Page 88 of Never Forget
The room went still.
Jenna looked at her hands. "That night has played and replayed in my head ever since. I don't know if I've told you. I don't think I told you at the funeral. I couldn't get the words out."
"You don't have to," Jamie said.
"I want to." Jenna looked up. "I want you to know what he did."
I reached under the table and found Jamie's hand. Laced my fingers through hers.
"I didn't think we were going to make it out alive."
Jenna's voice was quiet.
"The house was already in flames when I woke up. I don't know what pulled me out of sleep—the smoke, maybe, or the heat. I called 911. I was trying to get to Quinn's room, but the hallway was on fire. I couldn't get through. I couldn't get to her. The dispatcher told me to stay where I was. I kept telling her my daughter was on the other side of the hall. She kept telling me to stay put, kept reassuring me that help was coming."
She shook her head slowly.
"Your brother got to me first."
Jamie's hand tightened around mine.
I watched Jamie's face. She wasn't moving. She was holding herself still the way she did when she was trying not to fall apart in front of someone. I kept my hand on hers under the table.
I'd read the report. I'd listened to the recordings. But hearing it this way was different.
"He found me in my room. Picked me up. Carried me down the stairs and out the front door. The whole way out I was hoping another firefighter had gotten to Quinn. I was hoping somebodywas carrying her out behind us. But when I looked around she wasn't there."
She swallowed.
"I started screaming. I don't even remember what I said. Your brother—he didn't wait. He turned around and ran for the house. His captain caught him by the arm and told him he couldn't go back in. The house was about to collapse but Jack pushed past him anyway."
Her eyes filled.
"He brought her out through the window before the floor under him gave way and he fell. I was so scared—If he'd been a few seconds later?— "
She stopped. Took a breath.
If he'd been a few seconds later.
I'd been in enough buildings to know exactly what that meant. I'd watched structures come down. I'd done the math in my own head a hundred times on a hundred calls—how long I had, where the give was, how many seconds separated walking out from not. Jack had done the same math that night. He'd taken the gamble. It had come in.
Barely.
"He got her to me. Put her in my arms. And then he went down. Right there on the grass."
Her voice caught.
"Everything happened so fast. The paramedics were on us before I could think—checking Quinn, checking me. By the time I looked back, they'd already carried him to another ambulance. And then they were loading us into ours."
She shook her head slowly.
"That was the last I saw of him that night. For a few days I didn't know if he'd made it. I kept asking about him. Nobody could tell me anything because I wasn't family."
Jenna took a breath. I couldn't look at her. She looked at her hands.
"One of the doctors I know came by Quinn's room the next morning. Told me the firefighter who brought her out was upstairs. I went up as soon as Quinn was asleep."
She looked at Jamie.
