Page 84 of Second Alarm
"You're going to let Ty sit in Dad's chair?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it has been fourteen years. Because your father isn't in his chair and isn't coming back, and the chair has been empty, and I'm tired of the chair being empty. And your father, I'll tell you, was a man who didn't like a lot of men, but he liked Ty Brennan. He said to me once, 'That Brennan boy is the kind of man I wish I had been at twenty.' If your father had lived, he'd have been the one sitting at that table with Ty next to him. Your father isn't here. I'm giving the chair to Ty."
"Oh."
"Now go."
"Mom."
"Go, Hanna."
I go.
I sit in the Subaru on Fir Street for a bit before I can drive. My face is a disaster. My mother has, in forty-five minutes, disassembled me with a wooden spoon and a bowl of soup.
I text Ty.
Me: Mom knows. Obviously.
Ty: Yeah.
Me: She saved a speech for years.
Ty: Of course she did.
Me: She wants you to come to dinner.
Ty: When?
Me: Not this week. The week after.
Ty: Okay.
Me: You're going to sit in my dad's chair.
A long pause. Then:
Ty: Hanna.
Me: I know.
Ty: I'll bring the wine.
Me: I know.
I wipe my face, put the car in drive, and go to Cal's.
Chapter 16
Ty
Hanna never makes it to Cal's house on Sunday.
The entire drive there she tried to build a sentence she can open with. But her pager goes off — which is to say, her pager and mine and Cal's and Rivera's and Riley's and the rest of the shift all go off in sequence, the way they do when a dispatcher has five different rigs to roll and no time to be graceful about it.
