A Firefighter's Promise

“I’ve got to get going,” he said, nodding in Mr. Bernard’s direction. “But I’ll give you a call.”

“No problem. I’ll see you later.” She raised her dark eyes to meet his, then turned her attention to her son. Matt raised a hand in a wave as Rachel and Christopher walked down the pavement toward a white hatchback sedan that had seen better days. Chris looked back at him once with an unreadable expression and Matt couldn’t help feeling that he’d unwittingly let the boy down. He wasn’t the hero that Chris was looking for.

He wasn’t the hero anyone else had been looking for, either, and the biggest reminder of that hard fact was Broxton Park Elementary School.

The school was opening again, teachers were being hired and life was going to continue. He understood that it had to, but something inside him just couldn’t move on with everyone else. That fire had done more than gut a school; it had taken the life of a little girl named Natalie Martin—a little girl he’d done his utmost to rescue. He couldn’t forget that soot-streaked face, so ashen and pale, or the ragged sobs of her parents, who stood on the sidewalk outside the flaming building clinging to each other.

Haggerston would never forget Natalie, but it would move on. Matt would never forget Natalie, either, but he wouldn’t be able to move on here. There were too many memories around every corner, and he knew the answer—South Maitland.

Sometimes God provided healing, and this time, Matt was pretty sure God was providing escape. Maybe healing could happen with some distance.

* * *

Rachel dropped the rag back into the sudsy bucket and leaned back on her heels. Renting Grandma’s old house from her aunt had seemed like the perfect solution when she moved back to Haggerston, but she hadn’t factored in the sheer amount of elbow grease it would take to clean the place up. Rachel looked into the freshly wiped kitchen cupboard and nodded in satisfaction. The 1950s farmhouse kitchen still sported the same teal paint from its early days when her grandmother had set up her own home as a newly married woman. The whitewashed walls, now less than white, contrasted with the teal cupboards, and a big, old-fashioned sink dominated the counter space. A Formica table of the same faded teal held buckets and cleaning products, but under it all, Rachel recognized that familiar, sunny kitchen.

“I always did love Grandma’s house,” she said.

Her aunt Louise, perched on a chair to reach the inside of the upper shelves, emerged from the depths of a cupboard and eyed her over her glasses. Short, graying hair curled around her face, and her cheeks glowed with the combination of heat and exertion.

“Why didn’t you move back earlier?” Louise pushed her glasses up on her face with one arm, keeping her rubber-gloved hands free. “This house has been empty this whole time, you know.”

“I know.” Rachel rose to her feet. “But when Ed died, I didn’t want to leave our home. It felt like leaving him behind.”

If she had to be brutally honest with herself, she was pretty angry with Ed, too, for having left her behind. They were supposed to grow old together. Ed’s dying wasn’t part of the deal.

Her aunt nodded. “This is good for Christopher, though. He needs family.”

Rachel glanced upward, toward the boy’s bedroom on the second floor. Overhead, the odd thump echoed down through the ceiling from his unpacking efforts.

“I hope so,” she said softly.

“You need family.” Aunt Louise shot her a pointed look.

Rachel grinned. “I know. And here we are.”

Louise gave a curt nod and disappeared back into the cupboard once more. Rachel stood motionless, her mind moving over the memories of childhood summers. Hot apple pie, sweet iced tea, old family stories, visits to the graveyard, where she used to read the inscriptions on her great-grandparents’ gravestones, feeling connected to the generations who came before her... Haggerston had been a warm, safe place for Rachel, and she hoped that somehow her own pleasant memories would morph into something more tangible for her son. Was it even possible to channel her happy childhood memories into his boyhood years?

A knock from the front door echoed through the empty house, and Rachel peeled off her rubber gloves and dropped them onto the side of the bucket, then went to answer the door. She paused at the foot of the stairs, just able to make out her son’s legs as he scampered down the upstairs hallway. She smiled to herself and pulled open the front door.

Matt Bailey stood on the porch, his navy blue uniform shirt open at the neck and the summer breeze ruffling his sun-bleached hair. He dropped his gaze, then lifted his eyes to meet hers tentatively.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.” A thump overhead drew both of their attention, and she chuckled. “Chris is unpacking up there.”

“Sounds like he’s enjoying himself.” He glanced upward, in the direction of the thumps. “Sorry to just stop in on you like this. I saw your car, so I figured you’d be here.”

Rachel looked past his broad shoulders to her white hatchback, rusting around the wheel wells and badly in need of a wash. “You found me. I’m just renting right now, but this is actually my grandmother’s old house, so—”

From the kitchen, Louise called, “I told you a thousand times, Rachel, I’m not accepting a penny from you!”

Rachel laughed and shook her head. “That’s Aunt Louise. She has ears like a cat. Be warned.”

Matt’s eyes crinkled in a warm smile. “Sounds like you’re in good hands.” The smile faltered, and he met her gaze frankly. “I wanted to apologize about today.”

“Oh, it’s no matter.” Rachel batted her hand through the air.

“No, it is.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t expecting to meet Chris today, and I wasn’t at my best. Is he okay?”

Rachel’s mind went to the silent drive home she and Christopher had shared—a quiet boy fiddling with a paper plane in the back of the car, his usual noisy exuberance dampened. She wasn’t about to make that Matt’s problem, though. “He’ll be all right.”

“Okay. Good.” Matt cleared his throat, and his gaze softened. “It was nice to meet you. Both of you.”

Inside the house, the phone rang, and Louise picked it up with a singsong “Hello?” Rachel angled her head toward the door and stepped outside. Matt followed. One side of the porch was overgrown with a lilac bush, the clustered blossoms breathing out fragrance, and the other side basked in the shade of a mature oak tree. She let her gaze wander over the yard, a little overgrown and in need of mowing, and then back to her tall guest. Matt’s uniform shirt was wrinkled up the back, and his chin glistened with stubble in the late-afternoon sunlight.

“I should apologize, too,” she confessed. “I didn’t mean to come on so strongly back at the firehouse. I get something into my head, and I just go full steam ahead. I guess I’d hoped—” She brushed some errant wisps of hair away from her forehead. “I don’t even know what I hoped. I’m sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay. It sounds pretty complicated, actually.”

“It is.” She pushed her fingers into her snug jeans pockets. “But that isn’t your problem. I’ll take care of it.”

“Yeah, of course.” He nodded curtly and took a step back, his eyes moving over the wooden porch, paint flaking away from the sagging boards. “Did you know that I knew your grandmother? I don’t know why you and I never met.”

“Did you? I didn’t realize that. I used to come to visit in the summers for a couple of weeks, but never for terribly long.”

“That would explain why I don’t remember you.” He shot her a boyish grin, and for a moment she thought he might be flirting, but then he looked away. “Your grandmother was a nice lady. She used to bring us homemade cookies at the firehouse.”

“That sounds like Grandma.” Rachel chuckled. “She fed absolutely everyone.”

She also had a soft spot for firefighters, something that Ed had always appreciated.

“No complaints here.” Matt crossed his muscular arms over his chest. “She made the best macaroons in town. That included my own grandmother’s macaroons.”

“That’s some high praise, then.” Rachel smiled. “This seems like a great place for a kid to grow up.”

“The best.” Something flickered deep in his eyes at those words, but before she could think more of it, a window scraped open on the second floor over their heads, and Christopher’s voice hollered down, “Mom!”

Rachel trotted down the steps to look up at her son’s smiling face.

“Are you exploring up there?” Rachel asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, I found old hats.”

“That’s fun.”

“And a really big spider.”

Rachel shuddered. “Don’t touch it.”