Cole carries Mom up the steps and lays her on the gurney inside. She’s groaning and crying. The sounds claw at my nerves. I stand outside, arms crossed, heart in my throat.
Bobby wraps an arm around my shoulders. “We’ve got her, Nat.”
“Grab and go,” Logan tells Bobby, who gives my shoulders a squeeze before he jogs to the driver’s door and disappears inside.
“Only victim?” Logan asks Cole.
“Yes.”
“Come on in, Nat. You can ride with us.” Logan’s sitting at the head of the gurney, pulling open drawers, drawing out supplies. Cole’s sitting on the bench beside the gurney and offers me his hand. He pulls me into the rig and drags me down beside him on a bench.
“You going or staying?” Logan asks Cole.
“Going. Cap cleared me as soon as he heard the location.”
“Then shut the doors.”
Cole stands, reaches over me, and pulls the doors closed.
Logan smacks the partition between the cab and the back. “Go.”
Sirens wail, and the rig takes off. Cole wraps his arms around me and holds me tight. He presses his forehead to my temple, exhaling heavily. “Good God. You scared the shit out of me.”
Logan starts an IV and hangs fluids. “What happened?”
I stammer through an explanation, which really isn’t much of an explanation because I don’t know much.
“Hitchcock will come out,” Cole says, “figure out how it started.”
Mom’s soft crying intensifies into wails.
“Mom?” I say, watching her float in and out of consciousness. “Is she okay?”
“She’s got some pretty serious burns,” Logan says. “I’m giving her some pain meds.”
All my air leaves my lungs. The gravity of the situation is setting in. Logan relays information to the hospital while my mind spins like a cyclone: Mom’s injuries, our fire insurance, our health insurance, the café’s demise, our suddenly very uncertain future, and right back to Mom’s injuries.
Then we’re suddenly at the hospital. Logan and Cole rush me out of the ambulance and are joined by Bobby to roll Mom into the ER. Medical personnel swarm around her like bees to a hive. Doctors place orders, nurses cut off clothing, technicians attach monitors. Then they veer into a room on the right.
Cole turns to face me, catching me by the arms to stop my forward momentum. “Let’s give them room to work.”
I tent my hands over my nose and mouth. “I can’t lose her. I can’t lose her. She’s all I have.”
He wraps me in a bear hug. “You won’t lose her. She’ll get through this.”
Logan and Bobby emerge from the room with the gurney and pause beside us, each giving me a hug.
“Hang tough, okay?” Bobby says.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Logan says.
“Thank you.” I breathe the words.
“I assume you’re staying,” Logan says to Cole.
Cole nods. “Carter’s covering the rest of my shift.”
“All right, then, keep us posted.”
I’m trying to collect all my loose ends when Cole hugs me again. The smell of smoke and turnout fabric is so unique, so familiar, and it carries mixed memories, including the night I came to this same emergency room only to learn Evan had died.
It’s too much. It’s all too much. I pull away and put space between us.
“Let’s find a place to wait,” Cole suggests.
I take a deep breath. “You don’t have to—”
“Don’t even go there,” he tells me.
I’m secretly glad he doesn’t want to leave.
A young woman hands me a clipboard with paperwork, and Cole leads me to a waiting room, where a mother paces the space with a fussy infant, and a middle-aged man waits with a bloody towel wrapped around one hand.
I take a seat in the corner and try to focus on the paperwork.
Cole lets his turnout jacket slide off his arms and tosses it over a chair, then pulls his suspenders off his shoulders and lets them hang loose at his waist. “Do you need help with those?”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“I’m going to make a few calls.”
I nod, watch him pull his phone out, dial, and pace. My mind fragments into meaningless thoughts—like the way his white tee pulls across his muscled torso or the realization that he must have left his helmet with Logan.
I can’t quite bring myself to face the paperwork, because that means facing my Mom’s injuries and an incredibly uncertain future. And if I do that, I’ll break. I need to stay strong for my Mom. I can fall apart later.
“Hey, Deanna, it’s Cole.”
My fuzzy brain latches on to Cole’s phone call.
“Yeah, we’re at the hospital. Betsy’s with the doctors. Natalie’s hanging tough, you know how she is. It’s going to be a long day.” He goes quiet, then, “That would be amazing. Thank you. I will. Okay, talk later.”
Deanna is at the tippy top of the firefighting family tree. She’s the first person I call as the benevolent fund’s president when one of the firefighters’ families needs assistance. I’m struck by the fact that Cole is doing for me what I do for others. Tears sting across my nose again, so I blink and focus on the paperwork.
He disconnects, paces in front of the window looking out onto a courtyard, then taps his phone again and puts it to his ear. “Kenna, hey, it’s Cole. I know, yeah. No, sorry, it’s business.”
Kenna is one of the many casual relationships Cole maintains effortlessly. After a more serious relationship went south because the woman kept hammering Cole to get a “real job,” he’s kept all his relationships light and loose.
“You heard? Right. Yes. I’m not sure yet, but it looks like that’s going to be the case. Can you put a bug in a few ears? Find an open bed? Great. I will, I’ve been busy. Okay. Thanks.”
He sighs and glances at me over his shoulder. When he finds me watching him, he turns, a spark of guilt darkening his eyes. Our fight last night fills my mind, all the angry words I threw at him about him being able to have a life while I’m stuck in no-man’s land. Literally.
“Kenna’s working at Legacy,” he tells me.
Legacy is Oregon’s premier burn center located in Portland. My mind circles back around to my Mom, and the weight returns to my chest.
“I don’t know if Legacy would be covered by her insurance.” I brace my elbow on the chair and rest my head in my hand. “I don’t know if any of this will be covered by her insurance.”
Cole’s phone rings before he can respond, and I focus on putting pen to paper to finish the intake information and return it to the woman at the desk. With nothing left to do but wait, I call Mom’s health insurance company and pray for decent coverage. While I’m on hold—numerous different times—I scroll through the internet and find a recent study on burns and insurance.
By the time I’m disconnected twice and transferred to a dozen different people, I discover care for burns like Mom’s—I’m assuming at least second degree—cost upwards of one hundred fifty thousand dollars in just the first year. Extended care racks up another fifty grand. If we’re talking about third degree, I’d have to add another hundred thousand to the total. I also learn about all the painful treatments she’ll have to endure, like debridement and skin grafts.