Authors: Missy Fleming
“And it is. You’re stronger, but I have concerns.” Nona sighed. “You’ve done remarkably well these past few months. Don’t lose sight of your goals. Make sure you do your daily reading and meditation exercises. Whether it’s one year or five or twenty, the dangers are the same.”
“I’ll be okay, I promise. I’m learning my limits, Nona. I won’t go too far. Trust me. I do not want to go back there.”
“Do you have enough money? I swear, New York is more expensive than L.A., and I know you don’t make much at the bakery.”
“I’m good. Not paying for a hotel helps.” Growing up, she was part of the small minority who never had to worry about money. Her future had been secure, aided by a generous trust fund from her grandparents. Of course, she blasted through hundreds of thousands of dollars of that trust to feed her habit, including drug-induced trips to exotic locales. Even now, she couldn’t track where all the money went. It disgusted her.
There’d been the trip to Thailand, a month spent in a house on the beach with a floundering teen actress. Sex and drugs, mixed with a nightlife offering every temptation imaginable. It had hollowed her while leaving the impression she was safe. Other locations, like France or Brazil were less lucid, the memories hazy. In a rare moment of clarity between rehabs and binges, she assigned Natalie as conservator of the miniscule amount remaining in her bank account.
“Well, let me know if you need anything, you hear me?” Nona yanked her back to the present.
“Yes, Mother,” Olivia joked. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Olivia ended the call as the cab dropped her off in the park. She spent an hour wandering and thinking, people watching, feeling her nerves slowly untangle. In Los Angeles, when baking didn’t help or she wasn’t near a stove, she hiked. There was a spot in the Hollywood Hills, above the Hollywood sign, where on a clear day she could see the ocean. She used to sit there, sometimes as long as six hours, rationally sorting through her bad decisions or trying to recall lost chunks of time. She didn’t have that luxury here, in the middle of the city, so ambling through Central Park worked in a pinch.
Later, she trekked to an old Presbyterian church where the Narcotics Anonymous meeting was being held. The promise of being someplace where people understood her soothed the last of the negative thoughts and her hands stilled for the first time in two days.
Inside, the familiar scent of stale coffee greeted her, reminding her of every other meeting she’d ever been to, people from all walks of life trying to take up the least amount of space possible. She sat in a middle pew and drew in multiple deep breaths, a ritual she carried since her first meeting. Talking about her addiction, and what drugs erased, always left her vulnerable and shaky. To stand in front of a room full of strangers and admit her darkest thoughts, deeds, and shortcomings was a mortifying experience, but Olivia understood the healing and cleansing aspect of it, that she didn’t have the luxury of being shy or afraid. Here, she wasn’t alone.
Soon, those feelings passed as the familiarity and routine of the meeting took over. They opened with the Serenity Prayer and she closed her eyes, mouthing the words.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
When her turn came to share, she didn’t hesitate to stand up and speak.
“Hi, my name is Olivia. I’ve been a drug addict for eight years and clean for three hundred and twenty days. I fled the city after 9/11 and refused to set foot here again, until yesterday. Drugs helped me forget that terrible day, watching my parents die from a few yards away. Being trapped after the collapse. The stress of coming home, of not being good enough for my old life, makes me want to shoot up and lose myself in the drugs. I feel the needle in my arm. It calls to me. Impossible to ignore.” She paused, lost in the ecstasy she shamefully missed. “I remember my first high, how the euphoric rush erased every negative thing clinging to me. When I crashed, I slept without night terrors for the first time since September 11th. So, I made sure I was always high, alienating myself from anything connecting me to my past life.
“Yet here I am. Back.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “My grandmother is dying and she expects me to be a woman I don’t know anymore. My history is haunting me, telling me I’m nothing but a pathetic addict and have no right to be more, but I’m stronger than my addiction.”
As she talked, Olivia recognized the concern and understanding in the others’ expressions and her galloping pulse slowed. This was the most gratifying part of a meeting, strangers who heard her shame and did not judge, because they’d been there too. Plenty still were. Plus, it gave her a chance to offer another lost soul hope, to prove it could be done.
After she finished and sat, the meeting moved on. She relaxed into the pew as contentment took hold. Idly, she traced her tattoo. The words, “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, were her gift to herself after her initial trip to rehab. While the sobriety might not have lasted, the words continued to give her comfort, they became her motto. Often, she glanced down, surprised they were still legible because she rubbed them so much.
Tonight the moderators covered the eighth step, amends, which seemed oddly appropriate. Wasn’t that why she had returned, to make amends with Catherine and, in a weird way, her parents?
She picked up her white booklet and reread silently, “We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
Sitting and listing every person she hurt had been sobering. Not because it was long, but because of its shortness. She had realized how thoroughly she isolated herself from her friends and family. Instead of dwelling on loved ones, though, her thoughts drifted to 9/11 and the firefighter who saved her life.
B
y the time Engine 12 arrived on scene, a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, causing Duncan McMurray’s frown to deepen. He hated the gawkers who flocked to a fire, smart phones at the ready, hoping to catch something heroic or horrific, it didn’t matter which. Shouts refocused his attention to the five-story walkup. Overhead, blackened windows stared down at him with soulless eyes and orange flames licked at the broken panes, relentless tongues warping the glass, devouring everything in their path. Blinding light swallowed him as a cameraman darted in for a close-up. How the hell did the damn news channel beat his crew here? He glared as he slid out of the rig, watching Ladder 99’s truck pull to a stop.
His heartbeat slammed in his ears, a steady thud barely covering the inferno’s roar. Holding onto his helmet, he tipped his head back, gauging the rate of ignition and how long they had before the entire structure became unstable. Didn’t look good. The sharp scent of smoke and melted plastic assaulted his nose, the familiar sting burning his eyes. Twenty years in the FDNY, including the biggest job they ever faced on 9/11, and he still experienced a rush of excitement and fear before running into a fire.
“McMurray, Gimble.” Duncan’s ears perked up, tuning in to the captain’s gruff voice. “Get in there and sweep for any survivors who might be trapped, take the upper floors. Ballard and Tomkins, concentrate on the lower floors. Halls are narrow, so we don’t need a crowd. Hernandez, get on the ladder and aim a hose at those windows. Jenkins, take the kid and make sure the roof is stable. Not sure how much longer we got until the whole thing goes. This monster went up fast.”
The crew reacted, a well-polished team who’d been through this a hundred times. Duncan picked up an oxygen tank and slipped it on, grabbed his axe, and followed Frank through the front door of the building. Instinct slowed his frantic pulse as they rushed up the stairs, side-stepping the exodus of rats dashing towards safety.
In the flickering light, he surveyed the general lack of maintenance and upkeep—exposed wires, ancient water stains, a light switch dangling from its usual position. He cursed under his breath. Goddamn cheap landlords. Most fires they encountered were preventable if the owners actually gave a crap about their tenants and made a few improvements. The dismal state also explained how the fire grew so fast.
After sweeping the burned out third level and finding nothing, they trudged on to the fourth. The higher they went, the more intense the swirling smoke and heat became. Flames slithered up the walls, across the ceiling, peeking through blackened holes in the sheetrock in a deadly game of hide-and-seek. He and Frank worked down the hall, swift and thorough, checking rooms and calling in reports. At the final door, Frank lifted his crowbar and wedged it open. The second it flew inward, the fresh supply of oxygen fed the fire causing it to explode outwards, knocking both men off their feet, then sucking back into the apartment, instantly raging and snarling at every flammable surface.
“Son of a bitch,” Frank sputtered as he rose to his knees and scrambled for his discarded equipment. “Hate when that happens.”
Duncan called it in. “Engine, Engine, focus the hose on the westernmost window. We just pissed this bitch off.”
He took a moment to gather himself, disguising it as rechecking the oxygen levels in his tank. It wasn’t often a fire managed to rattle him, but whenever it took him by surprise, his heart galloped a little faster and mortality breathed down his neck.
“You okay?” Frank asked.
“Damn oxygen tank is fluctuating. Old equipment,” he lied. These days, the only time he lost his cool was when he went into a blaze sober, like today. There’d been no time to sneak a pill.
“Good?” Frank watched him closely.
“Yeah, let’s see if we can navigate the fifth floor.”
They climbed into hell itself, a nightmare of intense heat, charred framework, and groaning, cracking wood. Orange flames consumed the walls and ceiling, hungry for fresh sustenance or clean air to fuel its growth. Duncan felt the roar of it in his bones and the sound threatened to shatter his eardrums. It’d be easy to get confused, disorientation often led to injury or death for firefighters, and he thanked whatever science or almighty being blessed him with an uncanny sense of direction.
He and Frank found what they were looking for in the first apartment. Two small children were huddled under a coffee table and Duncan’s gut plummeted to his feet. Part of the adjacent wall had already collapsed on the flimsy piece of furniture, pinning one of the kids and allowing the fire to engulf the leg of another. Both victims were under the age of five and unconscious. He hoped like hell their lack of movement was from smoke inhalation and nothing else.
Duncan rushed forward, moving the debris as carefully and quickly as he could while Frank patted out the little boy’s burning leg. Recovering from serious burns was the worst agony imaginable, months and months of skin grafts and debridement, physical therapy. He hated that this little guy would suffer. Frank slipped off his mask, already preparing for CPR, and Duncan followed suit, immediately coughing on the thick air. The familiar scent of singed flesh soured Duncan’s stomach, becoming trapped in his nostrils along with the soot and smoke.
The flames edged closer, nipping at his heels and hissing, telling him to hurry. His jaw clenched with tension and his entire body vibrated with focus, drowning the roar.
The two of them worked silently, a well-choreographed team, and as Duncan removed the last board, a pile of smoldering sheetrock rained down and slammed him into the floor. Frank was there in an instant, knocking it off, but an ache spread through Duncan’s upper back and he tasted blood on his tongue. Frank extracted the now whimpering boy, and Duncan reached for a tiny girl. Her neck lay at an odd angle, chest motionless. The chaos faded and he muttered a curse, lifting her in his trembling hands, cradling her.
The little boy spoke, his voice filled with pain. “Did I save my sister? I told her to hide.”
Duncan flicked his gaze to Frank and gave the slightest shake of his head, hacking like he was about to cough up a lung.
Frank paused, grief clouding his face, before answering, “You did great, son.” He slipped his oxygen mask over the child’s small face and pushed to his feet, the kid in his arms. “Let’s get out of here.”
The remaining wall buckled, spurring them into action. Conditions deteriorated fast as they sprinted down the stairs. Duncan felt the fire stalking them from all sides, a ruthless predator in the jungle. He kept his attention front and center, positive that if he took the time to look back, it would be the last thing he ever did.
They barely made it to the lobby of the building when Captain Blankard’s frantic voice erupted over his radio. “Frank, Duncan, you better be on your goddamn way! Roof’s coming down!”
A mound of flaming debris landed next to him, sending up a shower of sparks and he danced out of the way, struggling to keep hold of the lifeless child. The center of the building collapsed inwards, making it clear he and Frank were far from safe. As they crossed into daylight, a huge boom came from the staircase behind them and the force of it slammed into his back, knocking him onto his knees. He leapt to his feet and, with a breath of relief, they burst free of the building.
“They off the roof? This bitch is hungry for something besides wood,” he croaked to the captain as he rushed towards the paramedics.
“Pulled ‘em off about ninety seconds ago. They’re clear.”
One piece of good news.
Duncan handed the girl to the EMT and hovered, ignoring the offer of oxygen as he continued to cough. He knew from the extreme angle of her neck and the grayish pallor of her skin there was no hope but waited for official word anyway.
“Where are the parents?” he asked gruffly, rubbing his aching knees.
The medic turned sad eyes to him and shrugged. “Not sure. One of the neighbors said it’s a single mom. Leaves the kids alone to run errands.”
The medic confirmed the girl was gone, dead on impact, so at least she didn’t suffer. Duncan remained quiet from then on. Words and emotions tumbled through him, stealing his ability to talk. The boy would be fine, despite a broken and severely burned leg, but Duncan refused to be around when they told him there had been no saving his little sister. Uselessness gnawed at him, hollowing his insides, a bottomless abyss opening beneath him. Kids didn’t deserve to feel this kind of grief.
After the crew finished cleaning up and was headed to the house in the rig, Duncan struggled to purge himself of the lingering anger. What kind of parent left children that young alone? It made him think of his own kids and how long it’d been since he last saw them. The damn separation complicated things, but more than that, he was often too stoned to care about the weeks and months passing between visits. Dad of the Year, give him his trophy now.
He groaned, working the kinks from his shoulders. This kind of shift, coupled with thoughts of his kids, made him desperate for his pills and a drink. All he wanted was to crawl in a hole and shut the entire world out while he numbed himself into a stupor.