by Vivian Wood
It was always strange to step into the office. It was sleek, modern, and nearly sterile. A sharp contrast to the waiting room with its two lumpy couches and handknitted pillow covers with flowery inspirational sayings stitched across them.
Clearly, two very different people had decorated each space. Cade guessed the office was more Dr. Hersh’s style, and that made total sense.
Sterile and unwelcoming, just like him.
“Are you just going to stare at me for the whole hour?” Cade finally barked.
“I could, though it’s not my preference,” Dr. Hersh said.
Yeah. I could too, if my only job was to siphon money off the Oregon state government.
Cade stared at his boots, a little singed from the fire at the apartment building.
It hadn’t been easy to walk into that burning building. Knowing that his almost-brothers were inside, he almost couldn’t do it.
What if I lost them, too?
Every step he’d taken had felt like his shoes had been lined with lead. Now, it was almost worse that the incident made him so aware of how fucked up his instincts were.
Well, that’s not quite right, he corrected himself.
His instincts had actually returned to normal. One of the most important things he’d been taught as a recruit was how to turn off natural human instincts. Survival instincts. It wasn’t normal to run toward a fire, but that’s what firefighters did.
And I’d been damn good at it too, he recalled. Even battling the worst flames, he’d somehow managed to switch off both his survival and fear instincts. Yeah, and gotten three men killed in the process.
Dr. Hersh shifted slightly in the hard, contemporary seat that looked like it belonged in a spaceship.
“If you don’t want to talk about the incident with the apartment building, that’s fine for today,” Dr. Hersh said. “But it would help both of us if we talked about something.”
“You decorate this office?” Cade asked.
He didn’t want to engage with the doctor, but he was curious and needed affirmation.
“Me? No,” Dr. Hersh said with a laugh. “My daughter-in-law, she’s an interior designer. She did all this.”
“And the waiting room?”
“I don’t know, that’s how it was when we moved into this location. It’s technically a shared space, so we weren’t allowed to touch it.”
So you should know how it feels to be stuck in a place where you can’t be yourself, he thought. Cade went silent again, but any time he wasn’t actively distracting himself, all he could think about was that apartment fire. At the doorstep, everything in him had screamed to run away.
“What are you thinking now?” Dr. Hersh asked.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, automatically.
Every firefighter out there probably has stories like mine, he thought. It’s just nobody talks about them. So why am I stuck in this office while everyone else is out working?
“Nothing,” Dr. Hersh repeated. “I doubt it’s about interior design. Look, Cade, I know you don’t want to be here—”
“It’s that obvious, huh?”
Dr. Hersh ignored the remark. “But you have to be here. I could tell you the reasons why you’re here, and I have. However, I’m curious why you think you’re here.”
Cade opened his mouth as a smart retort was already forming.
“And I don’t want to hear any of that, ‘because the captain is making me’ type of excuses.”
Cade snapped his mouth shut and glared at Dr. Hersh. The doctor remained straight-faced.
Damn, it really does look like he could just sit there forever.
“I don’t know,” Cade finally said.
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know why I’m here.”
The doctor continued to stare at him. Does he ever blink?
“I mean, I guess I’m here because … you know, I lost three of my crew in a fire. And I guess that fucked with my head, or something.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you there? You didn’t just lose friends, you were trying to get to them?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You weren’t the only one in the fire, though. There were other firefighters, right?”
“Yeah, they’re not going to send out four guys in the crew to take on Lodgepole Complex.”
“I didn’t realize that’s where you were,” Dr. Hersh said as he pushed up his glasses.
“It was only supposed to be a small blaze. At first. I mean, at least when it started … a two-alarm.”
“Two-alarm?”
“Multiple units from different companies,” Cade said with a sigh.
“Would you mind telling me more?”
“Oh, why the hell not. Clearly, you’re not going to give up.”
“I’ve been told I’m persistent.”
Cade crossed his arms over his chest and slouched down into the seat. “You ever been to Square Butte in the autumn?”
“No.”
“It’s cold as hell. Colder than Oregon in the spring. It wasn’t really our busy season and, well, after those two hundred and seventy thousand acres burned in the summer everyone pretty much forgot about this one.”
“Except for you.”
Cade swallowed.
“We don’t … we still don’t know why it grew out of hand so fast,” he said. “I mean, the four of us had been on the crew together for almost three years. We’d been in worse situations than that before. Or at least that’s what we thought. But when the chopper approached that fire—it was unprecedented. Like rappelling straight into hell.”
“So nobody who was on the scene was prepared for how fast it would spread.”
Cade shook his head.
“We suspected maybe a campfire had gotten out of hand at first. Or someone’s cigarette. I, uh, I left before we got back the official report of the cause, and I never bothered to look it up.”
Didn’t want to, you mean. He swallowed, willing himself to continue.
“But all the talk afterward, it seems however the fire started, it made its way to an accelerant.”
Dr. Hersh scratched some notes in his pad, but didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, the three of them, they were in a gulch. We got separated, but at first I wasn’t worried.”
“And this was standard procedure?” Dr. Hersh asked. “To get separated.”
“Yes,” Cade said. He bristled at even the hint that his crew was responsible for their deaths.
“I’m just asking,” Dr. Hersh said. “I’m still learning about all these things.”
“Well, no,” Cade admitted.
“It wasn’t standard?”
Cade shook his head.
“How so?”
There wasn’t any judgment in the doctor’s voice, so Cade pushed on.
“It was standard for two of them,” he said slowly. “But, and I’m just guessing here, but I think maybe the third, Thom Barron, he might have heard one of them on the walkie-talkie? Or for some reason thought they needed help and broke protocol.”
“And where was Mr. Barron supposed to be?”
“With me,” Cade said quietly.
“And what did you do? When he went toward the other two?”
“I, uh … nothing.”
“Nothing?” The doctor raised his brow. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I didn’t do anything because I didn’t realize right away that he’d left.”
“I see. And do you have any guess on how long he was away from you?”
“I don’t …” Cade closed his eyes and tried to remember.
That was the one part of the day that was always black. He remembered the heat, the brightness. It was always almost impossible to hear his crew anyway with such a contained fire.
But you should have checked, he thought. How long did you go without seeing him? Thirty seconds? A minute? Three minutes, five?
Any of those timeframes could h
ave happened. He just didn’t know.
“It was all so fast,” he said weakly.
“That’s common, for time to get wonky in high-stress situations. Even for professionals who regularly work in traumatic environments,” Dr. Hersh said. “But what you need to remember is you’re not the one who broke protocol.”
“I should have made sure he was there,” Cade said.
“And he should have stayed with you if he was able,” Dr. Hersh said. “I’m not saying what he did was morally or ethically wrong, especially if he broke protocol to help the other men on your crew. But what you did wasn’t morally, ethically, or technically wrong.”
“You don’t understand,” Cade said.
“I understand more than you think. Maybe not your specific circumstances, but we all have histories.”
We all have histories.
“Are you able to tell me what happened next, from what you remember?”
“I … it’s all so blurry. I don’t know. I realized he was gone, but for how long I don’t know. And by the time I figured out where he was …”
“Yes?”
“There was just so much screaming.”
“From?”
“Them,” Cade said. He squeezed his eyes shut. The voices, all of them, echoed through his head. “God, I can still hear it. You know how when you hear a person scream, it’s usually in a movie and they’re acting. Or if it’s in person, they’re usually still acting—like on a carnival ride or something. But you don’t really ever hear a person scream for their life. Not really. Until they really are.”
Dr. Hersh nodded and jotted notes on his pad. “And you knew, without a doubt, in that moment, that all three of them were in that gulch?”
Cade nodded.
“You just know,” he said. “You work with someone, live with them a lot of the time, you just know.” He looked up and met Dr. Hersh’s eyes. “You know when someone you care about is screaming for their life.”
“Tell me more.”
“They were … they were maybe forty feet away? I’d made it to high ground, but my ankle was fucked up. Got pinned down by some branches, fractured it instantly. At first I couldn’t see them. It was just the sounds … but everything was falling apart. I was trying to yell down at them. Tell them it was okay. They couldn’t hear me on the walkies. But then something gave way, the smoke cleared for a minute, and I could see them.”
“You saw them?”
“Yeah,” Cade said quietly. “I watched them die.”
“Wasn’t it difficult to see clearly? I imagine with the smoke, all the flames—”
“I watched them die,” Cade repeated firmly. “I saw their faces. They were looking at me, all three of them. They screamed my name while they died.”
“Alright.”
“You know, in a fire? Most people think it’s the flames that kill you. It’s usually not. It’s usually the smoke. You suffocate to death way before you’re burned. But they didn’t even get that. I tried to get to them.”
“I believe you.”
“But I just … I wasn’t strong enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I tried, but the fire … it was just so goddamned hot.”
“What did you try to do?”
“I tried—I tried to just power through it. You know? I thought if I could just get to them, get some debris out of the way so they could get back out … but my body wouldn’t let me.”
“Humans have innate survival instincts. They’re what keep most of us from successful suicides, or repeating dangerous mistakes over and over.”
“Not us.”
“What?”
“Firefighters override instincts.”
Dr. Hersh scribbled wildly on his notepad. “And how did you get out?”
“I was carried out.”
“Excuse me?”
“I … passed out from the smoke. Or that’s what I was told, since I don’t remember. The last thing I remember was their faces. That look in their eyes, I’ll never forget it. And then I was in an ambulance.”
“So you would have died trying to save them if you weren’t rendered unconscious.”
“I should have died trying to save them.”
He stopped short of saying that in those last moments before darkness claimed him, he’d welcomed those flames.
There was nothing to live for anyway.
Cade felt a warm trickle lick down his cheek. He jerked up an arm to wipe away the tear and tried to make it look like a scratch.
“Cade—”
He made a fist and slammed his hand down on the table between them. The living edge wooden piece tremored beneath the impact.
“Why did it take them?” he demanded. “Why did it take three good men, two with families and one a brand new recruit—and it didn’t take me?”
“Cade, I think—”
“Forget it, I have to go.” Before the doctor could interrupt, Cade jumped out of his seat and raced out the door.
In the parking lot, he was too wound up to drive. Instead, he took to the sidewalk for the three-mile walk home. Or at least that’s what he’d thought. He was on autopilot, and his feet carried him to the bakery.
I just need a glimpse of something good. Someone who’s glad I survived.
He could see Lily through the bakery windows, a frilly apron tied around her waist.
God, she looks pretty, he thought. Pretty and good. Too good for someone like me.
Lily’s back was to him as she talked to someone outside of his line of sight.
What would she look like bouncing a baby on one hip? he thought suddenly, unaware of where such a thought had come from.
But the way she stood with her weight heavily on one hip, it wasn’t hard to imagine.
“There’s Daddy!” she would say when she saw him, cooing to the baby. “Say hi! Can you say hi?”
“You’re fucking ridiculous,” he whispered to himself under his breath.
He didn’t even want kids, necessarily. But maybe, if they were with her …
The possibility intrigued him, but Cade immediately rebuked himself. There were so many reasons why it couldn’t happen.
Lily turned, spotted him through the window and smiled. He could feel the electricity even from the patio. Even if Lily wasn’t his best friend’s little sister, he didn’t deserve someone like her. Hell, he’d slept through half of Salem’s population finding that out.
You should have never slept with her. Never led her on. Never restarted whatever this is.
He turned on his heel and marched toward his apartment.
7
Lily
“Fill it with premium, please,” she told the gas station attendant as she handed him her card.
Lily turned off the ignition and tapped her horoscope app.
Libra, today might present some challenges. Tread carefully.
“That’s one way of putting it,” she said.
She heard the attendant struggle with the gas cap, as usual. Lily glared at the steering wheel. She liked that it was a Mercedes, seafoam green. But it was also a 1979.
It was a beast and expensive to maintain, from the premium gas to the five hundred dollars she’d had to pay just to get it running again.
And I thought living above a mechanic shop would magically make her run like new.
A black Hummer pulled up to the pump opposite her. Tim Criss jumped out and handed the attendant his card. Lily sank as low into her seat as she could. She hadn’t seen her college boyfriend since he’d dumped her at the coffee shop three years ago.
What the hell is he doing in Salem, anyway?
They’d met at OSU, but Tim was from Medford and always talked smack about her hometown. He’d complained every year she’d “dragged him” to holidays.
Lily slipped her aviators on and pretended to be engrossed in her phone. But all she could do was reread the same sentence over and over.
Libra, today might present some challenges.
“Hey! Hey, babe.”
Tim leaned down toward her. He still wore the same cologne that he had in college, and it instantly took her back. She felt like an undergraduate again, naively proud to have someone like Tim Criss as a boyfriend.
Lily shifted away from him as best she could and kept her eyes on her phone.
“Damn, cold shoulder, alright I get it,” he said with a laugh. “You look good. I’m up here for a meeting with an investor. I was going to text you.”
Lily sighed and took off the sunglasses. “What do you want, Tim?”
He bit his lip and blatantly looked her up and down. She was aware that her work blouse probably pulled tight at the chest, but she refused to act embarrassed or try to adjust it.
“We might have broken up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still see each other. What are you up to this evening?”
“Work.” She had to admit, he still looked good. Not as muscular as he used to be, and his red hair had thinned, but he could still turn some heads.
“Where do you work?”
“Bakery.”
“How late are bakeries open? I’m in meetings until probably ten or eleven tonight anyway. Nightcap?”
She was enraged at not just his invitation, but his assumption that she’d be down for a booty call after three years and the way he’d dumped her.
“No.”
Tim looked to either side and leaned in closer.
“You’re still mad that I dumped you?” he hissed. “It’s not my fault that your personality wasn’t enough to keep me—or any guy—interested. I know what you did.”
She jerked up her head. “What are you talking about?”
He grinned at her reaction. “Whoring yourself out the second you could. Didn’t want to let the whole campus know what a slut you were, huh? So you played the good girl with me while you were handing it out all over town up here—”
“Miss? Your receipt?” The attendant appeared, uncertain, over Tim’s shoulder.
Anger mixed with shame as she reached past Tim to grab the receipt.
He couldn’t know. Could he? Cade wouldn’t have told anybody, and there’s no way it could have gotten back to Tim. Could it?
“Ah, come on, don’t be mad!” Tim said. “I’m the same way, it’s too bad there are double standards for girls. So what about tonight, babe—”
