Page 97 of Second Alarm
"Hanna."
"Cal, I was going to — "
"How long."
The coffee is blooming in the cone. The kettle is steaming. The ginger soup is murmuring. My grinder is on the counter. My flannel is on his sister. My best friend is in the doorway in a sling with muscle rub on him, and he isn't yelling.
The not-yelling is the thing.
Cal yells at life. Cal yells at the TV. Cal yells at me every time I beat him at basketball. The Cal standing in the doorway has a specific quiet on him I've seen on him once before — his father's funeral.
"Cal."
"Don't." His eyes haven't left me.
"Cal — "
"Don't, Brennan."
"Cal — "
"How. Long."
Hanna hasn't moved from the counter. Her hand is on the pour-over cone. Her fingers are white at the knuckle.
"Six weeks," Hanna says.
"Six — "
"Since I came back to Station 7."
"Six weeks," Cal says again, like he's testing the weight of it.
"Cal — "
"Six weeks. Okay." He's looking at me now, not her. "How long, Brennan."
"Six weeks."
"How long," he says, very quietly.
"Cal — "
"I'm asking how long you've been lying to me about my sister. The answer isn't six weeks, Brennan. Because there's a thing in your face right now that's older than six weeks, and I've seen it on her face too — at my mother's dinner table, many times, over the span of my adult life. I'm asking one time. In my own kitchen. Because I deserve the answer. How long."
I open my mouth.
I don't find a way to make it shorter.
"Since the academy."
Cal doesn't move.
"Ten years," he says.
"Three months of it." It comes out flat because flat is the only way I have. "Three months at the academy. Then she left. We didn't — we haven't — since then. Until she came home."
"Three months. While I was at the Oregon State Fire Academy." His voice is starting to thin, which is Cal's version of escalating. "While you and I lived in a dorm together. While I called you my best friend. While my mother sent you gifts at Christmas. While you came to our house at Thanksgiving and you stood in this — "
