Page 16 of Never Forget
"There's no way you could have known what would happen."
"He went back into a burning building for a little girl." I shook my head.
Amber's hand found my back again. Small circles, the kind of comforting gesture you learn from a lifetime of being comforted.
"It's not your fault he went back in, Sam. That was his choice. He didn't have to be a hero."
I went still.
She didn't mean it the way it sounded. I knew that. She was trying to help, trying to lift the weight off my shoulders, trying to say the thing that would make me feel better.
But the words landed wrong.He didn't have to be a hero.Like Jack had chosen this. Like saving a little girl from a burning building was some kind of ego trip, some optional act of bravery he could have skipped if he'd been more sensible.
She didn't understand. She'd never understand. Not Jack, not the job, not what it meant to run into a fire to save people’slives. Not the promise I'd made in that hospital room. Not the debt I now owed to a dead man.
I wanted to argue. To explain. To make her see.
But I didn't have the energy.
"I'm going to take a shower," I said, and stood up before she could respond.
The water was too hot. I let it burn.
Steam filled the small space, and in the privacy of it, I let myself feel everything I'd been holding back.
Jamie and I divided the tasks that morning.
She would handle the hospital—the death certificate, Jack's personal effects, whatever paperwork needed to be signed before they could release his body to the funeral home. I would handle the fire department. There were protocols when a firefighter died in the line of duty. Honors. Recognition. A funeral with dress uniforms and bagpipes and a flag-draped casket carried by the men who'd served beside him.
The last line of duty death in Havensworth was 1965. Forty-two years without losing one of our own. Jack would be the first in nearly half a century, and the department would make sure he was honored the way he deserved.
That's what I told myself on the drive over.
"Jack died the way a firefighter should." Sean's voice cut through the quiet of the station kitchen. "Saving lives. Going back in when it mattered. That's what this job is."
Tyler nodded from across the table. A few other guys had come in on their day off when they heard—Martinez from B-shift, a couple of the older guys who'd known Jack from his early days. The kitchen was more crowded than usual, but quieter.Coffee cups no one was drinking. Hands that needed something to do.
"How are you holding up?" Martinez asked me.
"I'm alright."
No one believed it. No one called me on it either.
This was how firefighters grieved. Not with words, but with presence. With showing up. Sitting in the same room, drinking bad coffee and waiting for someone to tell us what came next.
Cap had been in his office since I arrived, on the phone with the brass. Working out the details.
The door to Cap's office opened. He stood in the frame for a moment. Something was wrong—the set of his shoulders, the way his jaw was clenched.
"Sam. Can I talk to you for a minute?"
The kitchen went quiet. I stood up, walked across the room, and followed him inside.
Cap closed the door behind me. He didn't gesture to the chair. He just stood there for a moment, his back to me, one hand braced against the filing cabinet.
"Cap?"
He turned around. He looked tired in a way that went deeper than sleep. But there was something else in his face now. Anger.
