Page 22 of Free to Live
“Bet they don’t fight as much as mine,” Cassidy mutters, stabbing her cake with a fork. That sets off another round of chuckles.
“They’re tight,” Phil confirms. “According to Jace, they were thick as thieves at The Coffee Shop. He sent some pictures. I don’t know which one had more whipped cream on them.”
Ali groans.
Phil shrugs. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen Joe. Jace says…he’s different.”
“Maybe there’s someone new in his life?” I suggest. Three years is a long time, I think. But Ali shakes her head.
“No, and let me tell you it’s not for lack of offers. That parent-teacher debacle from the other night I told you guys about?” Ali starts.
“He was the other parent there?” Em guesses.
“Yep. It was bad. Well, you know. You heard me rip into the administrator the next day,” We all nod. It was not pretty. Ali is our corporate attorney and a barracuda in the courtroom. I almost wanted to sneak down to get pictures of her while she was on a rant, but I didn’t want to interrupt her eloquent genius as she explained that hitting on the parents of her students was not part of Miss Tiffany’s job description.
Yeesh.
“Seriously, I felt horrible for him. No man should have to put up with that kind of harassment. None of us would have ever tolerated that kind of behavior from a client, and we would have been out of business if we ever behaved that way,” Ali concludes in disgust.
Phil sneers. “And she still has her job?”
“Barely. She’s apparently been given a warning. I strongly encouraged the administration to contact him for corroboration if they needed to. I sincerely hope they don’t have to.” She shrugs. “He just wanted to forget about the entire incident and get home to his daughter. It seems like she’s his whole world.”
Put together with everything Gail said at the salon and the emptiness I saw on Joe Bianco’s face at Genoa, Ali appears to have Joe pegged fairly accurately. Even though I don’t have the same experience of lost love driving my occasional bouts of emptiness, I appreciate what might drive him to live for only one thing. After all, after everything that happened to me, I channeled all of my soul into the people in this room. I feel a strong compassion for a man I don’t know.
And with that, I pick up my camera and begin to twist with the dials to disguise my absorption in the conversation instead of playing with my fingers like I used to do when I was nervous or anxious as a child.
9
Joseph
“Joe!” My head snaps toward the office that holds the Collyer Fire Chief where my name has just been shouted out. I’m hanging out in the lounge while men and women around me are taking some downtime. “Get in here!” he bellows.
I shrug as various heads turn toward me. “Listen, it wasn’t me,” I protest, though in reality, I have no idea what may have happened. I don’t think I did anything recently to piss off the chief—who happens to be my dad.
It’s both an honor and a burden to follow in your parent’s footsteps. While there’s a long line of tradition, there’s an even longer line of expectation.
“How many times have you said that before, Joe? Did you come out of the womb saying that to him?” taunts Brett Stewart, my best everything since we were in high school.
“I think he only started that since he went through the academy, Stew. Before that he blamed you for everything,” my other buddy on the squad, Justin Brady, calls out.
Throwing them both the finger, I slide off the worn couch and quickly make my way toward my father’s office.
Knocking on the jamb, I walk in. “Dad? What’s happened?”
It wasn’t too long ago Brett’s teasing would have been entirely spot-on. But the death of someone you love changes you. You either emerge from it changed, or you wither away. I’ve changed. I’m no longer the complete hotheaded, ask-questions-second, smart-ass I used to be. I have too many responsibilities for that now.
I have Grace.
“Sit down, son,” my father says kindly. “We’ve got a problem with the plans for the 5K.”
I make my way to one of the visitor chairs in front of his desk. My father’s talking about the joint 5K we run every year with the Collyer Police Department to raise money for living families of fallen brothers and sisters that I was put in charge of this year. After Mary died, they insisted on including her name among those who had been killed, despite my protests. I knew it was an honor they were trying to give to Grace, to my family, to me, but it keeps the wound fresh. It seems everyone wants to do that. Every moment of every fucking day.
Nothing’s been easy since I lost Mary. And some parts have been made worse in the last year. The rational side of me that’s pored over the accident reports realizes if a freaking ER trauma doctor who happened to be Christmas shopping and at the scene couldn’t save the woman I intended to marry from the clutches of death, nothing could.
A lot of things haven’t been able to be saved.
“What’s the problem?” My voice is controlled, even if I’m a raging inferno inside. I’ve learned to contain the fiery anger that still burns deep.
