Page 41 of Never Forget
I'm going to do this. Whether you help me or not.
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where I fit.
So I called the one person who had always offered me clarity. The only person left, now that Jack was gone.
"Sammy." Anna answered on the third ring. It didn't matter that I was a twenty-six-year-old man. I'd always be Sammy to my older sister. "How are you?"
"Hey, Anna. Kids asleep?"
"Finally. Lucas decided he doesn't need sleep anymore. We're in negotiations."
I smiled despite myself. "Good luck with that."
Anna was eleven years older than me. Our parents had her when they were barely eighteen—two kids trying to raise a kid. By the time I came along, a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage that was already drowning, Anna was practically an adult herself. She'd grown up fast. Changed diapers, made dinners, covered for our father when he couldn't get out of bed. She was more of a mother to me than a sister for most of my childhood.
Our father drank. That's the simplest way to say it. He drank, and when he did, the house became something you survived. You learned to read his moods, to stay quiet, to make yourself small. You learned that keeping the peace was more important than saying what you felt.
He died of alcohol poisoning when I was twelve. Alone in the living room while my mother was working a double shift. I was the one who found him.
It's the reason I never had more than two beers, no matter how many rounds the guys buy. I'd seen where that road ends.
After Dad died, Mom worked even more. Anna was already out by then—married to Greg at nineteen, following him from base to base, sending money home whenever she could. She called every week. Sent checks. Carried the guilt of leaving me behind in that house, even though I never blamed her for getting out.
The Donovans took me in without ever making it official. Fed me dinner, let me sleep on their couch, treated me like I belonged. Jack's parents became the parents I didn't have, and Jack became the sibling Anna couldn't be from three states away.
She knew—what they meant to me. I think part of her was grateful someone had stepped into the gap she'd left. And part of her carried it like a wound that never fully healed.
"How's Greg?" I asked. "How's Virginia treating you?"
"Cold. Gray. The kids love it." She paused. "How are you really doing, Sammy? How's Amber?"
I groaned.
"Oh." I could hear the smile in her voice. "Is that what this call is about? Relationship troubles?"
"I've been thinking about ending things with her."
"Oh, so itisabout relationship troubles. What's going on?"
I sighed. "Her family wants me to stop being a firefighter."
"What?"
"They want me to go to college. With Amber. Her dad offered to pay for everything. Business degree, career in finance, the whole package."
Anna was quiet for a moment. "That doesn't sound too bad."
"Yeah. But it's not what I want."
"What do you want?"
"To stay a firefighter." I stared at the ceiling. "And I can't be with someone who keeps trying to change me into something I'm not just to fit an image she wants."
The line went quiet. I could hear Anna breathing, the faint creak of her chair.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing." But the smile came through anyway. "Sometimes I forget you're a fully grown man. In my mind, you're still eight years old, running around after Jack."
