My husband was working on his birthday, so I surprised him at the fire station with cake and balloons — no one smiled when I walked in, and his captain asked, “You don’t know yet?”
“Because I couldn’t go back to the station.”
“I know that now.”
“No. Nadine.”
His voice broke.
“I can’t go back.”
That silenced me.
Garrett reached into his truck and pulled out a large envelope.
Inside were resignation papers.
Signed that morning.
His birthday.
“You quit?”
“I turned everything in today.”
I stared at him.
“Without telling me.”
He nodded.
“Just like you went on leave without telling me. Just like you’ve been pretending to work.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That isn’t an answer.”
He covered his face with both hands.
Then he finally told me what had happened inside the Carver Street apartment.
Garrett and Wade had been searching upstairs when part of the hallway collapsed.
Wade became trapped behind burning debris.
Garrett could hear him.
He tried to reach him.
Then the conditions became too dangerous.
Captain Holloway ordered Garrett out.
Garrett refused.
Two firefighters dragged him from the building seconds before part of the second floor collapsed.
Wade died inside.
“I heard him calling my name,” Garrett whispered.
Tears ran down his face.
“And I left.”
“You were pulled out.”
“I left him.”
“You would have died too.”
“That’s what everybody keeps telling me.”
He looked at me.
“But I still wake up hearing him.”
The next fire alarm Garrett responded to had brought it all back.
The heat.
The cracking wood.
Wade’s voice.
His body simply stopped moving.
“The guys saw me freeze,” he said. “I couldn’t even make my legs work.”
“So you came home and lied to me.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the house where Calvin had disappeared.
“Because every time someone asks what you do, you tell them your husband is a firefighter.”
I stared at him.
“You say it like you’re proud.”
“I am proud of you.”
“That’s the problem.”
“No. The problem is that you decided the only part of you I could be proud of was the uniform.”
He looked down.
