TEN MINUTES LATER, MARCUS WAS DRIVING ME TO THE HOSPITAL
The balloons stayed at Station 7.
So did the cake.
I sat in the passenger seat holding the Maplewood Bakery paper bag without remembering picking it up.
Marcus drove.
I stared at the road.
Finally:
“Tell me.”
“He went back upstairs.”
“For what?”
Marcus didn’t answer.
I turned.
“For what?”
“A child.”
Of course.
I closed my eyes.
Marcus continued.
“When crews entered, neighbors told us everyone was accounted for.”
“Then somebody heard something.”
“What?”
“A smoke alarm?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“A little boy screaming from the second floor.”
My fingernails dug into my palm.
“How old?”
“Seven.”
I turned toward the window.
Marcus said:
“We had already ordered withdrawal from that section.”
“Because the floor was unstable.”
“Yes.”
“And Adrian went anyway.”
“He wasn’t alone at first.”
That distinction worried me.
“What does that mean?”
“He and Jason made it to the landing.”
“Then part of the stairwell shifted.”
“Jason came back.”
“Adrian heard the kid again.”
I whispered:
“Of course he did.”
Marcus said nothing.
Because he knew Adrian too.
My husband was the kind of man who once stopped traffic to move a turtle.
The kind who climbed onto our garage roof because a neighbor’s cat got stuck there.
The kind who gave a homeless veteran his winter coat, then came home pretending he’d simply “lost it.”
And yes—
the kind of man who would hear a terrified seven-year-old in a burning house and convince himself the rules applied to everyone except him.
“What happened?”
“He got to the boy.”
“Then?”
“Window exit.”
Marcus’s voice tightened.
“Adrian handed the kid down to the ladder crew.”
“And?”
“The interior ceiling came down before Adrian got clear.”
I stopped breathing.
Marcus continued quickly:
“His gear took most of it.”
“Most?”
“Claire.”
“Do not soften this.”
He glanced at me.
“No.”
So he told me.
A burning piece of structural material struck Adrian across the shoulder and back.
He lost consciousness briefly.
Another firefighter reached him.
They got him out.
The boy was unharmed except for smoke exposure.
Adrian regained consciousness before transport.
And immediately told Marcus not to call me.
I stared out the windshield.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Marcus almost smiled.
“That’s closer to the reaction I expected.”
