Page 7 of Single Mom's Firemen

My eyes peel open for a brief moment but I can’t focus on anything. I hear monitors and people rushing about but I can’t make sense of what’s happening. I think I’m in a hospital.

I hear the words, “smoke inhalation” and “second-degree burns.”

Second degree? That sounds bad.

The darkness comes back for me and it all washes away.

I don’t know how long it is before I actually wake up. I drift in and out for a while, catching snippets of conversation. My left upper arm and shoulder are tightly bandaged, a cool sensation traveling all the way to my tingling fingers. My whole body aches, every joint screaming and begging me not to move though moving is all I want to do.

The room feels cold.

I take a few minutes to open my eyes. When I do, the picture before me is clear. I’m in a hospital room with clinical white walls and harsh ceiling lights that make my head hurt. The neon buzzing scratches the very surface of my brain, made worse only by the steady beeping of monitors.

I’ve got an IV in my good arm and an oxygen mask on my face. The air feels sharp as it feeds my lungs and cleanses my system of everything I inhaled during the…

“Fire,” I manage, my gaze desperately darting across the room.

I try to move but it hurts too much.

Eric pops into my line of sight. I didn’t even see him until now. He’s still in his uniform, his face blackened from the soot.

Sammy. Sammy’s face was like that. My children.

“You’re okay,” he says. “You’re gonna be okay, Halle.”

“Sammy… Luna…”

“They’re safe, they’re next door. I’ll bring them in as soon as the doctor’s done with his checkup. They still have a few tests to run, to make sure there’s no carbon monoxide issues.”

My mind is fractured and I can’t think straight.

I can only look deep into Eric’s blue eyes and desperately cling to the sense of comfort that his presence provides. He saved us. He saved my children. He and his brothers.

I’m safe. We’re safe.

I fall asleep to that mantra.

The next time I wake up I am infinitely more alert and more aware of my surroundings. The clock on the wall says it’s two in the morning. I can still smell the smoke and burnt wood. My hair stinks of that raging fire. I’ll need a long bath to get it off of me.

“Sammy… Luna…” My voice is weak and raspy.

“Hey, hey,” Eric says, reappearing in my field of vision. “Welcome back.”

I give him a long, confused look as the moments leading up to this replay in my mind. The events that brought me here to this hospital room. “Oh, God…”

“You’re okay. The kids are fine. They’re asleep,” he says, then points to the left corner of the room. “Look over there.”

I follow his gaze and find Luna and Sammy huddled together under Eric’s firefighter jacket on a cot the staff has brought in. Both of them are sleeping soundly, exhausted and quiet. I would like nothing more than to jump out of bed and hug them both and never let them go, but my limbs feel weak and heavy. Besides, after everything they’ve been through, they need sleep. Tomorrow holds a different kind of challenge I realize, as tears prick my eyes.

“The diner burned down,” I manage.

“Almost completely, yeah. I’m sorry,” Eric says. “You were lucky that we were at the firehouse when the call came through. A few minutes more and I don’t think it would’ve ended as well.”

“Good God.”

“You’re alright and the kids are too, that’s all that matters. Nobody else was at the diner, nobody else got hurt.”

I glance down at my shoulder, frowning as the discomfort takes center stage. “I’ve got some burns, right?”

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