Four Weddings and a Fireman by Jennifer Bernard

Author:Jennifer Bernard
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Ginny Brown spent several nights in the hospital. Vader went back to the house to salvage what he could, which was mostly clothes and some mementoes he knew his mother would treasure. He whistled for Izzy, but didn’t dare explore too much for fear the house would collapse. None of the neighbors had seen any sign of a big orange cat.

The insurance adjuster arrived to assess the damage. Despite all the fires Vader had experienced, he’d never been on this end of the process before. The source of the fire appeared to be candles, but Vader couldn’t explain why his mother had lit so many. The only person who might know that was Ginny, and so far she hadn’t uttered a single word.

Vader spent the first night in the hospital, draped uncomfortably over an armchair. When he woke up, his mother’s eyes were open but she was staring vacantly into nowhere.

He swung himself off the chair. “Mom? How do you feel? Do you want me to call the nurse?”

Her gaze drifted over to him. She barely seemed to register his presence. He walked to her bedside and cradled one of her thin hands in his.

“Mom, the doctor says you’re going to be fine. You had a very minor heart attack. You’re probably a little shell-­shocked right now. But we’re going to get through this. I promise.”

Her eyelids fluttered, then fell shut.

A horrible sense of déjà vu gripped him. Abruptly, he was fourteen again, facing an earth-­shattering change in his only reliable parent. The same blank terror he’d experienced back then swept through him now. He knew what came next. ­People left. His father walked out. No one wanted the burden. At most, some pity would come his way. A few sympathetic looks. And lots of distance. Last time, his family had splintered. Now he’d face the same thing at the firehouse.

Except . . . it didn’t happen that way. Fred was the first to visit his mother in the hospital.

“She’s a lot better,” Fred told Vader as the two of them checked their gear in the apparatus bay. It was the day after the fire, and Fred had just come from the hospital. “I think she smiled. She might have recognized me. I thought she was going to say something, but then she went back to sleep. She’s probably just too exhausted to talk.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it.”

“The captain said you and your mother need a place to stay until the insurance money for a new house comes through.”

“Yes, it’ll be a few weeks.”

“I can clear out my studio. I could have it ready for you to move in by tomorrow.”

Caught off guard, Vader studied his regulator more closely than necessary. He tried to speak, but couldn’t.

“It’s not a ton of space, but you’re welcome to it,” Fred added.

Vader cleared his throat. “It’s not always easy, living with a disabled person, especially someone with as much energy as my mother.”

“If I can put up with the A shift, I can handle your mother.

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