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No matter how many times that call came, it never got any easier. Whether it was the uncertainty, or the certainty, she couldn’t say, only that a knot rose in her throat every time she eked out the question- will he be alright? She dreaded the answer and breathed for it, both.
She thought she was prepared for the worst, talked herself in and out of semantics- who would help her with the kids? How would she support herself? Would they stay in LA or set out in search of safer, sounder living? But no amount of rehearsing ever prepared her to hear that her beloved husband was hurt and near to dying.
Joanne was a fireman’s wife. She held her head high, eyes dry, in the face of death every day. Only now that it was staring back at her, she felt her resolve shatter like broken glass on the floor.
“Let’s get some coffee,” Dixie said, steering her away from the deafening chaos of her husband’s treatment. Dixie had seen that look on Brackett’s face before; it wasn’t looking good. She brought her beloved friend to the break room, poured her hot, bitter, coffee, and sat behind the steam while Joanne tried to put into words the feeling she got whenever the phone rang these days.
“If it were someone’s fault,” she said slowly after several minutes had slipped away, “it would be easier, in a way. If I could blame his captain, or the man who left his cigarette to burn away his home, I might sleep better at night. But these things happen, and pointing fingers only makes it worse, it seems.”
“Sometimes,” Joanne said, shame deepening the color of her pale cheeks, “I wish there was someone I could hold responsible. I would yell at them, make them pay for all the worry. Especially when it’s the kids.” She dropped her gaze into her mug, and though she wasn’t crying, her voice slid down her cheeks. “They don’t deserve to wonder whether their dad is coming home tonight.”
And because there was nothing Dixie could say to that, nothing at all, she reached out for the woman’s hand and held on tight.
In the end, with Roy limping home a week and a half later, he admitted that this time it may have been his fault. “I didn’t think,” he said. “Johnny was hurt, and I could help, and even with all the training, I just didn’t think.” And Joanne smiled and repeated something she’d heard before, something about blame not making him recover any quicker, and wouldn’t he like to sit down while she made him something to eat?