struggles of the war had done to him. None of us realized how hard it could be to come back and pretend you never saw the things you did. But it’s not your fault for not knowing. I know how close you two were. But you need to stop carrying the weight of his death on your shoulders. You’re allowed to move on, and I can see how it’s held you back.”

  “Oh, Daddy.” Tears started to stream down my face. He pulled me into his arms. “I just don’t know how to move on sometimes. I feel like I should have known how bad it was for him.”

  “None of us knew. Viv, you’re all we have left. You deserve to be happy, and that’s what he would have wanted for you too. Your mother and I, we will always have sadness, and you don’t ever have to forget, but you have to move forward and live a happy life. Don’t get yourself stuck, Vivian. You have to promise me that you’ll try to be happy. Don’t go through the motions like he did.” He squeezed me tightly.

  “I will, Daddy, I promise. It’s hard sometimes, though. It weighs on me that we couldn’t help him. I feel like we should have known how much pain he was in, yet we didn’t,” I said, wiping the tears away.

  “He didn’t want us to know. That’s the problem with society right now, is that these veterans so often feel like they have nowhere to turn, and they think that they’re less of a man for talking about it, that it makes them weak. It’s infuriating. They defend our country and then feel like they cannot get the help they need to integrate back into civilian life. It’s shameful.”

  “If we had known, we could have helped him.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Listen to me, Viv. Michael isn’t the first veteran to go through this. Did you know that on average, twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide?” he asked me.

  I was appalled. “Jesus Christ, no, I didn’t know that!” I exclaimed, utterly shocked by that statistic.

  “Yes. Twenty-two. A day. We did the best we could with the information we had available to us, Viv. Your brother is at peace now, and it’s our job to cherish his memory. Not wallow in our own guilt and self-pity over it. What we can do now to honor his memory, is tell other people what happened to him. Be there for those who need us. Contribute. That’s the best thing we can do. And live our lives. I want you to be happy, Vivian. You deserve to be happy.” He pulled me in again.

  I let a few soft sobs find their way out as I laid my head on my dad’s chest. I felt like a child again, being consoled. My heart hurt for Michael. It also hurt for Seth, even if he was not the man I thought he was. It hurt for everyone who was facing this kind of pain and sadness in their life.

  “I love you, Dad. I’m glad we got to spend a little time together today.” I wiped my tears away on my sleeve like a small child would.

  He ruffled my hair like he did when I was little. “I am too. Now, let’s get your mother this scarf, and we should get you one too. You look cold, baby girl.”

  I giggled. “Ok, Dad. Thank you.”

  We purchased the scarves, and I put mine on right away, snuggling into it simply because it would forever remind me of this moment with my dad. When we got to the airport, my dad got out of the car to hug me good-bye.

  “Viv, remember what I said, ok?”

  “I will, Daddy, thank you.” I was sad to be leaving, but so grateful for the conversations I’d had with both of my parents.

  “And Viv… Take care of that Marine of yours. He will need you.” I simply nodded in response and hugged my dad before making my way into the airport. My bag was much heavier than when I left, now that my mom had filled it up with books for me to bring back home.

  As I checked in and then got myself a pre-flight glass of wine at the bar, I thought about what my dad said. Take care of that Marine… Well, he wasn’t mine to take care of, but I didn’t want to tell my dad that. Now that I had some alone time and room to think, I found myself getting angry with him. He laid it on so thick with me, but then didn’t even want to sleep with me. He was probably sleeping with that blonde girl he was out with, though. I deserved better than that bullshit.

  The glass of wine was settling in and warming me up. I couldn’t wait to just get home and get back to normal. When I boarded the plane, I snuggled into my scarf and drifted off to sleep, trying not to think of him.

  Busiest. Day. Ever.

  Shortly after the talk over our morning coffee with Matt, we got tapped out for a car accide
nt on the highway. That was a real treat in rush hour traffic. People in this town drove like maniacs; it would never make sense to me. On the up side, no one was hurt; it was really more of a mess and a roadblock than anything.

  We’d been back at the station for about an hour when we got called to save some baby ducks that had gotten trapped in a storm drain. While not technically our job, we’d never say no to helping. We had to attach a hook to the storm drain to pull it up using the truck, then Scotty jumped in to grab them and hand them up to safety. I was hoping that Scotty would become the next Lieutenant when I moved up to Deputy Chief; he had what it took to be a leader, and he was smart. He had gone to college and had a degree in fire science. He was destined for big things. Well, bigger than rescuing baby ducks from a storm drain at least. But it was good public relations for the department.

  No sooner had we cleaned up from that run, when we were called to a fire just outside of town. That took up most of the rest of the day and into the evening. A farmhouse had caught fire and somehow had spread to farm equipment, as well as a barn. There were about four stations involved and we were second on scene, mostly because we had barely pulled into the station when we turned around and pulled right back out.

  The house was about a mile outside of town, where the properties were bigger, and there were a handful of farms. For whatever reason, maybe just simple convenience, the owners parked all of their tractors and other farm equipment in a row between their house and their barn. When the fire started in the kitchen, because it was old wood frame construction, it spread quickly before anyone even knew what had happened.

  It appeared that the flames had spread to the exterior window of the home, extremely close to a tractor, which was of course filled with fuel. When we arrived, the equipment was catching on fire in a domino effect, spreading from one machine to the next very quickly.

  “Well, shit,” I said as we pulled down the long driveway.