To Protect & Serve (30 page)

“No, I mean now. You got a pen?”

Somehow she took down the names, but it would be a miracle if any of them were right or even legible. When Tucker finished the list, he signed off, and Lisa was left holding the phone. Tired pulled on her eyelids. Slowly the desk took her head, and she was asleep before her body could protest.

Except for the ache in the muscles of his forearms, Jeff was beginning to get used to the hassle of using everything other than his hands to do things. He had learned to open cabinet doors with his elbows, to open chip bags with his teeth, and that feet were good for a lot of things he’d never noticed they would be useful for. However, when he tried to start supper, the limits of his improvisational abilities ran out.

By the time he gave up, a jar of pickles lay in pieces on the floor by the refrigerator, and half the carton of milk was spilled all over the counter. The tuna can was open but upside down under the can opener, and every time he stepped, he trod on another fork or spoon he had dropped. A few he had managed to get back up to the cabinet with his toes, but the others were now one interminable web of stainless steel booby traps.

“Hi!” Lisa called when Jeff was in his room doing sit-ups next to the bed. If he couldn’t be useful, he could at least work off his frustration. “Jeff?”

“Yeah,” he called. “I’m back here.” Eighty-one. Eighty-two.

“What’s up with the kitchen?” she asked, surveying him carefully when she made it to the door of his room.

“Tuna sandwiches and soup,” he said, pulling himself forward. “I thought that sounded good for supper.”

“Uh-huh,” she said with a nod. Then she shrugged and arched her neck one way, squeezing her eyes closed at the pain that caused. “Okay. Well, I’ll be in here when you’re finished.”

“Okay,” he said. Ninety-three. Ninety-four. When she turned down the hall, it occurred to him how slow her steps had become, and a vague concern for her traced through him. At one hundred and ten, he pulled the towel off the weight bench and threw it over his shoulder before walking to the kitchen. He found her bent over the shards of glass at the refrigerator.

“Those pickles had a mind of their own,” he said timidly.

“Yeah, it looks that way.”

He waited a beat. “How was work?”

“Work,” she said, dumping a handful of glass into the trashcan.

“Have they come up with the office supply ads yet?”

“I don’t know. I was working on other things.”

“Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know. Other things.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. He paused a beat trying to decide if he should venture into the next subject that came to mind. “Gabe came by today.”

“That’s nice.” With the little hand sweeper she worked to corral the last little green shards cowering under the counter.

“He said they’ve got a new truck coming in next week. A brand new one. They’re going to trade the old one down to one of the suburbs.”

“That’s nice.”

“I wonder how different this new truck is going to be. You know— if we’re going to have to retrain for it or anything.”

With a clang and three thumps on the trashcan with the dustpan, Lisa stood and wiped her hands. She closed the trashcan, put it back in the corner, and stepped over to the counter where she ran water on a dishrag and started wiping up the milk.

“Hayes must have some pull though to get a new truck. That other one’s only eight or ten years old.”

The milk clean, she stepped over to the other cabinet and picked up the tuna can. “How about tuna casserole, seeing’s how we don’t have any more pickles.”

He shrugged. “Okay by me.” Gently he wiped his forehead with the towel. “I really can’t wait to get these bandages off next week. This itching thing is starting make me nuts.”

“Your hands?” she asked with concern.

“No, everything else. Do you know how hard it is to itch your nose with these things?” He held both hands up in testimony. “It’s annoying.”

“I can imagine,” she said softly as she dumped the contents of first one can and then another into the pan.

His nose slipped from his consciousness as he really looked at her. “Are you okay?”

“I called Eve today,” Lisa said although her back was to him.

“You did?”

“To make sure she’s okay.”

“Is she?” Guilt slid over him for not thinking to make that call himself.

“She’s trying to be,” Lisa said, but her voice didn’t make it all the way through the statement. Gently he walked over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. In the next heartbeat she spun into him and crushed her eyelids into his chest. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now. I can’t even imagine it…”

Something told him as he held her that she could come closer to imagining it that most of the other people on the planet.

On Saturday they went to see Eve. Lisa drove although they took his car, so talking on the way was out. She needed too much brainpower to work the car. That was good, though. In her books the less they talked right now the better. At the little townhouse, Lisa tried not to imagine them moving in, decorating, dancing in the kitchen—but it was difficult. Everywhere she looked, she saw not only Eve but Dustin too. Jeff was right. They were inseparable.

“So, how are you doing?” Jeff asked when they sat down in the living room which opened high above them into the bedrooms upstairs.

“Surviving,” Eve said softly. “How about you?”

“I’ve been better.”

“How are the hands?”

“Bandages come off in a week.”

“And then…?”

“Light duty only for four weeks,” he said with a nod. “At least that will give me something to do.”

Next to him, Lisa shifted on the couch, reaching for a change of subject. “How are your parents?”

“Adjusting. I think if they could, they’d put me in this little box and bubble wrap me. You know? But I’m just trying to get to the next minute in one piece.”

“Has the station called?” Jeff asked.             

“They’ve been great. Really supportive. One of the guys even brought… the things over so I wouldn’t have to go down there.”

For that, Lisa was thankful. Standing by Jeff’s locker traced through her, but she pushed that away. “So, do you think you’re going to stay here then?”

Eve, thinner even than Lisa remembered, sat wordless for a long moment. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I go back to work on Monday, and then I guess I’ll see where life takes me
from there. Right now, there’s no big plan.” Eve’s gaze fell to her hands. “Not anymore anyway.” The fight against the tears was obvious in her voice, and when she looked up, they were glittering on her lashes. “I’m sorry.”

Lisa’s own resolve buckled as she watched Jeff stand and cross the two feet to envelop Eve in his arms.

“Hey, hey. Don’t ever apologize to us,” he said as he held her. “If you need to cry, then that’s what you need to do, and that’s okay.”

Eve sniffed. “It’s just that we always knew this was a possibility. You know? We always did. I just… somehow never thought it would be us.”

“No one does,” Jeff said as he held her. “No one does.”

She sniffed again. “I feel like such a burden on everyone. Like they all have to stop what they’re doing to take care of me.”

“Hey, you’re not a burden. Besides that’s the point of this life—being there for each other. If we didn’t have that, what would there be to live for?” He hugged her and then pulled away to look at her face. “This thing is on your time table. As long as it takes we’ll be here. Okay?”

Slowly she nodded.

“Don’t ever forget that.”

The whole next week Lisa tried to keep that comment in her heart. As long as it took—that’s how long she wanted to be there for him, and she was determined not to let him forget it. So, when they were seated at the table over pasta the next Friday it was all she could do to squelch the terror when he made his announcement.

“I’m going to start hazmat classes in September,” he said as if he was telling her he’d picked up the dry cleaning.

The noodle slipped down the wrong pipe in her throat, and Lisa choked on it. “Hazmat?”

“Yeah, hazardous materials. I didn’t get my certification when I got out because it was going to take too long, but I really think it would be a step in the right direction now. Besides if I take it in September, I can take aircraft rescue in October, and be fully certified by November.”

She swallowed the protests with the drink she took. “But your hands…?”

“The doctor said it shouldn’t be any problem by September. Besides if I get these two certs, then I can start working my way up the ladder to driver and then to lieutenant.”

Her gaze wouldn’t leave the table. “I didn’t know you wanted to work up the ladder.”

“Of course I do,” he said with a small laugh. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. When do you start?” They were the hardest four words she’d ever spoken, followed instantly by the two hardest she had ever heard.

“September second.”

Lisa couldn’t get that date out of her head. While she redressed the wounds that were looking far too good for her sanity, while she sat next to him on the couch watching some movie she didn’t really care about, while she stood on his threshold, saying goodnight and wondering how many more “good nights” they would have.

In her dreams Eve was there constantly saying how she had never thought it would be them, and Jeff was there, sitting next to her in that graveyard, and she was there, clutching a flag and screaming at God above for one more moment with him. In the daylight she held her world together by the barest of threads, hoping against hope that he would change his mind and end her nightmares. It was this side of impossible to hear him sound excited about going back to work. She hated that job, the station, and everything associated with it. If she could just find a way to tell him that, make him see that it was killing her to think of him walking into another fire, that her heart seared at the center just thinking about it. If she could just do that, then her world could get back to normal. If she couldn’t, she was vaguely aware that nothing would ever be right again.

Jeff was glad to be back at work even though he took some ribbing for the whole “light duty” thing. He knew that the comments were meant to make a bad situation a little better. As long as he took the painkillers religiously and watched out for that one sore spot in the web between his thumb and finger on his right hand, he was okay. In fact, he thought as he worked a metal maintenance kit across the floor with his foot, he had found ways his body could help that he had never realized were there.

“I need that torque wrench,” Gabe called from the front of the truck as he worked on the motor in mid-August.

“At your service,” Jeff said, handing the tool over. “New truck. You would’ve thought the thing would run for more than a couple of weeks.”

“Takes awhile to break them in,” Gabe said. “Kind of like women.”

Jeff laughed a little at that. “How’s Ashley anyway?”

“Thrilled. We got an offer to go to New Orleans with her parents over Labor Day weekend.”

“That’s good.”

“No, it’s not. The flight leaves Thursday. We’re on shift Friday.”

“Oh, great.”

“Yeah, that’s what Ash said, except with more colorful language.” The wrench clicked on the metal. “So, how’s Lisa?”

Jeff shrugged. “Good, I guess.”

The clicking stopped, and Gabe looked over at him. “You guess?”

For all he was worth, Jeff wished he could hold Gabe’s gaze. “This month’s been kind of tough on her.”

Gabe’s working slowed. “I can imagine.”

“She doesn’t talk about it much,” Jeff said, squinting through the middle of that thought.

“How about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you talk about it much?” Gabe handed the wrench back.

“What’s to talk about? I’m okay.” He held his hands which now sported only a couple of band-aids
up for inspection. “Getting better every day.”

Gabe bent back over the fender. “I didn’t mean your hands.”

“She’s having enough trouble as it is. She doesn’t need my sob story to add to that.”

“How about someone to lean on?” Gabe asked. “Does she need that?”

“She leans on me,” Jeff said defensively.

When Gabe looked at him, Jeff got the feeling that he could see all the way through him. “That’s good because I know Ashley. She’ll drive herself into the ground to take care of things for me— if I let her.”

“Yeah, well, I think Lisa’s hanging in there,” Jeff said although his certainty at the statement waned the moment it was out of his mouth.

Gabe nodded. “I’m sure she is.”

No matter where he ran, Jeff couldn’t get those words to leave him alone. How much had Lisa taken care of for him in the last four weeks? And he had let her, leaned on her for strength and sanity the whole time. Like a rock she had stood there, unbending, un-breaking. Yet until that moment, he hadn’t really even noticed. Tuesday afternoon when he woke up, the fact that it was repayment time swelled within him. He owed her, and now it was time to start paying her back.

When Jeff stepped into her front office at 4:30, a bag of take-out hot dogs in hand, he put a finger to his lips so that Sherie wouldn’t alert Lisa that he was here. Quietly he stepped to her office door as Sherie stood to stop him, but he put up a hand to warn her off and to shush her protest. The second her gaze dropped to his hand; however, he saw the step she took backward, and he tried to smile at her to assure her he was fine. Her look said she knew better. Without a sound, he turned the knob and cracked the door to Lisa’s office.

“What? You think this is, a joke?” Lisa asked furiously as the phone cord dangled around the back of her chair to the receiver. “Trust me, I’m not in the mood to be coming up with jokes at the moment. Now, if you would be so kind as to check your records, I’m sure our payment will be documented in your accounts receivable. We sent it on the tenth of June. I don’t care if it’s not showing up on your computer! I’m telling you, we sent it. I’ve got the cancelled check right…”

Her chair spun around, and Jeff’s breath caught. She looked at him, and her eyes tilted across the fury. Her hair stuck out in all directions, the circles under her eyes were hard gray lines, and the edges of her skin were sallow and sunken. When had all of that happened? And why hadn’t he noticed?

Quickly she bent her head and swiped across her desk. “…here. It’s number 1715, for $1,241.19, made out to Corporate Printing on the tenth of June. It even says what it’s for down here: Leadership Brochures… Yeah, I can fax it. Would that help?  Fine. I’ll have it there in two minutes. What’s the number?”

In a scrawl that looked far too pointy and slanted for her handwriting, she transferred the number to the yellow pad which couldn’t have been staying on the top of the stack by more than an eighth of an inch. “Yeah, I got it. Okay.” The phone hit the cradle, and she stood without so much as acknowledging him. She ripped the paper out of the notebook and the check off the top of her desk and stomped out to the front office. “Fax this to Corporate Printing… now.” On her heel, she turned and stalked back into her office and around her desk where she started sorting through the top layer stacked there. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I didn’t either,” he said softly. “Is this a bad time?”

Her face was hard. “It’s always a bad time these days.” Then she seemed to remember who she was talking to, and she closed her eyes and took in a long, slow breath. When she opened them again, it took a moment for her to look up from the papers. “I’m sorry.” Her face had softened in the span of seconds, and even the circles had lightened. “Did you need something? I was going to pick up some groceries before I came tonight. I figured you were probably out of milk if you ate cereal this morning.”

Watching her, his heart asked how he could have been so blind. “No, I didn’t need groceries. I just wanted to see you. It’s been awhile since I’ve been over here.”

“Oh,” she said, the act sliding away from her. “Well, you should’ve called. I would’ve…” Her hands dropped to the desk as they moved folders back and forth, fighting to make her world look less chaotic.

Slowly he set the bag in the chair, stepped around the desk, and took her in his arms. “I’m so sorry.” Even in his arms, he could feel the rigidity of her body. Stiff like iron.

Unsettled, she barely returned the hug before backing away from him and swiping at her eyes. “That’s okay. I just had the Office Supply place call about their radio spots, and I can’t find the Kamden report to save my life, and… damn it!” Her hands slammed the folder they traced across down. “I can’t do anything right
anymore!” She reached up to lay a finger on the top of her nose to stop the tears.

“How can I help?” he asked, as helplessness washed over him.

The composed look that she finally leveled at him chilled him to the bone. “I think this is one I should handle on my own.”

He felt himself back up. “Are… are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Don’t worry about it.” Pulling sanity to her she shook her head to push the emotion down. “I’m sure I can dig out from under this mess somehow.”

“I could…”

“No, Jeff,” she said, the iron just under the softness in her voice. “I can do it.”

“O… okay.” His feet backed him around the desk. “You going to come to my place tonight?”

Slowly she nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“I thought a small can would be enough,” Lisa said as she stood at his stove, stirring the meat sauce. “It’s always so hard to tell.”

Had he not seen the before and after picture, he never would’ve guessed, he thought as he leaned against the counter and watched her. Never. Hair perfect, eyes tired but circles gone. No, he never would’ve guessed how out-of-control she looked when she wasn’t in his company. Somehow he knew that wasn’t a compliment.

“These companies. They think we don’t notice how much they’re skimping on the contents of their product.” She lifted the can. “See 14 ½ ounces. It used to be 16. I did a paper on that in college.” She set the can back on the counter. “So, how was the station?”

“Busy. That new truck’s giving us problems.”

“Already?” Her hand reached down and spun the knob to lower the fire as she continued to stir. “Didn’t you just get that thing?”

Jeff shrugged. “Gabe thinks it’s a timing problem.”

“Huh, sounds logical,” she said although he wondered if she had any idea what the term even meant. Somehow he hadn’t noticed how few in-depth questions she asked about the station. A few here and there to keep the conversation going, but nothing beyond that. It was like she didn’t want to know anymore.

“This stuff is like paste.” She picked up the spoon and turned it over. The red sauce glopped back into the pan. Quickly she opened a cabinet and pulled out a measuring cup he didn’t remember having. “Could you get me some water?”

“Sure,” he said, taking the cup from her. He filled it and returned it to the cabinet beside her. It was the first time he had been so close to her in what felt like years. Gently he put his arms on either side of her arms. “You smell good.”

“Yeah, like over done meat sauce.”

One push at a time he swayed to one side and then the other. Why had he ever been
so reluctant to dance with her? He must’ve been insane.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and he heard the annoyance.

“Dancing,” he whispered in her ear.

“You don’t dance. Remember?”

With one arm he spun her around. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” He tried to bury his head into her shoulder, but she wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to accomplish that.

“Hey!” She pushed him back. “Hello, I was cooking.”

“What? You don’t want to dance with me?” he asked, and the hurt in his chest screamed through his voice.

Her eyes closed on the accusation. “I’m sorry. Of course I want to dance with you.”

As he took her in his arms, he knew something had changed. Their timing was off. Their rhythm was off. They were off. “Want to talk about it?” he finally asked, when the space she put between them punched through his heart.

“You don’t want to,” she said, shaking her head miserably.

“How do you know that?”

She looked at him, and bright tears glinted across her lashes. “The fire stays at the fire. Remember?” Her gaze dropped from his. “I’m trying to.”

His heart broke for the pain he had seen in her eyes. “Come here.” With just enough hold on rational, he reached over and snapped the fire off from under the meal. Then he led her to the couch, sat her down, and laid an arm around her shoulders. “I know this has been tough on you. The burns, and keeping me together, and Dustin…”

The breath she took in seemed to steady her as she sat up and put her elbows on her knees. “That’s part of it,” she said, nodding as though she was telling herself this lecture. “If you’re with a fireman, that’s part of it. You just have to learn to deal with it, and go on. Dwelling on it doesn’t help. Worrying will make you crazy. So you deal with it—however you have to.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing? Huh? Dealing with it?”

“I don’t have a choice. I love you, so there isn’t another option.”

With that word, his world slammed to a stop. “What did you say?”

She looked back at him, but her face was laden with sadness. As she straightened her head and her shoulders, sorrowful determination slipped into her eyes. “Love isn’t about when it’s easy. That’s what Mom used to tell me, but I never really understood that until… well, until recently. I watched her, my mom…” Lisa nodded at the memory. “When Dad was late for supper and she’d get upset about it but try to act like she wasn’t… Yeah, she’d just keep going like it wasn’t a problem. And the nights he’d come home too tired to help with us, Mom would feed us supper, help with the homework, run the baths, read the stories, and put us all to bed. I asked her about it once, and she said, ‘Lisa, that’s just what you do when you love someone. When you really love someone, you can’t think about yourself anymore.’

“I’d never found anyone that meant enough for me to do that before you. Fact, I guess I’d decided it’d just be easier if I didn’t. Families, relationships, they just complicate life too much. At least that’s what I used to think before…”

“You went to a bar and made the mistake of finding someone.”

“Something like that,” she agreed. “At first I thought Mom was wrong because I felt like it wasn’t nearly as hard as she always made it look… I don’t know.” Lisa sighed softly. “All I know is I want what’s best for you, and I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen.”

“And what about you?”

Slowly she shrugged. “I just have to figure out a way to live with it.”

He slid over beside her. “But I don’t want you to have to do that. I don’t want you to have to live with it. I want you to be happy too.”

Her fingers crisscrossed over themselves. “Well, from where I'm at, I don’t see how both of us can be happy. You want one thing, I want another, and for you to get what you want, I don’t get what I want…” The track she was on slid from under his feet. “…and if I get what I want, you’ll be miserable.”