Page 6 of Sparking Sara

“I do. But at the moment, this seemed more important.”

I throw back a shot.

“I hate being on detail,” I say.

“What’s to hate?” he asks. “Unlike most rookies, you never have to cook or do scut work. As far as the firehouses are concerned, you’re a guest. Most guys would kill for that.”

I laugh at his attempt to sugarcoat it. Then I take another shot. “That’s crap and you know it. I don’t give a shit about cooking and cleaning. Hell, Iwantto do that stuff. What I wouldn’t give to be treated like a regular probie and not some leper. Being on detail and floating from one company to the next isn’t what I want to do. I want to be part of the family. The brotherhood. But it just feels like I’m the unwanted step-child or something.”

He nods his head in sympathy. He knows exactly why I haven’t been offered any permanent position yet. Everybody does. There isn’t much he can say that I don’t already know.

He throws back a shot of his own and then pushes the rest of them over to me. “Want to tell me why we’re really here?”

I stare at his empty shot glass for a minute.

“Do you remember the car accident right after Aspen’s wedding?”

“Of course.”

“Well, the one I just came from was far worse.”

He lets out a long sigh. Being Aspen’s best friend, he knows the whole story of how our parents died.

“I’m sorry, man.”

In between shots, I tell him the whole story, right down to my puking in the back seat. “I just don’t want to believe that I was the last person she ever got to see or hear.”

“So don’t believe it. Go to Med and check on her.”

My eyes snap to his. “Go to Med? I thought we weren’t supposed to do that.”

“Come on, you know as well as I do that it happens.” He gets out his phone and makes a call. “Debbe, can you do me a solid and check on the status of a patient brought to Med earlier today by …” He looks at me with raised eyebrows.

“Forty-five,” I tell him.

“Bus 45,” he says. “Name’s Sara Francis.” He nods, listening into the phone. “Okay, thanks, Debbe.” He puts his phone down. “She’s on it.”

“Have you ever done that?” I ask. “Checked on a rescue?”

“I think we all have at one time or another. Usually, I only do it when kids are involved. But a few months ago, there was a guy pinned under a piling down on the dock. His legs were broken and his chest was crushed. The water was rising and he thought he was going to die.Ithought he was going to die. He told me all the things he didn’t get to do, like propose to his long-time girlfriend. They were childhood friends and high school sweethearts. He made me promise to find her and tell her about the ring he kept in his locker at the gym. For two hours, I had to talk the guy through his panic. He was unconscious when we finally got him free.”

“So what happened? Did he live? Did he propose?”

He nods. “Last I heard, he’s still in a wheelchair and going through physical therapy. I got a wedding invitation in the mail two weeks ago.”

“So, you think I should check on her?”

“If it will give you closure—yes.”

“But what if she’s dead?”

“I don’t know. Are you prepared to find that out?”

“Maybe you should have asked me that before you called Debbe.”

He laughs. “Yeah, maybe I should have.” He looks down at his vibrating phone. “Speak of the devil.”

He answers the call. His face gives nothing away as he listens. He thanks her and puts down the phone. “So, do you want to hear about her or not?”

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