Page 9 of Things You Save in a Fire
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Do you want me to stay for a bit?”
I shook my head.
“You knew that guy in high school?”
I nodded again.
Hernandez assessed me for what felt like a long time. Then he said, “Am I guessing right that he has something to do with why you never date anybody?”
I held his gaze until he had his answer.
Then he nodded, like,Okay. He let out a definitive sigh. “Nice work, by the way. They took him to the hospital.”
I gave a tiny little smile. “I try.”
“My offer still stands, you know,” Hernandez said.
“Offer for what?”
He gave a little shrug. “For company.Actualcompany.”
I knew he meant well. But I shook my head. “I’m better always on my own.”
Next, still holding my phone, he opened his arms to offer a hug. “Come on. Bring it in. If anybody ever needed a hug, it’s you.”
I would have said no to that, too. But just then, my phone rang.
That was it. The moment was over. He held out the phone to me, I took it—and then I used it to salute a farewell before I re-dead-bolted the door and answered it.
Three
IT WAS MYmother. On the phone.
“Thank you for answering,” she said.
I closed my eyes. “It was an accident.”
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“I figured,” I said.
She’d been after me for weeks, and I’d been avoiding her—insisting to myself that I was legitimately too busy to talk.
Her first call came in while I was at work, during one of the busiest shifts I’d had in weeks. We’d run nonstop calls for a suicide attempt in a high school bathroom (failed), a structure fire in an abandoned warehouse (arson), a sushi chef with a severed fingertip (reattached in the ER), and a cow wandering loose in a residential neighborhood (adorable).
By the time I went off shift at seven the next morning, I had not even looked at my phone, much less listened to the messages from my semi-estranged mother.
I had too much else to do.
Plus, I didn’t want to talk to her.
If she really needs to talk to me,I decided,she’ll call back.
Which she did.
