Page 28 of Sparks Fly
"No. I stayed low. I knew to stay low."
Something moves through his expression, relief, fast and unguarded, before the professional focus comes back. "Medics need to look at you. Don't argue with me on that."
"I won't. I love you," I blurt out. “Was so fucking afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell you that so I promised myself I’d say it as soon as I could. It’s fast, but you’ve done everything that no one else did, and you care about my daughter.”
“I do,” he answers, his voice full of tenderness. “I love you, too.”
There isn’t time for us to talk more, but he doesn’t move his hand from my face.
"Cora," I say. "Mark, I don't know where…"
"She's out." His voice is calm and reassuring.. "She's out, she's safe, I saw her in the second group."
The sound I make is not something I can describe. It comes from somewhere deep inside me. I press my hand over my mouth and he puts his arm around me and I let him hold me up for a moment, right there on my knees on the pavement, while my body processes the information that my daughter is alive.
"Mom!"
I hear her before I see her. I look up and she's running across the cleared perimeter toward me, a teacher jogging behind her calling her name, and I get to my feet because my body does it without me telling it to. It’s pure reflex, and I cross the distance between us and drop back to my knees on the grass and she hits me like a small, orange-Converse-wearing freight train.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her in and hold her as tight as I have ever held another person in my life. She's crying. I'm crying. I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, fast and small and absolutely there, and I press my face into her hair and breathe her in.
"I didn't know where you were," she says against my neck. "I called for you and you weren't there and I didn't know where you were."
"I'm here." My voice breaks on it and I don't care. "I'm right here, baby girl. I'm okay, I've got you."
"I was so scared."
"I know. Me too." I pull back just enough to look at her face, to put my hands on her cheeks and make sure she's looking at me. Her eyes are red and her chin is wobbling and she is the most perfect thing I have ever seen in my life. "Are you hurt? Did you breathe any smoke?"
"A little," she says. "Mrs. Petersen made us cover our mouths."
"Good. Mrs. Petersen is very smart."
"She was crying."
"Adults cry sometimes. Even when we're being brave." I wipe her face with my thumb. "Especially when we're being brave."
She looks over my shoulder, and I feel the presence behind me before I hear him. Mark's hand lands on my back, offering me that steady reassurance I’ve never had, and I look up at him.
He is still in his gear, mask hanging from his hand, and he is looking at the two of us with an expression that he isn't trying to hide at all.
He lowers himself to one knee beside us in the grass.
Cora looks at him for exactly two seconds before she reaches out and grabs his coat with one fist.
He puts his arms around both of us.
I feel him exhale. It’s one long, slow breath, like he's been holding it since the alarm went off, and I lean into his side and Cora is between us and his arm is around my shoulders and his other hand is on the back of Cora's head, and the three of us stay like that on the grass outside a burning building while the crew works around us.
I close my eyes. Cora's heart is beating against mine. Mark's arm is solid around my shoulders.
And as I cry, Gunner, Amy, and Rosa come over. As a family we hug, we cry, and we thank God that we’re all safe.
Chapter Fourteen
Trish
It’s been a few days since the fire, and while we’re still healing, there’s something I know I want to do with Mark that we haven’t yet been able to do. Cora’s asleep, and I’ve just looked at Mark, reaching over to grab his hand.
