Nothing Left to Burn (12 page)

“Mark! Too much information,” Mrs. Beckett said on a groan and joined us with a plate of her own.

“Sorry, Diane.” He winced. “Anyway, when I was about thirteen, I was seriously in love with firefighting. I wanted to join the department, but they didn’t have a junior squad where I grew up. So all I could do was hang around the firehouse and hope to see some action. I’d fetch newspapers and coffee from the corner store for the men. I ran cloths over the trucks, whatever they needed, and believe me, I was happy to do it. Except when it was Ray Jenner.”

Mr. Beckett’s eyes glowed with excitement and maybe a little awe. “Ray used to love scaring the tar out of me. ‘Beckett!’ he’d bark, and I’d quiver in my shoes. ‘Go out there and sweep the front.’ He’d hand me a small kitchen broom.” Mr. Beckett waved a hand toward the broom that leaned against a corner. “I’d go out in front of the station and spend hours sweeping the same six leaves because they’d just blow from one end of the lot to the other. He never thanked me. Not once.” Mr. Beckett kicked back in his chair, sipped more coffee, and fell deeper into the past. “The other guys always did, but not him. He thought I should thank him. So I never did. I was kind of a badass.”

Larry laughed. Mr. Beckett was a tall, thin man with round wire glasses and big teeth who loved shuffling around the house in corduroy slippers. He was the polar opposite of badass.

“No, really. I was,” Mr. Beckett insisted with a grin. “So I’d show up whenever I didn’t have chores or homework and then end up just doing more stupid chores. All I wanted to do was hang out and be part of the brotherhood, you know? I wanted to hear the stories about charging into the pit of hell, snatching some poor victim back from its greedy claws, and beating flames down with nothing but a can and a Halligan.”

I nodded. I totally understood that need. Nobody becomes a firefighter for the money. My heart pinched again—I wouldn’t have this, wouldn’t have my squad, my brothers, if I hadn’t been placed in the Becketts’ home.

“What’s a Halligan?” Larry asked.

“It’s kind of like a crowbar,” I told him. “Except it’s got a fork on one end and a blade. We use it to bust through doors and walls.”

His eyes went round. “Cool.”

“Oh, it was cool. It was all cool. I wanted to hear all their stories about pretty ladies who thanked the guys for saving their lives. I wanted to see the medals the mayor pinned on their chests. God, I wanted that so much,” Mr. Beckett said with a slap to the table for emphasis.

“So how come you’re a chemistry teacher and not a fireman?”

Mr. Beckett tightened his lips and shook his head, not looking at any of us.

“I tried. Flunked the training program.”

Whoa. I never knew that.

“Anyhow, one day, I had some time, so I headed to the firehouse, but they had the purple banners hanging. I didn’t know who died, only that someone did. I moved in quietly and just waited for someone to tell me what needed doing. But nobody did. The truckies, they were sitting around a table on the apparatus floor, faces white and eyes haunted. I wanted to help—I
had
to help them—so I just grabbed that dumb kitchen broom and started sweeping outside. I swept for an hour, maybe two. When I had that lot whistle clean, I went back inside the house to put away the broom. The truckies—the guys sitting around that table? They were crying. Every one of them.” Mr. Beckett’s eyes misted. “One by one, they shook my hand, and I knew. That’s when I knew. It was Mean Ray Jenner they’d hung the banners for.”

“What happened?” Larry asked quietly, sweeping hair out his eyes.

Mr. Beckett took another sip and shifted on his chair. “I don’t know. Some said he got lost in the smoke and panicked. Other stories I heard said he pulled out two kids, then went back in for their parents. To this day, I don’t know what really happened. Guys don’t talk about it. They feel it hard. But they go back the next day and keep doing the job.”

There was awe in Mr. Beckett’s voice, and it made me think about John Logan. When Matt died, he felt it hard—that was obvious to all of us. But he did the job. I thought it was a sign of strength. Something to admire.

I didn’t think that anymore.

Chapter 11

Reece

Matt taught me everything. I learned a few things from you too. I learned to run away when my emotions got stronger than I was.

I unlocked the front door, led my dog into the hall, and unfastened his leash. I tossed my keys on the hall table and found Mom in the kitchen, groping around for coffee.

“Don’t bother.” I took her hand, put a to-go cup in it, and then poured some fresh water into Tucker’s bowl.

She murmured something I wasn’t sure was English, took a sip, and stared at me over the cup. “You’re up early,” she eventually managed to say.

I shrugged. I didn’t always sleep well, so this wasn’t unusual. “I have stuff to do. Took Tucker for a walk and bought you a doughnut too.” I opened the bag, took out a couple of doughnuts—sugar frosted for her, jelly for me—and opened a cabinet for some plates. A mug that said
World’s Best Dad
stared back at me. I gave it to Dad when I was in kindergarten. They’d had some lame sale at the school. We all brought in a dollar, and that’s what I’d picked out.

No surprise that he left it here when he moved out.

I dropped it into the trash and then grabbed a few plates. Mom’s eyes went round and then closed in pleasure when she sniffed the doughnut I held out to her. “You’re trying to make me fat, aren’t you?”

“No!” Jeez, can’t a guy do something nice without an ulterior motive?

Mom put down her cup and her doughnut and pulled out one of the iron stools at the long granite counter. “Reece, I have something to talk to you about.”

I put my own cup down with a frown. That sounded really serious. “What?”

“Um, a nice man from my book club asked me out to Sunday brunch. And I said yes.”

Sunday brunch? Lame. Probably watched too many
How
I
Met
Your
Mother
episodes.

Mom sat at the counter and angled her head, waiting for me to say something.
She’s still pretty.
The thought stabbed through my brain and circled for a moment, then tanked with a thud that made me wince. When I was little, I thought my mom was the most beautiful woman on earth. Then I got older and stopped thinking of her as anything but Mom. But sitting there in her flannel pajamas, brown hair matted on one side, standing straight up on the other, and a tiny bit of powdered sugar at the corner of her mouth, still, she was
beautiful
. My heart gave a painful squeeze, and words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“I love you, Mom.”

Her eyes went round, then filled with love and tears. Maybe that’s why I said it. To see that reaction, to know at least someone loved me back. “Thank you, Reece, but you didn’t answer my question. Does it bother you?” The sugar decorating the corner of her mouth where she smiled only made her more beautiful to me.

I shook my head. “No.” And that was pure truth. “Go. Have fun. You deserve it, Mom.”

The little smile on her lips faded, but she nodded. “You don’t think I’m being selfish? That I’m pretending?”

I blinked at her, scratched the back of my neck. “Pretending what?”

She sipped her coffee and waved her hand. “Oh, you know. Pretending everything’s fine, everything’s normal.”

Normal.
I snorted. Not exactly one of my favorite words. “Mom, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But if you want to go out on this date, you should do it, no matter what anybody else says.” Especially if
anybody
else
was Dad.

She blew the hair out of her eyes and put down her cup. “You know this date doesn’t mean I don’t miss Matt, right?”

I dropped my doughnut back on the plate. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I never blamed you. Not once, Reece.”

“I was driving, Mom. With only a permit.”

She shot up straight. “So you
do
think I’m pretending.”

“Again, pretending what, exactly?”

She gave me this helpless look. “That I’m over losing him.” She slid off the stool, opened another cabinet, and found a treat for Tucker. He took it happily in a single bite. “That’s what everybody thinks.”

Everybody
meaning Dad. “
Everybody’s
wrong.
Everybody
can’t hear you cry at night because they’re not here. I am.”

“You are.” She pressed her fingers under her eyes for a second, then waved her hands. “Oh, Reece, I’m tired. So tired of making excuses, tired of trying to find the right balance between you and Dad. The truth is I’m glad the tension and all that anxiety is gone. I don’t want him to come home. And I want you to quit the junior squad.”

I drew in a sharp breath. I loved Mom, and there was so much I owed her, but this? I couldn’t do it. “Mom, I get it—the tension and the anxiety and stuff. But I don’t want to quit—not now. I…well, I like it.”

Mom crossed the room, picked up her cup, and tried to look cheerful. “Does that mean things are going well?” She sipped more coffee.

Shrugging, I sat beside her. “Okay, I guess. Dad tolerates me because the chief said he has to. But the juniors are great. Everybody’s been helping me catch up. And Amanda’s been giving me books to read. You know, inside tips.”

Mom’s eyebrows quirked. “Amanda. Are you two—” She waved her hand.

Hell. I hid my face behind my own coffee cup and squirmed. “No, Mom.”

“What’s she like?”

Ask
me
something
easy, like what’s the value of pi to the sixteenth decimal.
“I don’t know. She’s tough. Smart. And really misses Matt.”

“Ah. She’s the tall blond who came to Matt’s funeral. I remember.” She crumpled up the doughnut wrapper and then squeezed my hand. “Honey, I signed the permission form because—well, because I was angry. But maybe that was a mistake. Maybe you should just let this go. Your dad is…oh, you know how he is.”

I grabbed the paper ball, flicked it across the counter, and tried to swallow my disappointment. That was Mom-speak for “Don’t get your hopes up.” Maybe she was right. Dad wasn’t gonna change for her or for me. But I had to try before I—

“I’m going to get dressed,” Mom said. “Hey, could you run to the Home Depot and pick up the paint? I’ll leave the details upstairs.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She grabbed the paper ball and the empty cups and pitched them in the trash bin. Instead of heading for the door, she wrapped her arms around me and kissed my head. “Thanks for the treat, honey. I love you. Be safe.” She ruffled my hair and left the room.

I stared after her for a long moment. Then I pulled out my note and scribbled a few more lines. I carefully refolded the note and put it back in my pocket, lowered my head, and screamed inside until Tucker dropped a saliva-slimed toy in my lap.

I picked it up with two fingers, gave it a toss, watched my dog chase after it, and sighed.

I’d trade places with him in a nanosecond.

***

After Mom left for her date, I started reading one of the firefighting books Bear gave me and lost track of time. Arson investigation, or fire forensics, was seriously interesting. I used to think that fire burned up everything in its path, including evidence, but the book suggested differently. Investigators looked at things like char patterns and depth, heat shadows, the color of the smoke, and even the crowd watching a fire for clues suggesting arson. An out-of-balance fire triangle—oxygen, fuel, and heat sources—could mean arson.

Tucker leaped on the sofa, sending my books flying.

“You want to join J squad, Tucker?”

Tucker’s ears twitched, and he stared at me, big soulful eyes asking what the hell a dog had to do to get a treat around here. I scooped up the books and saw a section on fire science.

“Hey, Tucker, look.” I showed him the book he’d knocked over, and he woofed. “People earn degrees in fire science—hmm.”

That was an interesting idea.

I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to college. I’d probably study math.

If I weren’t planning to leave. But I was, so no point in making plans.

But studying math might be fun. I liked numbers. I liked asking questions that had definite answers, answers that could be unequivocally proven. Numbers were clear. Pure. Reliable and consistent, when the rest of my world was anything but.

I switched books. The next one was a collection of stories from NYFD veterans. These guys saw it all, fought it all. They had smoke headaches. Did the SCBA gear prevent those? And heart ailments—the human body was never designed to haul seventy or eighty pounds of gear up a dozen flights of steps after being in a dead sleep less than fifteen minutes earlier. I read that book cover to cover, because those guys were clear and pure and reliable, just like math. They were firefighters, and they fucking loved the job they did so much, they’d do it for free.

Volunteers. Like me.

The thought filled me up.

I wrote out a list of questions to ask the next time I saw my squadmates and outlined a plan for translating everything I read into practical application. That was going to be tough. I hadn’t been near flame or smoke yet, so I had no evidence I could use to predict my behavior in those circumstances. I could mimic heavy smoke with a blindfold. But extreme heat? That one would be a challenge I could only meet with experience. Just like Amanda said—
knowing
and
doing
were two different things.

By lunchtime, I’d walked Tucker, written out a few pages of questions, closed the books, and headed out on Mom’s paint run. She wanted to update the main bathroom, take down the ancient wallpaper, and just paint the room a soothing shade of green. The paper was mostly gone, except for a few stubborn sections. I looked at the samples she’d tacked to the wall and wondered who the hell named these shades.
Eel
Green?
No, thanks. She’d already splashed a sample patch on the bare wall. It was sage green. I took her list and her car, drove to the Home Depot, and wandered up and down the aisles while I waited for the color mixing, grabbing brushes, rollers, a tray, and some rolls of tape. I came around a corner and bam! Smacked into somebody’s cart.