Page 139 of Never Forget
"Dad!"
Jack—our eldest, twelve years old, named for the uncle he'd never meet—crashed into me first. Then Ben, nine, right behind.
I scooped them up. One in each arm. They were getting too big for this. I didn't care.
"How was your shift?" Jack asked. "Did you fight any fires?"
"A couple small ones. Nothing exciting."
"I want to be a firefighter like you," Jack said. He said it every time.
My chest tightened. Pride. Fear. Love. And underneath all three, something heavier—the specific weight of a father knowing his twelve-year-old wanted a job that had taken his namesake. I'd need to have a real conversation with him eventually. Not now. Not while he still thought fires were exciting.
"We'll see," I said. Same thing I always said.
Over dinner, Jamie told me the news.
"Rosie's coming home for Thanksgiving."
I grinned. "Yeah?"
"She called this morning. Said she has something to tell us."
"Good something or bad something?"
"She wouldn't say. But she sounded excited. Her kind of excited—the quiet kind. Like she'd been sitting with it for a while."
I nodded. Couldn't wait to see her.
Thanksgiving.
Rosie was home. Twenty-three now. English Literature at Wake Forest, one year left on her degree. The little girl who collected stories for her parents had turned into a woman who devoured books, wrote beautifully, spoke with a clarity that reminded me of Jamie—and a stubbornness that was pure Jack.
The boys adored her. Always had. She was their big sister in every way that mattered.
The morning after Thanksgiving, we drove to the cemetery. All of us. Me, Jamie, the boys, and Rosie.
Jack and Sarah's stone. One marker, both names, the way Jack had set it up himself the week before Sarah died.
Ben and our Jack laid flowers on the headstone. They were quiet. Respectful. They'd been coming here their whole lives. They knew who Jack was. What he meant. Our Jack always stood a little straighter here—twelve years old and already aware that he was holding a name that had a weight.
Rosie stood in front of her father's grave for a long time. Just looking.
Then she turned to us.
"I've been wanting to say something. For a while now."
We waited.
She looked at her father's stone. Then back at us.
"I don't remember a lot from when I was little. Not really. I remember pieces. The bath where Dad sang the wrong words on purpose. The way Mom smelled. Her laugh." She swallowed. "And then it's mostly the two of you."
Jamie's hand found mine.
"I remember you sleeping on a couch that was too small for you," Rosie said to me. "I remember asking Auntie Jamie why your face was wet, and you told me a bad joke about firefighters and soup."
"It was a good joke," I said.
