The Firefighter's Match

With your experience handling disaster... JJ’s brain finished the thought he hadn’t.

“I should go.” Alex’s voice was soft, but it still startled her. Shouldn’t he want to stay, get the latest report so he could update that annoying lawyer guy from before?

“Are you a friend of the family?” Dr. Ryland asked, clearly thinking JJ ought not to be alone with whatever news he was about to deliver.

“Well...” Alex stammered.

“It’s complicated,” JJ surprised herself by offering.

“It’s your call.” Dr. Ryland picked up the envelope. “Until Max is fully awake, you’re making the decisions.” His gaze passed back and forth between JJ and Alex. “A second set of ears is a good thing, but you can wait until your family is here.”

JJ stared at the envelope. It held Max’s future. How on earth could she wait? But did she really want to handle it alone?

“I should go,” Alex repeated.

“No.” It was like the words were coming out of someone else’s mouth. “No, stay.”

Dr. Ryland looked at both of them again as he flicked on the white light box that would hold the X-ray. “You’re sure?”

“No,” said JJ, “but that’s the best I can do for now.”

They stood in the bleary pale light of the box while Dr. Ryland clipped three different X-rays onto the display. JJ sucked in a lungful of air, and she felt Alex’s hand steady her shoulder from behind. She’d never seen a fractured spine before, but it didn’t take a medical degree to see the damage. The terms and phrases coming from the doctor blew over her like gale winds, hard and relentless. She heard them but didn’t register them. She nodded once or twice, heard Alex ask a question, but the room was closing in on itself until a single word snapped everything into focus: Unlikely.

“It’s unlikely Max will regain use of his legs. I won’t say never because I’ve seen enough surprises in my day and Max was in excellent physical shape.”

JJ hated that he’d used the past tense. Something hot and white and unreasonable started boiling in her stomach. She clenched her fists, forcing the air in and out of her lungs.

“His hands and fingers may regain a good deal of functionality with therapy. The position of the...” More medical jargon, more terms and percentages and cautious language. JJ held up a hand to stop the spew before it swallowed her.

“Max will never walk again.” She looked straight into Dr. Ryland’s eyes, daring him to take back the awful truth behind his careful words.

“It’s unlikely. Not with these injuries. But I want you to remember that he is alive and he will recover.”

“Recover? Recover what?”

“Every single bit of function we can preserve for him. We are the leaders in this field, Miss Jones. Max will have therapies and treatments that are cutting edge, and even experimental ones if he chooses.” Dr. Ryland stared hard into JJ’s eyes. “His life is not over, no matter how it seems to you right now. And when he wakes up, he’ll need to see you believe in him and his future. Max is alive. Don’t ever forget that.”

“But he can’t walk. Ever.” The thing building inside her, the pent-up fear and anger, refused to be contained. “Ever again.”

“The doctor didn’t say that,” Alex’s voice was disgustingly reasonable. Condescending, even.

“You don’t belong here,” JJ blurted out, the white-hot thing boiling up beyond her control. “You did this to Max. He’s here because of you.”

Dr. Ryland put a hand on her shoulder. “Miss Jones...”

“Don’t!” JJ snapped her head around, livid at how calm they both were. She focused her glare on Alex. “Leave. Now. I hope I never see you again.”

Chapter Five

JJ watched her mother a few hours later as Dr. Ryland went through the same jumble of cautionary language he had with her. It was hard, watching the emotions she knew so well play out on her face. Max had been a tornado of trouble from the day he started walking. Mom and Dad had been awakened by police and done the dash to the ER with a bloodied Max more times than she could count, but everyone knew this was different. Max wasn’t coming back from this the same way. JJ tried to be grateful Max was coming back at all, but she wasn’t so good at that right now.

“He’s extraordinarily fortunate,” Dr. Ryland said. He looked like he meant it, but again, it was impossible to grasp the silver lining in any of this. She couldn’t help but read her own thoughts—he’s lucky to be alive at all—into his pronouncement. “He had good care and quickly. Those things matter a great deal in cases like this. For the injury he has, I’m optimistic about his prospects.”

Optimistic. How many times had JJ heard that word in the last day? She’d grown to hate it in all its careful use.

Dr. Ryland steepled his hands on his desk as if he had something important to say. Out of the corner of her eye, JJ caught Mom clutching her handbag. “Max will be alert enough to begin asking questions soon, so I’d like to discuss how we share his diagnosis with him. As you can imagine, this can be a difficult task. His body has been through a lot of trauma, and based on what you all have told me about his personality, I think it’s smart to assume that he won’t take the news well.”

“Who could ever take news like this well?” JJ caught a hefty dose of panic in her mother’s voice.

“Believe it or not, we’re actually glad when they get angry,” Dr. Ryland assured. “Anger means he’s invested in getting past this—that he hasn’t given up. It takes a fair amount of fight to come back from something like this. I know it will be uncomfortable for you, but if Max gets emotional and belligerent, I’d take that as a good sign.”

“Max pitches a great fit,” JJ replied, just picturing the tirade Max would likely throw. She’d seen him fly off the handle for far less. “If fight is a good sign, then Max is in great shape.” She filled her voice with enthusiasm she didn’t feel.

“This is hardly the time for cracks like that.” Her mother’s scowl was brittle and terse. It reminded JJ of her father and his military distaste for weakness of any kind.

They hadn’t really gotten along in the years before he died, despite JJ joining the army. Dad had lived and breathed military service in a way that JJ never could. His home had been his own personal battleground, run with absolute authority. No insubordination or weakness allowed.

Once she’d enlisted, JJ had hoped Dad would view her as more of an equal. When she’d come home on leave, shaken by what she’d seen, she’d tried to confide in him—to share her questions and anxieties. The conversation had been an absolute disaster. He couldn’t understand how battle had affected her in ways so different than his own experiences. When she’d tried to express doubts about what she saw, he would never hear it. He died three years ago while she was still on duty, yet from his grave she still felt his disappointment in her weak and troubled homecoming. JJ couldn’t shake the feeling that Arnie Jones was now fully disappointed in both his children.

“Actually, it is a perfect time for jokes.” Dr. Ryland leaned in, taking off the thick horn-rimmed glasses that gave him such an authoritative air. “Humor is one of our best weapons in this. As are calm and strength. Which is why, Mrs. Jones, I’d recommend that JJ and I be the ones to tell him.”

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