Page 40 of The Fire Captain's Unexpected Baby
“It was bound to come out eventually,” he sighs, like it’s a story that he wishes he could forget.
I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to tell me, but I know I’d be lying. I’m desperate to know more about him.
“I didn’t have the easiest childhood,” he starts. “I fell in with the wrong crowd when I was a teenager. Just like every after-school special you’ve ever seen. The smoking, the fighting—it all started early, and no one really intervened.”
“Not your dad?” He seemed so proud of his dad earlier.
“It wasn’t as easy as that. He got involved when it counted,” he explains. “I managed to get involved in a fight club. Honest to God, there are real-life fight clubs in the city if you know where to look.”
This dark side of him surprises me. I would have pictured him as a well-behaved kid, always on the right side of the law. But that’s just based on how he is now.
I remind myself that people change. I know that firsthand.
“Another kid I knew got involved. Naturally, I won.” Aaron gives a little self-deprecating chuckle. “But he followed me when we left the club. Stabbed me in the back.”
His fingers move toward the scar instinctively. I realize he means that the kid literally stabbed him in the back.
I sit up and look closer at the scar that traces down his side. As a nurse, I have an idea of what kind of wound would leave a scar of that magnitude. I had always assumed the scar came from work. A big fire, an accident, a rescue that painted him as the hero.
“Let me see the scar,” I demand.
He sits up so that I can take a closer look at it. The jagged edge where the knife would have gone in, the groove in the skin where it healed together—the wound must have been deep.
“A cut like this—you could have died,” I finally say.
“I could have,” he confirms. “I lay there on the sidewalk for a long time, thinking about everything I had done wrong. And the blood… I had no idea that so much could come out of one wound. And there were no cell phones back then.”
“Someone saved you,” I intuit, sensing the hopeful shift in the tone of his voice.
He nods once. “It was pure chance. A firefighter was on his way home from dinner, taking the scenic route. I was too scared to call out to him for help. I had no idea if any of the other kids I fought were around, but this guy—he stepped right in my path.”
“A firefighter,” I echo, reflecting on what it meant to him.
“He called it in, and the ambulance was there in a flash. He never left my side. Applied first aid while we waited. He even came with me to the hospital instead of going home.”
He swallowed, emotion evident on his face.
“He saved my life. When I realized what it meant, I vowed to do the same for others. I left it all behind with a little help and went to the academy.”
“That’s how you came to be a hero,” I conclude. “You should tell that story more often. It paints you in a new light.”
“Now you know why I do what I do.” He shrugs, pulling me back into the circle of his arms. “Now,youtell me why you do what you do. Why did you become a nurse?”
I think about the reason why I went into nursing. Everyone I know has a reason for their work, but mine is far less impressive than Aaron’s. Still, he makes me feel like it matters, so I tell him.
“My dad was diagnosed with skin cancer when I was in high school.” It’s the simplest answer with the most straightforward logic. “By the time they found it, it was pretty far along. Metastasized to his lungs, so hard to treat.”
Sometimes, I miss my dad so much it hurts. I wish he could be here to see Noah grow up. To offer me parenting advice. He and my mom made my childhood absolutely magical—until he got sick.
“We spent a lot of time in the hospital after that. He looked so frail in those massive hospital beds. Hewasso fragile at the end,” I correct. “And the one person who always gave him dignity was his nurse.”
Every nurse he had, without exception, treated him like a real person with a real family and real feelings. He was never just a chart or a bed that needed their attention.
Aaron watches me relive the past all over again.
“The doctors tried to give answers. Treatments. But it was the nurses who took care of him, who did the hard work. They really helped my whole family. We rested easier knowing he was in good hands.”
“And now you’re the one with the good hands,” he says with a tender look, as if seeing me in a new light.
