A Firefighter's Promise

“I know that Chris wants to hear about how he was found,” she said. Chris’s attention snapped up.

“Sure.” Matt cleared his throat. “Do you know anything about that night, Chris?”

“A little bit,” the boy replied past a cheek full of food.

“I was working the night shift, and I was watching a training video. Someone buzzed downstairs—a woman—asking me to come down. I didn’t know what to expect, so I went on down.”

“Was that my mom?” Chris asked after swallowing.

Every time Chris referred to his birth mother as “his mom,” it stung just a little. Rachel had imagined these conversations countless times over the years, but she’d never fully appreciated how difficult it was for a mother to share her child. She should have been discussing this with him long ago, and if she hadn’t been so crushed by Ed’s death, she would have.

“I’m assuming so,” Matt said with a nod. “When I got down there, she was gone, and you were there. In a box.”

“Was I small?”

“You were pretty tiny, buddy.”

“Did I cry?”

“A little bit. You were hungry.”

“So you fed me?”

“We had some bottles and formula on hand in case of emergency, and I guess you counted as an emergency. So I sat in a big armchair, and I fed you your bottle. You slurped that thing back like nobody’s business, and then you settled in for a nice nap.”

“How long did you hold him for?” Rachel asked softly.

“It took about three hours for Social Services to arrive. So I just sat there and held him. He was cold.” He glanced at Rachel uneasily, and she suspected there was more to the story, details he couldn’t share in front of Chris.

“What’s that services thing?” Chris asked.

“Social Services take care of people when they need help. They came to get you, and they found you a good home where you would be safe and loved. That’s how your mom and dad got you.”

“We got a call that night.” Rachel continued the story. “They said a baby needed a safe home, and they asked if we’d take care of you. We drove down and picked you up, and I knew the moment I saw you that I’d never let you go.”

“But what about my mom?” Chris asked, and Rachel pushed back the sting.

“I don’t know, Chris,” she said quietly. “Your birth mother left you at the fire station, and no one ever found out who she was. But I know that she wanted you to be safe. She brought you to the one place she could be sure that someone would take care of you.”

Chris put his attention back into his pizza, and when Rachel glanced back in Matt’s direction, she found his warm gaze enveloping her. He reached across the table and took her hand in his broad, warm grasp, giving her a squeeze. He released her fingers almost as quickly as he’d taken them, but she was grateful for the gesture.

“Chris, I saw some video games over there in the corner,” Matt said. He leaned back in his seat and fished around in his pocket, his hand emerging with a fistful of quarters. “Do you want to try them?”

“Can I, Mom?” Chris turned bright, exuberant eyes onto Rachel, the previous heaviness apparently forgotten.

She smiled and nodded. “Sure, sweetie. Have fun.”

Chris accepted the quarters into his cupped palms and headed off toward the video games. They looked almost antique—Pac-Man, some racing games and a claw that dipped into a vat of dusty plush toys. He looked so grown up, standing there with his quarters, and yet so small, all at once.

This move to Haggerston was supposed to give Chris the stability he craved, yet even here, she felt his struggle. He couldn’t put words to it—he was too young to even try. She knew what was in his heart, though.

Who did he belong to?

And her heart replied with every beat, You belong to me.

* * *

Matt leaned his elbows on the table and stabbed at some ice cubes in his glass with a straw. Rachel looked toward her son, and when her gaze flickered back in his direction, color rose in her cheeks. She was gorgeous—and every time emotion sparkled in those dark eyes, he found his thoughts sliding into dangerous territory.

“He’s growing up so fast,” she said.

Matt nodded. “I can only imagine.”

“He’s been asking about his birth mother a lot lately.” She breathed a sigh. “This isn’t easy.”

“She did what was best for him,” he said. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Chris, but he was in rough shape when I found him. He was in a wet cardboard box. His sleeper was soaked, his diaper was dirty and his bottle was rancid. He shivered in my arms for a full hour, and he drank bottle after bottle. I doubt he was getting enough milk before he was dropped off at the firehouse. He was so desperate for human touch that once he figured I’d protect him, he wouldn’t let anyone else touch him.”

She froze at those words, and he immediately regretted them. “I’m sorry. That was probably too blunt.”

“No, no...” She shook her head, blinking back the tears that sprang to her eyes. “I was told about his condition by the authorities, but hearing it from you—” She swallowed, not finishing the thought.

Idiot, he chastised himself. She didn’t need to hear it like that.

“She brought him to the right place,” he said, his voice low. “And he went to the right home.”

Her dark gaze met his, and he was struck by those liquid eyes. Long lashes brushed her cheekbones with each blink, and a soft pink tinged her cheeks. She gave a weak shrug.

“I’d do anything for him. He’s really struggling.”

“You’re a good mom,” he replied. “He’ll be okay.”

She nodded and sucked in a deep breath. “I think Haggerston is just what Chris needs. I keep saying that, but I really do believe it. Sometimes a fresh start is just the ticket.”

Her words struck on the deepest longing inside him, too. She wanted to start over here in Haggerston, and he wanted to start over as far from this town as he could get, but they both wanted the same thing. They wanted to leave behind the old barbs and wounds and start over again—get another kick at the can without the pain that weighed them down. Was it even possible? He sure hoped so, because it was his last hope.

“Couldn’t agree more.” He reached for another slice of pizza.

“I was wondering about something.” She paused, a frown creasing her brow. “When they hired me at Broxton Park Elementary, they mentioned that it had a fire a few years ago.”

Matt nodded. “A big one.”

“That’s scary. Were you there for it?”

“Yeah.” There for it was an understatement. He returned to that dreadful morning in his dreams, where he endlessly searched with his gloved hands, through the murky darkness. He pushed back the memories.

“That had to be terrifying for everyone. How do you do that?” Her thoughtful gaze moved over his face.

“It’s my job.”

“I know, but...” She paused, her intent eyes fixed on him. “Aren’t you scared in situations like that?”

“I’m well trained.” The training was intense. A firefighter learned to react before he felt, to obey an order and question it later. Like in the military, a quick response to command was the secret to success, and for a firefighter, success meant getting everyone out alive.

“I understand the training because my husband went through it, but I never could quite understand how someone could subvert every instinct in his body telling him to get out of there. That’s just simple self-preservation.”

She was right about that, but it was something they didn’t talk about. Being afraid was part of the job, but if they talked about it and fed it, then they were useless in the face of an emergency. Firefighters didn’t talk about fear; they talked about preparation.

“I’m suited up, I’ve got a buddy system and I’m much better prepared for that heat than the victims are. I’m pretty much just focused on finding people and getting them out.”

“You must have a lot of stories.”

Matt chuckled. “Most of the job is paperwork. We do prefire inspections, public education, that sort of thing. I do a lot of reports. Like this restaurant, for example.”

He glanced around them, quickly estimating the risks in the room. Rachel looked around the dining room, following his gaze.

“There are two exits—the door I came in, and a door out the back.” He hooked a thumb toward the front door. “These tables would be like an obstacle course, especially through the smoke. The kitchen is worse, but those prefire safety inspections give us a lay of the land, so to speak. We want to know a building’s layout before we have to stampede in there in full gear. We have a job, and we know what we have to do.”

“So you’re saying you’re too focused to get scared?” she asked.

He chuckled again, amused at her tenacity. She wasn’t going to let this go, was she? He shrugged. “We’re too well trained to admit to it.”

Rachel was silent for a moment. “So, was that the training taking over the first day we met you?”

He raised an eyebrow, considering. “I guess so, yeah. I’ve learned to lean back on the training when I feel—” He stopped, uncertain of even how to decipher the complicated emotions he felt when seeing Chris again for the first time.

“Scared?” she suggested.

He shrugged. “Scared? Maybe. Nervous. Uncertain. Off balance. Anyway, I either knock down doors or spout statistics. As you found out.” He smiled and she laughed softly.

“It makes sense. And thank God for your training—it saves lives.”

“Not enough lives,” he replied. All the training in the world couldn’t bring back Natalie Martin. He’d seen countless school pictures around town of the little girl, clean and brightly smiling. That wasn’t the face seared into his memory, however. He would always remember the face smeared with grime, eyes streaming from the smoke and her hair a tangled mess. He’s see her ashen cheeks as she lay unconscious in his arms. He couldn’t remember what he felt in those exact moments. He felt it later, when he lay in his bed that night after the fire had been extinguished, the day’s events playing through his mind. That was when the reality of the situation hit him.

“Amen to that,” she said quietly, and his gaze snapped up to meet hers. He’d momentarily forgotten about her husband, and he winced.

“I’m sorry. I forgot about your husband.”

She shook her head. “I have to admit, I’m still angry about his death.”

“It was pointless,” he said.

“Exactly. Pointless. But that’s what firefighters do. They put themselves in harm’s way in order to save people.”

“Did they save lives that day?” he asked. The risk was worth it if lives were saved—that was what kept a firefighter going.

“The truck driver didn’t make it out...” She looked away toward her son, playing video games. “They both died that day.”

No rescues. Two deaths. His stomach sank.

“When you’re in that kind of situation,” he said, “your training has to move faster than your emotions do. You let your brain catch up when there’s time. Your husband was in the zone. He wouldn’t have been afraid, if that helps you at all.”

“It does, actually.”

He could tell that she hadn’t made her peace with everything yet, and he couldn’t blame her. It had been a year since Natalie Martin’s death, and he still hadn’t made his peace with it. She hadn’t been the first person to die in a fire, and she wouldn’t be the last. They were only people putting it all on the line for other people’s families, but somehow this one little girl had gotten past all his defenses.

“Are you a Christian, Matt?”

Matt pulled his mind back from the precipice. “I am.”

“Me, too.” Rachel’s gaze roamed over the restaurant, settling on her son across the room. “Does it help?”

“I suppose my faith is a part of everything I do,” he said quietly. “But even faith doesn’t answer every question, does it?”

“I suppose not.” She pushed her glossy waves away from her face. “You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”

“There are people who have gone through far worse than I ever have.”

An image of Natalie’s grief-stricken parents arose in his mind. They’d been in shock, their faces white, their eyes begging him to take it all away as if that fire-retardant suit gave him supernatural power. But he couldn’t. Natalie was part of the reason why he needed to learn about children. Natalie had run from him when he came to rescue her...and he never wanted that to happen again.

“Look,” Matt said, tearing his mind away from those old wounds. “Do you think you could give me some of those tips for working with kids?”

“Now?” She took a sip of her pop.

“How about tomorrow? If that isn’t too soon.”

“I’d be happy to.” She nodded. “I can bring by a few resources, if I find the right box tonight. What time works for you?”

“How about two at my office?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

Chris came dashing back across the room, zigzagging around tables. He arrived at their table, out of breath and with a grin on his face.

“I won something!” He held up a small stuffed rabbit in a victorious display. As the boy exuberantly showed his mother his hard-won prize, Matt fell gratefully silent. He’d done enough talking, more than he’d ever intended. He took a deep breath, mentally steeling himself.

“It’s really hard to get one,” Chris was explaining. “It came down like this—” He used his hand to mime the game. “And then it went like this...”

Rachel’s gaze flickered in Matt’s direction and her gentle eyes crinkled into a smile. Before he could catch himself, he felt his own return grin tickling the corners of his lips. He picked up the dessert menu, a sundae awash in chocolate sauce and crowned with fluffy whipped cream emblazoned across the top.

“Let’s order that ice cream. What do you say?”

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