|
|
DEDICATION:
First I'd like to thank my sister Joanie for her invaluable assistance coordinating interviews and gathering the research materials that helped me get an up-close-and- personal view into the lives and minds of some of New York's Bravest. I'd also like to credit Ruth, my critic and writing partner, for formulating the cornerstone questions within my Firefighter Questionnaire. It is through the contributions and insight of these young women that the authenticity of the firefighter and firefighting references and scenes in this work were made possible.
Last, but certainly not least, I'd like to pay homage to the selfless men and women across the country who protect our homes, businesses and more. I dedicate "Flames Past" to these courageous firefighters and EMS workers (volunteers and paid) who daily risk their lives to save ours.
Summer 1992
Atlantic City, NJ - Starlight Motel
Echo released a Lurch-like groan, wincing as she came to in her own vomit (at least she hoped it was hers...Egads!), and lifted a cheek from the regurgitated remnants of last night's seafood-and-tequila bingefest.
Stop it, Mommy. Make the mallet-fist stop banging!
She had thought she'd seen and heard it all. She had thought she knew pain. Broken bones -- some self-inflicted, some not -- and scraped knees and elbows were everyday occurrences by the time she'd reached her tenth year of reckless, hoyden abandon. But nothing in that immature realm of experience could have prepared Echo for the torment of this latest cerebellum-wrenching hangover.
She didn't know what niggling detail now champed at her drunken stupor more: the toddler's distant wail reverberating in her head, or the unmistakable and pungent aroma of fire tickling her nostrils like an urchin-wielded feather.
The last time she'd smelled this scent, her brat had set fire to his hair. Days later -- after Echo had shaved off the charred and left-over fuzz -- the little rugrat had been as bald as a cue ball, head as smooth as a pediatric chemo patient's. And
for weeks after that, Echo had had to explain to nosy strangers on the street that no, he didn't have leukemia, and yes, he liked that his mommy had made him look like the famous basketball player -- His Airness, and... She really would have just appreciated it if the snoops had acted like "real" apathetic New Yorkers and minded their own business.
Echo had been so happy when the kid's hair started to come back in -- silkier, fuller and a richer chocolate-brown than its original state -- that she could have spit. Not only did the random inquisitions stop, but she wouldn't have to explain her son's condition to that two-faced case worker, Sawyer, who pretended she was Echo's friend and trying to help, but was really no better than any Barbie cheerleader trolling the high school waters for most-popular votes. Echo knew the type. Smile in your face and promise to take you away from your parents if they started whacking you again, but never getting around to coming for you. Echo'd had enough promises broken by blood-kin adults when she'd been a kid. She didn't need some stranger to tell her lies too.
Anyway, she had yet to figure out how her Damien-child had managed to set just his hair on fire -- so controlled a conflagration, and so isolated an area -- with nary a match or open flame at his disposal.
She shook herself now, still groggy despite a couple of functioning gray cells telling her she should get the lead out and see what the hell her unsupervised four-year-old was up to this time.
Where was the little troublemaker anyway? Echo wondered and promised herself she would tan his hide but good this time if he'd started another... She bolted from the foul mattress, quicker than if there'd been a short-changed john on her tail, and sprinted to the kitchen, fully expecting to see the brat roasting his new puppy over the stove like a furry marshmallow. But there was nothing. No kid, no pup.
Echo whirled and shot back to the living room. Hell, how could she have run right by them? Wasn't like there were that many places in the tiny dump to hide.
There they were -- brat and puppy both -- sitting around a tidy little fire in the middle of the floor as if they were campers telling ghost stories over plumping Ballparks.
Echo goggled, then rubbed her eyes, frozen on the threshold and afraid to move and break the kid's focus. She didn't know what would happen if she did. She didn't want to find out.
"Athan?" She took a cautious step forward and stopped when her son jerked up his head and gave her a beatific smile to do Damien proud.
"Mommy, lookit..."
As soon as the kid turned his full attention to her, the fire transfigured and grew, smoldering with jealousy.
Athan glanced back at it and mumbled "oh-oh" before Echo closed the space between them in several hurried strides. She scooped him into her arms, held him tight against her breasts and backed away in horror as the little campfire turned into a full- fledged blaze that instantly girdled the golden retriever in its path.
"Oh m' God. Oh, Christ!"
"Mommy...Mommy, leggo! I gotta stop it..."
Echo stumbled back, tripped over one of the brat's Tonka trucks -- and how many times had she told him to put his toys away? -- as Athan leaped out of her grasp and scrambled back to the dog and the fire.
"Athan, no!"
"My doggy..."
Echo gasped as he reached for the retriever.
She'd only bought the stupid yapping mutt from some street person on the Boardwalk to shut up her own yapping mutt's I-want-a-puppy-please-please-please lament. Now the dog was going to be the death of her little brat?
"Here, Pepsi. C'mere, girl..."
"Athan..."
The flames leveled off, dancing around the pup, barely singeing her wavy dense coat as the boy neared.
Echo watched her son bite his full lower lip, concentration etched on his small features. The pup yelped as he grabbed her collar and the flames leapt as if to engulf boy and dog in its fiery embrace. Athan cried out and tumbled back empty-handed.
"Athan!" Echo dove and grabbed him around the shoulders. She was aware of agony as she dragged him back. His agony, the dog's agony -- hot and blistering like a bed of stoked coals pressing into the soles of bare feet. She felt the agony as surely as if it were hers. Then she felt nothing at all. Except the cold and the dark.
***
Echo sat in a corner of the motel room's burgundy velour sofa, fidgeted when Sawyer fixed her with one of her famous, I'm-disappointed-in-you glares.
"Don't look at me like that." Echo averted her gaze, rummaged through her leather- patch handbag for a Newport.
"I thought you had quit those disgusting things."
Echo rolled her eyes, flirted with ignoring the remark but couldn't. "Look, I know I need to quit, but...but Christ! I need this in the worst way right now."
"You have enough vices, kid."
Echo managed to retrieve a barely crushed cigarette way at the bottom of her bag. She lit it with her lighter and took a fortifying drag before blowing a plume of smoke up into the air. "Please, Sawyer. It's not like you're that much older than me."
"Old enough to know what's right and wrong."
"Right or wrong, I can't do this anymore. I told you I'm not the maternal type."
"Echo, you said you'd give it a try."
"I have given it a try!" She stood and lurched across the room to the kitchen counter, still unsteady on her feet despite her last couple of hours of sobriety.
Need to sober somebody up right quick? Give them the new Popeal's Athan- The-Pyromaniac doll. He smolders, he burns. Great gift idea for the reluctant designated driver in your life. Fun for the whole family....
Echo could see the infomercial now, something featuring the likes of Dan Ackroyd, vintage SNL; she could almost taste the millions she would make on sales.
Sawyer approached, arms outstretched as if for a hug, but Echo quickly sidestepped, took another drag of her Newport.
"Look, Sawyer. I said I'd give this mommy thing a go. I have. Now I'm ready to move on. Case closed."
"You'll regret it later if you give up now."
"I never signed on for...for this kid."
"He's just a harmless child."
Echo scoffed. "You say. I know better. He's a bad seed."
"Echo..."
"There's something...there's something wrong with him."
"Wrong?" Sawyer glared at her. "So you decided to take matters into your own hands and make him 'right'?"
"What? I didn't do this to him!"
"Hmph."
"I don't believe this. You think I...that I did this?" Echo watched Sawyer sneer. She hated when her caseworker looked at her with that you-oughta-be-ashamed- of-yourself glint in her eyes. She would never hurt her kid, not like that, not on purpose.
Okay, they'd hit a few rough spots early on. She'd smacked his bottom a couple of times for disobeying one mommy rule or other. She might have left a diaper or two on him longer than she should have when he'd been younger. Maybe neglected to feed him for an entire twenty-four-hour period.
And one time -- when she'd been at the end of her rope with one of his colicky crying jags -- she'd locked him in his bedroom and fled the house to clear her head. She'd counted her blessings in a big way, relieved when she returned and hadn't found the kid smoldering amid the house's torched rubble, only safely and peacefully sleeping in his crib.
But never, not even during her worst hangover, had she tried to burn her kid. She did everything she could to keep him away from fire, although, like his father, Athan seemed to have a weird affinity for this particular element, some power and connection that Echo didn't fully understand.
"Look, Echo, I know how hard it is to raise a kid alone. Especially a young mother raising a son without his father. I'd understand if you...you know, lost control of the situation..."
Echo advanced, jabbed her cigarette in Sawyer's face. "Read my lips: I did not hurt my kid." Feeble, she thought, so feeble. And she didn't know how to sound less so. Didn't know how to make Sawyer see what she had seen. Hell, she didn't know what she had seen.
How could she explain the dog's disappearance, so complete an incineration of canine that only a flea collar and hairball remained among a 2 X 4 charred area in the middle of the floor? How could she explain that? How could anyone?
"I know it sounds crazy, but the kid...the kid did it."
"He did what?"
"He started the fire...with his mind." Echo watched as Sawyer's eyes lit like an anthropologist's who'd found the missing link. Or was Echo imagining the caseworker's piqued interest? There was one sure way to find out, but not even she would invade this woman's privacy like that, as much as she was tempted to.
"He started it? With his...mind?"
"Like I said. It sounds crazy."
"Well...."
"Don't tell me you believe me?" Echo didn't want to hope, didn't want to dream that her jaded-but-got-a-soft-spot-for-Echo-Quinn caseworker was as loony as she was. Or maybe Sawyer had thrown back a couple of tequilas too before she'd come over.
"I'm not saying I believe you, so don't get excited, but -- "
"But?" Echo stubbed out her cigarette in a nearby burgundy marble ashtray to match the room's sofa.
"I have a friend, a colleague actually, who has some experience with this type of...situation."
Echo scowled. "And how much would this said colleague want for someone soliciting his experience?"
"Don't be so cynical." Sawyer took a deep breath, exasperated as she forked her hands through long brown hair. "He's a...he's a parapsychologist."
"So I'm not the only one going nuts here."
"Echo, would you rather continue to believe you're crazy or hear me out and see if there's some help for you and Athan?"
"I don't see why you're making such a case out of this.
You of all people should be glad I'm ready to give up the ship. It's not like I've been the best mother to him."
"It's my job to make a 'case' out of this. Besides, I'm not as cold and heartless as you think. What person in their right mind would try to see a mother separated from her child?"
"Evidently not you," Echo grumbled and waited a few seconds as Sawyer frowned then chuckled when she finally realized she had been insulted.
"Sarcasm will get you nowhere, Echo. You're going to do this."
There it was -- the or-else ultimatum. Sawyer was notorious for it.
"You missed your calling, Sawyer. You should be down in Salvador with the other rebel-fighters and guerrillas."
"I'll take that as the dubious compliment that it is." She smiled and stretched out her hand for a shake. "We have a deal?"
Echo hesitated, hugging herself. "How much would help like this go for? I've tapped out all my winnings."
Sawyer smirked. "We'll work something out."
"I don't want any charity."
"And you won't get any from me, girlfriend."
Echo put her hand in Sawyer's and shook. Was she finalizing a contract with the devil?
"Besides, if worse comes to worse, you could always go to that secret rich benefactor of yours to foot the bill."
Echo grimaced. "Like you said. We'll work something out."
The last thing she wanted to do was ask Miss Prissy for an extra dime outside of their agreed-upon stipends. Talk about signing contracts with the devil. Just thinking about the woman made her mouth water for a drink.
"We have a deal, then?" Sawyer asked.
"De -- "
"Oh, by the way, since we'll be spending a lot of time together from now on..."
"We will?"
Sawyer continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. "And since I'll be kind of like a godmom to Athan..."
"You will?" Echo's lips quirked in amusement and Sawyer grinned too, put out her hand again.
"I think it's about time you started calling me Tamara?"
Echo hesitated for only a second, firmly shook her caseworker's hand and for the first time since she had met the older woman, she felt something besides resentment and disappointment pass between them. She wasn't sure what it was, but it felt good.
"Deal...Tamara." Echo wondered if she could hold up her end as well as Tamara.
Winter 1998
Bronx, New York
Echo sat at the round oak dining room table, a letter from Rhodes Junior High Academy dangling between two fingers. She slumped forward in her cushioned seat, silently cursed, craving a cigarette, so ready to backslide, she could almost taste tar and nicotine on her tongue, feel smoke coating her lungs. If she hadn't quit soon after that incident in the motel room six years ago, she would have had a pack at her fingertips, but after that day in Atlantic City, the thrill of lighting up didn't hold the same appeal for Echo as it once did. Hell, the kid's "gift" had her scared to turn on a stove pilot, which made for some really creative cooking on Echo's part and since she didn't like to cook anyway -- especially when there was just her and the kid to partake -- the miracle micro would have to do. Echo figured there was little chance of the kid setting a fire with this techno piece of equipment. Although, if he put his mind to it, she guessed he could probably blow up their whole Pelham Bay neighborhood nuking leftovers for dinner.
But the real problem now wasn't the kid's pyrokinetic ability but Athan's truancy and why she hadn't been able to pick up on it.
The answer to the latter was easy: she'd fallen off, gotten complacent since Tamara had been in their lives and Athan had started seeing James Canon. She'd never been a "snooper", using her abilities only under the most dire of circumstances. But maybe it was time to re-think this particular ethic.
Echo knew she was avoiding conflict, knew she couldn't continue avoiding it or disciplining her son just because she feared the possibilities of a confrontation with the firestarting Damien-child. Not that she'd had too many problems with reprimanding Athan. Basically, her brat was a pretty decent kid. And with help from Tamara and James, he was growing into a well-adjusted boy.
A born pessimist, Echo just liked to prepare herself for the worst scenario, something that would put the fear of God into the most seasoned smoke-eater's heart perhaps.
She glanced at the paper again, stared at the official, elegantly designed letterhead, and grimaced. Just a fancy ruse, some expensive private institution where over- indulgent yuppies could dump the kids they fancied the world's next Einstein. Echo had no such illusions, had only consented to this particular academy on Tamara's advice because the kid had this through-the-roof I.Q. and was getting bored in his regular, fifth- grade-class at the neighborhood elementary school.
Why had God blessed her with such a "special" child? Didn't She know whom She was dealing with? Give a gal a break, why don't you!
Echo heard Tamara's Cherokee pull up in the driveway beside the brownstone. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for her son and Tam who had done her a favor and picked Athan up after his basketball practice.
She didn't know whether she was relieved by their looming arrival or not, didn't know how she was going to approach this new wrinkle with Athan since she hadn't had time to prepare.
She had been in such a rush to get home before Athan and Tamara with every intention of making the best of her few free moments. But so far she'd only spent the time wallowing in self-pity and whining, wasting precious minutes fretting over one piece of mail. And two hours after she'd arrived home, the rest of the stack lay unopened on the smoke-glass end table; Echo was still in her sweaty Danskins and hadn't even settled down enough to get dinner started.
The downstairs door opened then slammed shut with such force, Echo was expecting to hear the unmistakable sound of shattered pane tinkling to the wooden floor in the hallway.
She heard instead what sounded like a pack of wild buffalo stampeding up the stairs.
Athan burst through the door in seconds, sped by Echo on the way to his room like a cat running away from a big dog.
A dog named Tamara, Echo thought and stood as her friend rushed into the living room on Athan's heels.
Tamara breathlessly bent at the waist, massaging a stitch in her side.
"Tag, you're it?" Echo teased and Tamara glared at her.
"I'm too old...to be chasing...athletic...ten-year-olds up ...steep...flights of...steps!"
"Aw, c'mon godmommy. You're only thirty-one, just a little over the hill." Echo was glad for the chance to get her mind on something lighter than the letter weighing in her hand.
"Easy for you to say. You still haven't joined the noble ranks. Give it a couple of years and make fun then. I'm telling you, you hit thirty and it all falls apart."
Echo had been hearing these gloom-and-doom tales for years and had yet to see where any of them were true, especially when her friend was in such good shape and one of Echo's star pupils.
Tamara made a show now of shuffling over to Echo's Aztec-print sectional before collapsing into a cozy corner to catch her breath. "Kid forgets I'm not his fitness guru mama."
"Want to tell me why my son came slamming in here like he pays all the bills in this house?"
"Maybe you could tell me."
Echo arched a brow, suddenly gaped as a thought sunk in. She headed towards her son's room and banged on the closed door with a fist. "Athan Casey Quinn! What the devil is your problem?"
"Give it a rest, hun." Tamara stood and headed through the dining room, Echo not far behind.
"And why, may I ask, are you so calm?"
Tamara shook her head. "Not calm. Numb with exhaustion." She opened the fridge with one hand, grabbed a juice glass from an overhead cupboard with the other, and motioned to Echo if she wanted one too. Echo nodded, decided whatever her friend was pouring, she was drinking.
"Make mine a double, will ya."
Tamara chuckled, poured them each a cold glass of o.j..
Tam liked it just like her, Echo thought, no pits or pulp to get between her teeth and no ice to clank against sensitive enamel. One of the many likes they had in common.
Echo followed Tamara back to the dining room and took a seat adjacent her at the table. "So, is our boy suffering a relapse or what?" she asked and took a sip of her juice.
Tamara took a big gulp of hers before answering. "I don't think it's anything that serious."
"How serious is... Wait, before you answer that, why don't
I share this little tidbit with you?"
Tamara quirked a brow and Echo handed her the creased and now-moist letter. If she hadn't known better, she might have thought someone had been crying and using it as a Kleenex. Which wasn't too far from the truth.
Tamara took it and ironed it out against the tabletop before she pulled her reading glasses from her handbag and placed them on the tip of her nose.
Echo smiled at how studious her friend looked, head bowed, eyebrows crinkling as she reached the meat and potatoes of the correspondence.
Tamara finally looked up, pushing a long stray curl behind an ear as she slid her rose-tinted glasses up to her forehead. "I figured as much."
"You did?"
"Well, I didn't know it had gone this far."
"Ten days out? In one semester? I'll say it's gone far. Especially when I was under the impression that he'd been going religiously since this new school. This fancy- schmantzy academy was supposed to help him adjust, keep him stimulated."
"Now, Echo..."
"And look at this..." She pointed at a highlighted section. "As the director puts it, he's been absent on 'several crucial days'. He missed a couple of exams, Tam."
"I know it looks bad." Tamara reached across to put a steadying hand over Echo's. She squeezed the younger woman's fingers between her own.
"I suppose you're going to tell me it's not so bad?"
"I wouldn't lie to you. But we can work this out just like we've worked out everything else."
Echo grunted. She was glad Tamara was so sure. She had no such confidence in herself to do the right thing where Athan was concerned.
"So, why'd he come in here like a bat outta hell?"
"Before you freak, let me tell you this..."
"What now?"
"He didn't go to school today either."
"He didn't g -- " Echo lurched to her feet and Tamara grabbed her hand and jerked her back down to her seat.
"Will you sit your hot tail down and listen."
"What's there to listen to? My son's a truant and his godmom's burying her head in the sand." Echo closed her eyes tight and counted to ten before continuing. "Where'd you find him?"
"At the arcade kicking alien butt and saving the world."
If the brat wasn't pampering his fish, devouring his collection of Octavia Butler novels and X-Men Comics, or ruining his and Echo's hearing blasting Spice Girls and Hanson CDs, then he was drawing virtual blood on Mortal Kombat or some similar violent video game.
Getting out his aggression? She wondered, but aggression against what? Who?
"Did he happen to mention why he didn't go to school?"
"That's where the race came in. Didn't want to talk about it."
Didn't want to talk about it? Who the hell did he think he was anyway?
"No rough stuff."
"What?"
"I see that look in your eyes, Echo."
"What look?"
"That I'll-tan-his-hide look."
"Well, it was good enough for me."
"Was it?" Tamara pierced her with a chastising stare.
"Whatever." Echo stood, paced down the short hall to her son's bedroom door, then back to the table. "What am I supposed to do? Let it go without saying something?"
"I'm not suggesting any such thing. Talk to him." Echo stared at her.
"Don't look at me as if it's some alien concept. You can do it as well as I can. Probably better. He might open up for you quicker than for me."
Echo doubted it. If Tamara the social worker and child shrink couldn't make Athan "open up", what chance did she -- a mere high school drop-out -- have?
"Listen, Echo. I know you're all bark and no bite..."
Why did the witch have to know her so well?
"...But Athan doesn't always know it." Tamara gripped her shoulder, gave Echo another meaningful look before she stood to go. "Talk to him...by any means at your disposal."
"Yeah, sure."
Tamara headed for the door, opened it before turning back with her hand on the knob. "No violence. Just talk."
"I'll show you violence, Methuselah!" Echo snatched the nearest turquoise-and-pink patterned throw pillow and flung it at the front door as Tamara ducked and laughingly closed it behind her before escaping down the stairs.
She took a deep breath and turned back to face her son's closed door. The ebony paneling might as well have been a solid block of concrete with a doorknob sticking out of it for the separation it fostered.
A separation she would have to close, Echo told herself as she knocked on the door.
***
Athan lay spread-eagle on his full-size bed, face aimed at the ceiling.
Echo thought he looked like he was offering up his long and lanky body to the disciplinarian gods.
She had been prepared for sullen defiance, the Silent Treatment, or the My-Mom's- Invisible-I-Don't-See-Her-Can't-Hear-Her Game. She hadn't been prepared for martyrdom.
She hesitated at the door for a moment, trying to decide how tactful she should be when what she really wanted to do was reach out to the kid's gray matter and strangle him into submission. She was on the verge, but instead made a show of tidying up, clearing dirty laundry off the handlebars of his BMX dirt bike for starters.
He had started begging for the thing when he first turned
six and was barely off of training wheels.
Echo finally broke down and got him the perilous contraption for his tenth birthday a couple of months ago.
But what he really wanted, he'd hinted on more than one occasion, was a "real" dirt bike...something with a motor.
Echo perused the glossy full color posters proliferating on his walls and ceiling -- the classic Honda racers, the Harley-Davidson choppers, the kamikaze Kawasakis -- all manners of death-defying devices as far as her eye could see. And it would be a cold day in hell before she'd purchase him one.
She climbed and picked her way through the rest of the junk in his room, grimaced as she plucked a stray sweat sock draped over the lampshade at his bedside. She could swear the boy would leave his clothes in the toilet if he happened to walk by there while he was shedding them. He'd left his Timberland boots on the kitchen counter before.
The only thing the kid was neat and meticulous about was his aquarium. He took care of his tropicals and exotics like a budding oceanographer. And pity the mother who mistook him for an irresponsible pet owner and came near his fish on the pretense of cleaning the tank or feeding the fish off-schedule. The kid had a special time of day and week when he performed these tasks.
Echo teased him sometimes, calling him Athan Cousteau.
She finally made it over to his bed, sat beside him and glanced at him over a shoulder; the kid didn't blink.
Okay, she'd known this wasn't going to be easy.
"Aunt Tam already talked to me in the car."
"Doesn't look like it did any good."
"Sure it did. She talked, I listened."
"I'd appreciate a little more detailed play-by-play."
"Look, Mom, I don't want to talk about it."
"Look, Mr. Attitude Man, I do." Echo stood and hovered over the bed, waved the now-infamous letter in his face. "You want to explain this?"
"Not particularly." Athan turned on his side, giving his mother his back.
Echo closed her eyes. All the aerobic workout, yoga and deep-breathing exercising in the world weren't going to see her through this if she didn't get a hold of herself and calm down like Tam had suggested.
"Athan?" She sat down and leaned back, resting an elbow on his side. He didn't stir. She poked him, trying to be playful and break the ice. She put on her best French accent, the one that never failed to elicit a paroxysm of giggles from her son. "Hey, Cousteau, how deep does a Great White have to go before he gets to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" Nothing except crickets. Curious, Echo leaned over to glance at his face. She didn't know what shocked her more. The clear gray eyes -- so unlike her blue-green ones -- staring back at her in moody ambivalence, or the tears shimmering like liquid diamonds on their surface.
"Hey, hey, what's all this about?"
"Leave me alone," he mumbled and scooted to the edge of the bed.
Echo reached for him, flashing back to the day in the motel. Like then she grabbed him to her breasts and held him there. So different -- now from then. He fought her the same, but his body was feet longer, sinewy and hard.
He's going to be a young man soon.
The thought hit her as suddenly and painfully as his tears had. A young man. But right now, he was her little boy and, for reasons she couldn't quite comprehend, he was hurting.
"I used to cut school all the time, but that's on the q-t, if you know what I mean. Even got caught a couple of times. Nothing to cry about."
Athan pulled away to show his mom an anemic grin as Echo thumbed tears from his cheeks.
"So, what's all the melodrama for?" she asked.
Athan hesitated, yet unwilling to confide.
"How's the work at this new school? Too rough?"
"Puh-leaze." He rolled his eyes.
"Okay, so you're acing the curriculum. What else?"
He shrugged, averting his glance.
"Women problems?"
"No!"
Echo laughed at his appalled look. "Okay..." She counted on her fingers. "It's not school, it's not women...hmm...what am I missing...?"
"How about my dad?"
Echo froze a finger to her chin as she gaped. "Where did that just come from?"
Athan shrugged again. "You brought it up. But, hey, if you don't want to tell me the deal..."
"It's not that, kid, it's just -- "
"It's not like a difficult question."
"Athan, I told you -- "
"That's just it. You haven't told me anything. You've evaded."
"What?"
"You told me he's not dead."
Of course she had. She may have been "evasive", Echo admitted to herself, but she wouldn't dare go that far and tell him a lie that could backfire in her face so explosively. Besides, she couldn't do that to Sean. He deserved better.
Echo didn't even want to think about the other lie she'd told, standing in his embrace at the airport before seeing him off to his plane -- her early pregnancy hidden beneath a too-big sundress that hung on her slim frame like clothes on a wire hanger.
"You finally gaining some weight, Olive?" He'd pulled away from her to tweak her nose and grin down at her flushed face, an indulgent-big-brother-talking-to-his-kid-sister grin on his lips.
"Little," she muttered, praying he couldn't feel the baby the way she did. Praying he didn't see, all the while dreading the inevitable arrival of Miss Prissy to spoil the moment.
Lies, Echo thought now. Big ones, small ones, but all lies just the same.
"Mom?"
She looked at her son, wondered if she could stop the lies for him.
"So, where is he?"
Echo cleared her throat. "We...we drifted apart. It wasn't working out..."
"Did you love him?"
"Athan!"
"I'm just wondering."
"Well, stop wondering."
"I don't see why I have to suffer just because you two couldn't get along," he muttered.
"Look brat -- " Echo cut herself off. Had the kid said, "suffer"? How could she not feel that? Was she becoming so selfish? "Anything in particular bring on this sudden curiosity?" she asked, stalling and Athan glared at her as if he thought she had been dropped on her head once too often as a child.
"Life, all right?"
Echo stood and walked across the room, needed to get some distance and perspective. Christ, but the kid worked her reserve nerve with his biting and lightning reactions.
She stared at him from her place leaning against the doorjamb, remembered another young man with the same acerbic and lightning reactions, a young man in pain like her son, a young man with the same brown hair and translucent gray eyes.
Echo had long ago gotten over the idea that her son didn't look like her. Oh, Tamara tried to convince her that he had her eyes -- intense and soulful. And maybe with a little imagination and Tam's twisted logic, she could convince herself that her dark-copper hair was just a reddish, lighter version of brown than her son's. But Echo knew the truth. She knew that if she were to pull out the picture she had taken of Athan's father right before she'd seen him off in Atlanta a little more than ten years ago, she would have seen what Athan would look like eight years from now.
She wondered what he was up to now, but wasn't curious enough to pry. Not after what she'd seen the last time, especially when she didn't know whether or not she had been at fault.
"I've been having dreams."
Echo shook herself, focused on Athan across the room. "Dreams?"
Athan nodded. "About...you know...the man in the fire?"
He used to have this dream often, before the therapy, but not as much in the last few years. Echo could thank Tamara and James for this.
"He's not on fire, is he?"
Athan shook his head, easing his mother's anxiety only a little. His seeing "a man in a fire" was enough to solidify her fear.
"What does it mean?" Athan asked.
He looked at her as if she had not just all the answers, but the answer. Trouble was, she didn't.
"Aunt Tam says it's a metaphor."
"Hmmm...A metaphor for?"
"Dunno." He shrugged. "We're still working on that part."
"Well, when you figure it out, give me a holler."
Athan nodded. "Now, about my dad..."
"Look, brat, I'll make a deal with you," Echo blurted, wondered too late what she was doing.
Athan looked at her, suddenly wary. "What kind of deal?"
"The one where you promise to go to school every single day you're supposed to, until the end of the term..."
"That's blackmail."
"It's called a compromise. Give and take."
"I don't see why I should have to earn the privilege of seeing my own father. It's not fair."
"Life's not fair, bub."
"Typical cop-out, grown-up answer," Athan mumbled.
Echo made her way back to the bed, sat beside him and shrugged. "Hey, what can I say? I'm a grown-up."
"Yeah, yeah, and I'm a kid."
"So, how about it?"
"I want a rider attached. Some specifications."
What was the kid, a union lawyer or an engineer? "Such as?"
"You didn't stipulate when or if I even get to see him."
"You don't trust me?"
"Put it like this... Do you trust me?"
Echo couldn't believe she was talking to a ten-year-old kid. Haggling, no less. "I'm listening."
"Well, I'll promise to do the school thing. It's only right anyway, school being my job an' all..."
Smart-ass wasn't even going to give her the opportunity to reprimand him, heading her off at the pass with self-imposed discipline.
"So, if I promise, can we work on getting me and dad hooked up as soon as possible? No tricks or stalling from either party?"
Echo stared at him, wondered how she'd painted herself into this corner. Had she started this ball to rolling?
"Mom? How about it? We got a deal?"
Seemed like she was always making deals. Either with the kid, or for the kid.
Echo put her hand in his. "Deal."
Winter 1998
Brooklyn, New York - Fire Building
Ax poised on one shoulder, Sean leaped off the side of Engine 18, heart ramming his chest as the company slowed to a stop in front of the fire building, first due.
His excitement for the game, his hunger and need -- for the action, the Brotherhood...the Beast -- never waned. This excitement and need grew so much -- daily, with the sound of every alarm -- that Sean sometimes wondered if he could ever satisfy them with just the firefighting, wondered if the need and hunger would end only with his death.
Deirdre had once told him he ran to the call "with the tenacity of a starved billy goat chasing a tin can across bumper-to-bumper highway". He had yet to figure out whether or not this vivid description had been a compliment. But seeing as they had been in the middle of an argument -- Deirdre accusing him of being his "usual obsessive, selfish, workaholic self, putting duty to strangers before his commitments to her" -- Sean guessed the billy goat metaphor was definitely not flattering.
He pushed Deirdre and their last argument out of his mind now, clearing his brain of any and all thought that could
distract him from the Job.
Sean met Lieutenant John "Mule" Mulroney around the back of the engine. "I hate the hide-and-seek jobs," he mumbled, watching his cold breath in the afternoon winter air.
Sometimes he didn't know which he hated more: forcible entry or truck work. He knew for sure that he loved them equally, that the cold outside would soon be a distant thawing memory.
Mulroney called over his shoulder for backup.
The building was set back from the street, would need a lot of hose to reach and the chief ran around behind Mulroney and Sean, trying to figure the best way to get the lines to the fire as another company was dispatched.
The fire blazed away and grew by the second, no regard for the Brotherhood or their backup.
"Let's go see what this shit tastes like, ladies."
"Shit." Sean grinned behind Mulroney, his expression turning grim as he watched the chief and a probie open a nozzle. A couple of lengths burst and the chief tried to put a hose jacket over the rip as water gushed.
Looked like the team was going to drown back there.
"Casey! Inch and a half."
Sean retrieved the high-rise kit, followed Mulroney to the steel warehouse doors where the rest of the inside team had already begun working on it with a Halligan.
"Kick it in!" Mulroney attacked the doors and the metal collapsed inward at the seams beneath the force of his and Sean's boots.
The team fell in behind, humping the hose as Mulroney and Sean led the way up the three flights to the fire floor, flashlights in hand and lighting the way.
Mulroney paused just over the threshold, surveying the trajectory of the flames rolling along the ceiling towards the team.
Sean could hear Mule's brain ticking off every battle
scenario and contingency in the few seconds the man stood
silently staring. He suggested flanking and taking the blaze from the sides to avoid a flashover, knowing what the Mule's answer would be before the Lieutenant spoke.
"We're taking this mother face-to-face!" Mulroney shouted over the roar of the flames.
And Deirdre called him a tenacious billy goat? Sean thought.
Glass shattered and timber crumbled all around the squad as the chief charged the line from outside and sent them some water.
Baker, the nozzleman, aimed the flow at the heart, sprayed the blaze in sweeping strokes, smooth and even as a painter
brushing his canvas.
Sean ran another hose from the standpipe in a rear corner of the floor as the fire retreated under the team's first barrage of water, nesting in the walls, refueling for a second attack.
He made his way back to the squad, kicking stray office furniture and fallen beams out of his path as he straightened the line.
This was definitely a good one, he thought, the fire fully involved, front to rear.
If Deirdre, or any other sane person outside of the Job could have seen or heard them in action, he was sure they would have been ready to have them all committed.
The chief reported in that there was someone trapped on the second floor, a civilian unaccounted for among the evacuated factory employees.
Mulroney ordered two men -- Sean and a probie -- to do a search, pausing only long enough to check in on his radio about the backup. The responding squawk carried unwelcome news.
"ETA's a couple of minutes on that, Lou."
"We'll be well-done by then," Sean muttered.
Mulroney yelled, "Time to dig in, ladies!"
The squad dug in as Sean led the probie -- Thomas, if he remembered correctly since the kid had only begun this morning -- down to the second floor.
Sean heard the kid panting behind his facepiece, even through the barrier of his own, heard the paint melting and peeling off the walls all around them as they reached the second fire floor.
Heavy smoke and flames greeted them, the same as above. They weren't going to find relief down here. Sean hoped they'd be lucky enough to find the civilian in one breathing piece.
He heard a woman's cry and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
Thomas came up short behind him, slamming into his breathing apparatus. "Sorry, sir."
Sean recovered, reached back with a hand to steady the kid, his ears perked. He took off his facepiece to hear better over the roar and breaking glass.
He was sure he had...felt the woman. Felt more than heard. But how to say that?
"This way." Sean waved the kid forward, and Thomas fell in close behind as they traversed the smoky corridor.
Sean tried to filter out the cry, sure he had heard something above the howling blaze. He stopped abruptly when he saw the figure, a woman interwoven with the black mist, swirling within. A part of it or the cause?
Thomas tapped his shoulder. "Sir? Sir, is there a problem?" Did the probie see her too? Was he seeing her? Feeling her inside his head, communing and linking with his gray cells? Or was her presence all imagination? Unreal and...insanity? Because it certainly wouldn't be the first time he thought he was losing his mind.
The woman waved at him, urging him forward and Sean remembered her now -- vague but distinct. Other jobs, other fires. One where he'd lost a comrade. Another where he'd saved one. He hadn't yet decided which she was -- friend or foe. So far she was batting .500. In any other game this would have been a decent statistic but not here where lives were involved. Any loss was too much in this game. Especially for Sean.
The floor groaned behind them.
Sean had a second to see the woman's eyes widen before he whirled too late to grab the kid. The planking opened beneath the probie, a hot gaping maw.
Thomas stared up at him, eyes Bambi-wide behind his facepiece as he clutched the edge of the crumbling floor.
"Hold on..." Sean said it as gently as he could, wanted to keep the kid calm as he hooked his boot around a nearby pipe to brace himself. If the kid got excited and hyperventilated, he'd use up all his air. There was always his own tank, but Sean didn't want to share his SCBA -- their last source of air. Two victims were always worse than one.
He dove and reached for Thomas with both arms outstretched.
The heat from below licked his face. Sean could only imagine what the flames were doing to the kid's legs below. "C'mon! Grab on to me."
"I can't reach..."
"You better pull your ass over here, probie!" Sean closed his eyes tight. The heat singed his eyebrows. "C'mon!" He bit his bottom lip, felt the fire licking up Thom's legs, felt like his own legs were on fire. He had to remind himself that they weren't. But the fire. The heat....
Sean's heartbeat roared in his ears in concert with the flames. He focused, slowed the rhythm, thinking cool. Something, anything cool to ease the heat. Concentrate. Open the valve. Open....
Thomas stopped struggling below him, startled as the fire suddenly abated.
"Grab my hands. Now!" Sean reached out as far as he could without losing his grip on the pipe. Thomas let go of the edge and grasped air. Sean extended one arm, thought it would come out of the socket when the kid grabbed hold of his hand. He closed his eyes again, focusing.
Cool air rose up from the gorge, curled like a whirlpool as Sean took a deep breath and heaved Thomas into the chilly pocket with him. He dragged the kid clear of the hole, left him gasping on his back as he turned to the woman.
She looked back at him with an anxious expression, seemed to forget why she was there. Then she waved him forward.
"Sir!"
"I don't have time to baby-sit you, probie. Stay beside me!" Sean rushed forward, more reckless than the probie behind him would ever be. He made a left behind the woman at the end of the corridor.
She stood a couple of feet to his right -- hovered, he thought -- pointing toward a doorway thickly framed by fire.
Sean headed through the door without question as Thomas caught up, shouted behind him.
"Sir...Sean!"
He didn't feel anything except the chill, unsure now if he or she was the source. He didn't care. Cared only that the source followed, encircled. Led.
Cool air swirled around him like a gentle twister, expanding; including the missing civilian as Sean knelt beside her several feet into the room. He hoisted the unconscious woman onto a shoulder and headed back out the way he had come.
The flames protested, hissing and dying and turning to sooty steam beneath the advancing hose team's assault.
Backup had arrived.
Sean collapsed into her arms -- his guardian angel? -- as everything went black and the heat returned.
***
Echo pulled back as soon as the young probie caught Sean and the civilian in his arms. She watched from a distance as the candidate collapsed under the pair's dead weight. The second on the hose team rushed forward to relieve him of the woman as the nozzleman directed his line at the door full-force.
Echo opened her eyes and blinked several times, coming back from the fire building disoriented and woozy. She took a couple of deep breaths, closed her eyes for several seconds then opened them again and concentrated on a pleasant point at the edge of her desk. She smiled at the picture of Athan posing in scuba gear during their recent trip to Bermuda.
Kid loved the water so much sometimes Echo wondered which of his passions was strongest -- his passion for fire or for water. Opposing elements. It scared her to think how powerful and deadly each of them were.
It scared her that she could be so powerful and deadly.
Either she was out of practice, or something really insidious and ugly within her had wanted to hurt him.... She didn't want to think about that side of her, didn't want to believe it was true, had to believe just now had been an accident. She wasn't that vindictive was she? And why should she be, against Sean of all people? He had not wronged her. She had wronged him.
Echo shook herself now, rubbing her hands together as a chill suddenly cut through her body -- remnants of her linking with Sean.
She wondered vaguely if their son was as powerful.
She had never linked with Athan in as intimate a way as she had linked with his father, only scratching the surface of his young mind, experiencing the potential and not the full force of his abilities.
With Sean just now she had felt raw power carefully checked, the same power she'd felt in Athan.
What was beneath the power? What was he hiding? Had he always buried a part of himself that even someone with her abilities couldn't unearth?
She understood the secrecy, the need for privacy. She treasured both, surviving on each and her wits, only using her abilities when forced. She'd rarely been forced, rarely found reason enough to violate another's mysteries as she had just violated a piece of Sean's.
She hadn't used her abilities so outright in a while, preferring to keep tabs on Athan's father from a safe distance. She was especially careful not to link with him when he was on the Job -- which was most of the time.
She hated to think about the last occasion several months ago when she had helplessly watched as a burning ceiling collapsed onto the two firefighters, killing Sean's comrade with a direct hit against his skull, but sparing Sean, sandwiching him in a pocket between the floor and the ceiling.
Echo wasn't sure if her "presence" and linking with Sean had caused today's incident or not, but she didn't want to take the chance again. She wouldn't have if it hadn't been for --
The buzzer sounded on her desk console and Echo pressed the speaker button. Her secretary's voice reverberated through the office.
"Your son's on line two, Echo."
She didn't need to link with Athan, Echo told herself.
The brat had some kind of radar in addition to his other frightening talents.
"Thanks, Vicky. I got it." She plucked the receiver from its base and pressed "speaker" again. "Hey, brat. What's up?"
"That's what I'm calling to find out."
"You're so impatient."
"Ten years, Mom. I think I've been patient enough, don't you?"
Echo pulled back a few inches and stared at the receiver for several seconds, had to remind herself that she had birthed the little monster on the other end. "Good things come to those who wait."
"Mom..." Athan whined.
"I'm working on it."
"Can I come by the gym and meet you after work?"
"It's not a gym, Athan. How many times do I have to remi -- "
"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's an exclusive health and fitness club."
"I've worked hard and long making this place a success and you should recognize tha -- " Echo caught herself mid-lecture, could almost see her son making Chevy Chase faces on the other end of the phone. Rightfully so, too. She smiled before continuing. "C'mon down, brat. You can help me close up."
"Ah, Mom. Work?"
"You asked."
"Okay, okay. I'll see you later, then."
"I'll be waiting with bells on."
"Oh, and Mom..."
"Yeah, brat?"
"I love you."
Echo almost gagged as she searched for an appropriate response. She was at a loss for several long seconds, decided to cover her chagrin with humor. "Go play with your fish, wise-ass." She listened as Athan giggled before hanging up.
He was a good kid, she thought, appreciating the easy rapport she had with her son for what it was...a miracle.
Echo couldn't imagine what it would have been like for him had he been cursed with parents like hers, remembered now how shocked and petrified her daddy had been when she'd first used her talents on him. Pretty much the same reaction she'd had when she'd first seen Athan in action.
She'd always known she was "different". The kids at school reminded her enough with the trailer-park-po'-white-trash slurs added to the random "freak" and "weirdo" insults because she was a good student who empathized and got along with most of the teachers unlike the rest of her classmates.
But until she was a teenager (a much later bloomer than her son would turn out to be) Echo hadn't known how different she was, hadn't known that her ability worked both ways -- that she could send and receive, ruffle and soothe, hurt and heal -- with just a thought. She hadn't known any of this until her last confrontation with her daddy.
She was fifteen; finally at a point where she promised herself if her daddy laid a hand on her one more time, she'd kill him. She wasn't aware that she had the ability to carry out her threat, but the thought of her daddy's death -- by any means, at any hands -- comforted her as much as if she were.
When her daddy came home from the lumber yard -- reeking of booze, sawdust and cheap women who wouldn't have him -- Echo knew what was coming and tried to retreat to her room in the cramped
trailer where she lived with her mom and the man who liked to pretend he was her "father" and owned her. Echo liked to pretend he wasn't her anything and that she was free to come and go as she pleased. She liked to pretend he didn't exist, especially when he started in on his rants about her hanging out with Sean
Casey and those other, "uppity kids from the holier-than-thou side of town".
"Ain't no better'n the rest of us..." He often complained over a beer or three, to anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity when he launched from both ends.
Usually this was Echo and her mama, but Mama had gotten some extra work down at the poultry plant, wouldn't be home until way after sundown. And Echo just plain wasn't in the mood.
Not that this made a lick of difference to her daddy. Man would lament to a deaf and dumb hound dog if it laid still in the dirt too long and was breathing.
"Where ya goin', gal? Gettin' ready for some party with the highfalutin gang?"
Highfalutin? Echo thought. Who used that word anymore?
"You hear me gal? Don't you ignore me."
"Yeah, yeah. I hear ya." Echo sighed then mumbled, "Unfortunately."
"What's that? You back-talking me, gal?"
"No. I just wanna get some homework done..."
"What fer? Ain't gone 'mount to nothin' no-how. Or you think you gone be some fancy-schmantzy business owner like them Caseys? Maybe a pro-fessional like Miss Prissy and her pettifogger pappy?"
Echo grinned despite herself. She couldn't agree more with his assessment of "Miss Prissy" or her "pappy". She just didn't like that her daddy had thrown Sean and his people in with the hoity-toity Saunderses. At least she could relate to the Caseys, people who'd worked their way up to buy a couple of rigs and start a trucking company.
Echo still didn't understand the attraction there. Sean and Miss Prissy were so different. Sean was a doer, liked to get his hands dirty, liked to play and work hard. Miss Prissy frowned on manual labor, liked to have things done for her, would call out the National Guard for a broken fingernail.
Echo was thinking so hard on this, she didn't hear her daddy come up behind her -- surprisingly quiet and sneaky in his Timberland workboots. He grabbed her arm and whirled her around so hard, Echo's teeth clanked together.
"What are y -- " He backhanded her face. "I'm doin' what ya mama should be doin' but ain't got the guts to do. I'm teachin' you some manners. Woman let's you get away with murder, sassin' yer elders..."
Echo gaped, rubbing her cheek as she stared at him. She knew that even if her mama were home, she wouldn't have lifted a finger to stop Daddy anyway. Echo just liked to believe, hope, that something could change, that one day her mama would stand up for her, just once, and not the man she had married.
She wished that the county social worker would keep her promise and come take her outta here. She wished somebody would keep a promise to her, just once. But she was on her own, and running away was probably her only option.
"You touch me again and I'll -- "
"You'll what, gal?"
Echo answered him with a hateful glare, heart in her throat.
She concentrated on a point just below his forehead, right above his nose, unaware of what she was doing; unaware of the drastic changes going on with her vital organs as she...hit him. She couldn't think of another way to describe the contact. She hit him with her mind, blood and adrenaline rushing to her head so fast she thought she would pass out before she finished what she was trying to do.
Echo watched her daddy's eyebrows knit as if someone had just presented him with a calculus problem to solve under a minute or die. She lashed out, mental fingers grasping the nearest vessel -- somewhere, anywhere behind that point near his forehead. Her heart quickened, fueled by her anger and her daddy's fear.
"Whattaya -- " His eyes clouded with confusion as he released her arm like a live wire and stepped back.
She slid her grip lower, down to the nasal passages, slackened her hold. She didn't want to hurt him that bad. She didn't. She just wanted to get him away from her.
Echo watched red gush from his nostrils, quickly soaking his dingy-white tee as she squeezed, much lighter than her previous touch. But the blood flowed free and hard as if she had cut a major artery. She didn't know her own strength.
Her daddy slapped a hand over his nose to stem the tide, ran over to the kitchen sink in the corner, grabbed one of his wife's dishcloths and ran cold water over it.
"No-count, fire-haired wench..." Daddy mumbled through the cool wet rag as he tilted back his head.
Echo took a couple of steps forward. "I didn't mean -- " "Don't you come near me!" He jerked away. "I knew nothin' good would come a ya hangin' with them kids. Over on the other side a town practicin' evil is what ya doin'. Don't think I won't be tellin' yer mama 'bout this. Count on it, gal..."
Rant, rant, rant, Echo thought, secretly glad she hadn't hurt him irreparably. She had only wanted to teach him a lesson.
He never did tell her mama outright what had happened that day, keeping his only child on a long leash and only hinting at her "heathen ways" in veiled comments as he knocked her hanging with "the devil worshipping crew across the way".
By the time Echo had reached seventeen -- her talents near their strongest and her father's rantings and beatings a distant memory -- none of what her mama and daddy thought or said mattered much to her anymore anyway.
She was going to be a mama herself, with no one to turn to.
Echo had thought she could turn to the Caseys, that they would relate. But when she got right down to brass tacks, they turned out to be just as uppity as the Saunderses, accusing her of whoring around with all sorts of boys (every sort except their boy).
Sean's older brother had even gone so far as to insinuate that Echo's father had been responsible for her condition!
Getting wind of gossip and facts, Miss Prissy had stepped in to make Echo an offer she couldn't refuse. She would provide for Echo -- either cash for an abortion or to support mother and child for a "reasonable duration".
Echo didn't concern herself with how Miss Prissy was going to swing her daring plan, didn't dwell on what a "reasonable duration" would be. She didn't want to know.
What she knew for sure was that a baby was on the way, her baby that she wanted to keep, and Miss Prissy was offering her a way to do it without having to deal with her own indifferent and belittling mama and daddy.
The catch?
Echo could never tell Sean about his child.
Sean stepped under the shower's jet and groaned as hot water rinsed away the grime and grit of this afternoon's fire, though it did little to wash away the memories of the fire months ago -- the fire that had taken one of his brothers.
She'd been there too, Sean remembered. His guardian angel, nearby, in his mind, warning him away from the spot where the ceiling had impacted with Bienvenito's skull. Inches. The ceiling had missed Sean's head by inches and milliseconds.
He'd come away from that fire with a couple of scratches, hounded by the it-could- have-been-me-should-have-been-me syndrome for weeks after and nothing the department shrinks or doctors said persuaded him that he shouldn't feel responsible. He'd gone along with their theories and diagnoses, convincing the head doctors that he was fine, and had come to terms with the death of a comrade. Little did they know.
Today he'd been spared having to do a repeat performance. They hadn't lost anyone, almost but not quite. And he'd managed to save a civilian.
Only it didn't matter how many people he rescued. Not a hundred or a thousand rescued from smoke's caress and fire's embrace today could bring back the most important three, the three he'd killed thousands of yesterdays ago.
Sean closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the
tile, let the shower's spray pound the top of his head as he soaped his body, trying to scrub away his crime.
"Chow time, ladies!"
Sean blinked open his eyes, finished showering as he salivated like a hot sweaty kid yearning Italian icy on a mid-August afternoon. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he'd heard Mulroney bellowing from the kitchen below.
He hoped the two probies' cooking abilities surpassed their firefighting experience. No Julia Childs, or fancy foreign cuisine, just something edible. He was in the mood to sink his teeth into anything a little tastier than carbon black and sulfur.
Sean headed for his locker, white towel riding low on his hips as he retrieved a pair of uniform pants and a fresh T-shirt. He almost felt like a new man after he'd donned the clean duds, only wished it could be that easy.
He took the shortcut, sliding down the pole and heading for the kitchen before he heard the hushed tones drifting out to him. He slowed as he neared the threshold, stopped just outside the doorjamb. No one looked up, so intent on analyzing his psyche and mental health.
Sean remembered a time back home in Graceville when the adults had been busy the same way, spilling family secrets about "the strange Casey brother" and "the black sheep" while the youngins -- hopped up on holiday fare and sugary sweets -- played and ran around the house like speed freaks. All except him. Up until the moment when he'd stumbled upon the conspiratorial gossip in the TV room, he'd been in an upstairs bedroom getting his tail whipped at chess by his favorite grand-uncle, the much- maligned Lloyd.
"...call him Paladin. You stick close to him, you're well-protected, better than having an angel on your shoulder."
"Except that one time when..."
"Yeah but that wasn't his fault. No way was anyone coming out of that one alive without a miracle."
"I still say he hasn't gotten over it yet. I think they let him come back to full duty too soo -- "
Sean turned the corner of the doorframe and the dissection abruptly stopped. All eyes at the table jerked up, and followed him to the table as he took the empty seat between Thomas and Mulroney.
"Hey, Casey, heard about your exploits on the second floor before the cavalry came," Mulroney opened.
Sean felt Thomas staring at him, felt the rookie's anxiety and awe. He turned to see the kid's wide-eyed expression, thought Thomas looked like a little boy who wanted to ask Houdini how he had made the elephant disappear.
"And what other nasty rumors have you been spreading about me, Lou?"
"Only that you don't wear anything under your bunker gear,"
Baker said, and was instantly rewarded with raucous laughter.
"Not the one about his proclivities toward frilly lacy undergarments?" Mulroney leaned toward Thomas and stage-whispered. "He has a particular passion for purple, if you know what I mean."
Thomas nervously grinned, never took his eyes off of Sean.
"You guys going to serve up this dinner or what?" Sean took the bowl of pasta salad Baker handed him, wondered what tall tales Thomas would later share with his brother probie. He would love to be a fly on the wall.
"Kids didn't do too bad," Donnelly, the chauffeur, added.
"Under duress? This is looking kind of tasty, actually," Baker said.
"Looks can be deceiving. We shall soon see." Mulroney took a generous helping when the pasta was passed his way.
Sean leaned close to Thomas. "They threaten you with our mascot yet?"
"Is that what you call the mutt?" Donnelly joked.
"Astro is not a mutt."
"He's a Chihuahua. What kinda crap is that?"
Thomas looked mortified. "Not a Dalmatian?"
"Nah. That would be too conventional for Engine 18," Sean said.
"Give me convention over a freaking Chihuahua."
"This from a man with a Yorky named Dino."
"Hey!" Donnelly pointed his fork at Sean in mock outrage before spearing some well-seasoned pasta shells. He chuckled, pausing with the fork near his mouth. "No need to give the rookies all our deep dark secrets on the first day."
"Only mine."
"Not guilty."
"Mmm-hmm." Sean glanced at Thomas. "You can probably tell our preferences where cartoon dogs are concerned."
"Hanna Barbara, all the way. At least it's the kids' fav who, by the way, christened the Yorky."
"You know it ain't just the kids who go warm and fuzzy around your Yorky, Don," Mulroney put in.
Donnelly smirked. "Wouldn't have bought the mutt if it hadn't been for the wife. Foo- foo dog only tops out at three pounds. It's not a dog, it's a squeaky toy."
The pain hit Sean suddenly, like a bolt of lightning striking him in the chest. He didn't know what brought it on -- all the laughing, or all the wifey-and-kiddy longing -- only that he was having his first official chest pain.
All his life he'd been healthy, hadn't suffered through any of the maladies that his playmates had -- not any of the runny noses, viruses, or fevers endemic to an average childhood. Even now he was ludicrously fit, especially for a firefighter with several years on the Job.
He was having a problem getting oxygen, tried to ignore it, refused to put a hand to his chest and signal to the entire room that something was wrong and he was in trouble.
Maybe he was having a delayed reaction from his earlier stunt. He'd had them before -- hours, days after he had used the gift. But something about this time was different. Maybe this time he had over-extended himself. God, maybe he was having a stroke, a heart attack, or....
"Sean?"
He felt Thomas touch his arm, but was concentrating so hard on holding it together he couldn't respond, sat at attention like a soldier whose superior has just walked into the room.
"I'm not feeling too good, Lou," he blurted, sounding like a little kid with a tummy- ache but knowing he must have looked much worse because Mulroney, not one easy to panic, pushed back from the table and sprang from his seat.
How freaking embarrassing would it be if he passed out, right here in front of everyone?
"Give 'im some air..."
"Sean...?"
"Lou, he's flushed..."
They all converged and hovered around him, the over-protective parents of a frail and special child.
Mulroney lowered him from his seat to the floor, which wasn't a long trip since he had slid halfway off his chair already.
Sean envisioned the "cushy" position to which Deirdre always alluded, especially in the last few months since he'd passed the Lieutenant's exam on his first try. In Dee's eyes this was a feat that only proved he was ready for bigger and better things than wasting his talent and intelligence in the trenches.
He dreaded the I-told-you-so speeches he knew would come, wondered now if he had missed his chance because this feeling was much worse than earlier at the fire building. Earlier, he'd only blanked out for a second. This now felt more complete and smothering.
"Somebody call his la -- "
"No!" Sean gasped, his breath coming quick and hard now, as if he were going through his fitness test all over again, only this time he was actually struggling. "Don't call Deirdre. Please don't call..."
He gave in as the blackness swallowed him.
***
"...and one, two, three, four...and kick, two, three, four, and slide and turn and bend, two, three, four, and back, two, three, four and bring it on down, two, three, four...one- two, three-four, and again, two, three, four and..."
Echo was surprised her students still had energy left as she took them through the final phase of her new routine.
She had been working out the kinks in her choreography for the last month, had been unable to contain herself before unveiling the final fruits of her labor on her advanced class earlier in the evening.
She was so proud of herself for pulling off the ultimate mix of hip-hop fun and aerobic benefit that the mock groans and giggles of her class now didn't faze her.
They were her best group yet, and she was pleased with their synergy and fortitude as they kept up with the moves of her high-impact workout without too many missteps -- quite a feat since her classes were in high demand among her club's members and always filled to capacity. And this evening was more packed than usual since she had obliged several last-minute guests who had "heard great things" about her aerobics class and wanted to be squeezed in.
So far, the session had already gone twenty minutes over the scheduled hour. Echo needed to wrap this up soon, despite
the good time everyone was having -- her most of all.
Preparing to pack it in, she glanced overhead at the big-faced wall clock and spied Athan at the back of the room mimicking her students, a cartoon caricature as he put his body through the complicated steps of her routine, all lanky, pre- adolescent arms and legs.
Echo licked out her tongue and crossed her eyes and her son did the same. Brat. She smiled at him and brandished a fist, moving her students to swing their glances to the back of the room, mid-kick.
"All right, gang, let's wind it down..." She slowed her jogging to a stop, spread her feet and took several deep breaths as she slowly rotated her shoulders first backwards then forward, two sets of four. "...and breathe iiiin...and release...iiiin...and release...". Echo led the class through the cool down. She bent at the waist, to one side then the other, holding each position for several seconds. Then she took the group through several sets of lunges, each leg.
The whole while, Athan play-acted in the back, imitating the moves from her famous kick boxing class, another popular attraction at Reverberate Health and Fitness.
The little ham, Echo thought, only her conditioning and discipline keeping her from bursting out laughing as he made goofy faces at her. "All right, kids. Let's call it a night."
"Amen to that, girl."
Echo turned to see Tamara entering from a side door, freshly showered, clad in a variation of her after-work/weekend gear -- Levi's and an NYU sweatshirt -- and yet recovering from her intermediate step class several doors down the hall.
"I am ready to sink my teeth into a nice juicy red meaty burger."
"As opposed to something green and healthy?"
"Speak for yourself, nutritious-food junky. Red is healthy in my book and a lot of others. It's the color of vigor and health, Ms. Red," Tamara emphasized, indicating the wild long waves tamed at Echo's nape by a terry band.
"Haven't we had this discussion before? My hair is not red. It's auburn."
"More a copper or titian, but that's beside the point..."
"Ever hear of mad cow disease?" Echo dismounted the instructor's platform and converged with Tamara as she made her way over.
"Yeah, and? What's that got to do with the price of tea in England, Oprah?"
"Maybe you could catch fleeing ten-year-olds if you ate leaner and healthier." Echo chuckled, ducking as Tamara stopped short and put a hand on a hip.
"Oooh, now I see where he gets his smart mouth from."
Tamara threw a fresh towel at her. Echo grabbed it from the air and patted dry her face as Athan made his way over to them through the dispersing students.
"Speaking of the devil."
"Hey, Aunt Tam."
"Hey, kiddo." Tamara pulled him to her side, put him in a loose headlock. "Homeboy knows what I'm talking about." Athan arched a brow at Echo and shrugged.
"Your aunt just finished arguing the merits of a red meat diet versus green."
"Green meat?"
"You're killing me with all the smartness, guys." Tamara playfully cuffed him. "Boy, I'm trying to finagle us some dinner at a fast-food joint. Work with me." "Burgers and fries?" "Mickey D's all the way. I'm treating."
"All right."
Echo laughed as they high-fived and Athan turned to her.
"Can we, Mom? You said we could splurge at least two days a week."
"Refresh my memory. Are you at your quota yet?" Her son quickly shook his head. "Nah-ah, not yet. We haven't had meat all week. So can we, Mom? Please, please..."
Echo pulled him to her side, glanced down at him. How could she say no to that face? "You two better stop ganging up on me. I'm all muscle needing an outlet." She made another fist and playfully bopped Athan's nose.
Christ the kid was tall. He was almost eye-to-eye with her five-six at ten. How tall would he be in his teens?
"Let's hit the road, guys. Mickey D's awaits," Tamara said.
"We'll meet you outside?"
"I'll warm up the Pathfinder."
Echo watched Tamara sling her sports bag over one shoulder as she left. "So, what'd you think of the class?" she asked as she turned back to Athan.
"Your new moves?" He made an okay sign with his thumb and pointer. "Great routine, Mom."
"Really?"
He nodded. "I'm surprised they were able to keep up with you." "Now you're gassing me."
"Mom." Athan rolled his eyes and Echo giggled at his chastising tone.
He barely tolerated her and Tamara's butchering of his native slang, and up until several minutes ago, Echo hadn't realized how hungry she was for his approval -- of her new routine, her burgeoning business, just her. "So, you really liked the class? My routine?"
Athan nodded again. "Off the hook," he said, one-upping her with his newest expression. "Still a corny name, though."
"Watch it, brat."
"Mom, c'mon. Reverberate with Echo?"
"I think it's kind of catchy."
"You would."
"I'd like to see you do better, smart al..." Echo paused, watching one of her favorite male student's progress across the studio floor.
Athan turned, followed her gaze and frowned as Strother Osborne approached them.
Echo sent up a prayer that the brat wouldn't embarrass her, watching as her boy stood a little straighter, subtly jutting his chin and pumping out his pre-adolescent chest.
A young cock protecting his mother hen.
The top of her son's head didn't quite reach Strother's chin, the older youth more than half-a-foot taller than Athan.
"Hi, Ms. Quinn."
"Strother, I told you. Call me Echo."
He averted his long-lashed eyes, looked like a young boy she had just reprimanded.
He was so shy and deferential around her most times, Echo wondered if he'd embellished on his membership application to jack up his age a few years. Although he didn't look nearly as young as Athan swore he was, neither did he look the twenty-five years he claimed.
If Echo left it to Athan's thinking, Strother was young enough to be her son anyway.
"He's only a few years younger than me," Echo had argued, defending herself against one of her son's veiled accusations.
"He doesn't look it."
"So, what are you saying, brat? I'm an old hag?"
Athan had rolled his eyes before fixing her with a mature, you-know-better look. "He's got a crush, Mom. Anybody could see it. And crushes are beneath you at this stage of the game, Mom."
Who said? Echo thought now and glanced at Strother as he wiped dry bronzed face and arms before draping his towel around his neck.
"I was just soliciting an opinion from my son about my new routine as a matter of fact."
"Oh really?" Strother smiled, seemed to relax as he looked over at Athan. "And what did you think?"
Athan shrugged. "It was okay."
Echo wanted to cuff him. He was being so mean. "He's downplaying, Strother. He was just telling me my workout was,
and I quote: 'off the hook'."
Strother raked a hand through shiny sable hair. "That's why I came over. I wanted to congratulate you on your choreography. It was..." He paused here and grinned. "Off the hook."
When he stared at her with those baby blues, Echo's heart did a freaky do-si-do in her chest. God, he was a kid! She reprimanded herself. And she...she was a woman on the trail of her son's father. She had enough fish to fry.
"You liked it, then?"
"Almost as much as your kick boxing class."
Echo nodded, admiring the corded arms he crossed over nicely muscled chest. She wondered if he really did have a "crush" because she certainly did.
Athan cleared his throat. "Mom..."
She gripped Athan's shoulder as Strother took a step back and turned toward the lockers. "I'd better hit the road. Kids."
Athan scowled.
Strother smiled. "I understand. I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your class."
"Thank you, Strother." "Don't mention it."
"Mom..." Athan pulled on her hand and Strother finally took his cue.
"I'll catch your next class."
"Please do."
Strother left and Echo turned to find Athan looking at her like that toddling firestarter from the motel room six years ago. She almost lost her train of thought.
"That was rude."
"Aw, I didn't run him off. He'll be back."
"You bra -- "
"Mom, you need to brush up on your flirting skills. You were abysmal."
"Wha -- " She did cuff him then shooed him toward the exit. "You could go work on keeping your godmom company in the SUV while I shower and change."
"'kay."
She watched her son lope toward the exit, looking forward to sharing him about as much as she was looking forward to telling Sean about his existence.