Page 10 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

"Chicago knows me better than you do. It's got the paperwork to prove it."

He doesn't flinch. That's the thing about Tater. Grew three sizes since high school and none of it went to fear.

"I know you pulled Amos Kessler out of a burning house four hours after you crossed the county line," he says. "Bleeding, on no sleep, in borrowed gear. That's the paperwork I care about."

He lets that sit a second. Then, quieter: "This town never quit calling you ours, Owen. You're the only one who quit answering."

I look at the stars so I don't have to look at him.

"You're drowning, man." His voice drops. Gentle, which is worse. "I've watched you drown for two years from a thousand miles away. Least I can do is throw you something to hold onto."

I don't answer that. Can't.

"These probies," I say instead. "They on the same shift or split?"

"Same. Which is the problem."

"Who's got them on the pump?"

"Nobody worth a damn. Ramos was our pump guy."

"You can't run two green kids on one shift with no pump man. That's how somebody gets—" I stop. Hear myself.

Tater's looking at the stars like he didn't notice. He noticed. Man could win money at cards if Debbie let him.

The screen door bangs. Debbie comes out with a pie plate and three forks.

"Don't stop on my account. You were getting to the good part."

"Buttermilk," she says. "Fresh. Now, you can say no to Tater all night, honey, but nobody says no to my pie and stays welcome in Texas."

I look at the pie. I look at Tater.

"Ninety days," I say. "Not one more."

Tater grins so wide it's got to hurt. Debbie whoops loud enough to wake the twins.

Ninety days. Get my head right. Go back.

I keep telling myself that on the drive out to the farmhouse, like if I say it enough times it'll stay true.

***

The house is dark when I pull up. Course it is. Been dark three years, since Dad followed Mom by eight months and I flew in long enough to bury him and sign papers and fly out again.

The key still lives under the third porch board. Small towns.

Inside smells like dust and shut windows. Somebody, Tater probably, threw sheets over the furniture, and in the dark they look like a room full of people who gave up waiting on me.

I flip the hall light. Half the bulbs are out.

The kitchen doorframe stops me.

Pencil marks climb the white paint, dates beside them in Mom's handwriting. Owen, age 6. Owen, age 9. The lines stack up like water rising, year over year, all the way to seventeen.

Then nothing. The frame goes clean above that last mark.

Seventeen. The year I started telling everybody I was getting out of Willowbend the day I graduated. Like the house heard me and quit keeping track.