How I Came to Sparkle Again (7 page)

Ben and John talked about turkey and stuffing in the backseat, while Pete, his lieutenant, who rode in the passenger seat, wrote down information for the report.

Mike backed the engine into the driveway of the station, and everyone got out. He had just finished waxing it for the Thanksgiving parade before the call for the woman came in. Now it had a film of sand and silt on it. He quickly went about washing it again. They still had ten minutes to make it to the parade.

As he finished, Ben brought him a ham-and-cheese sandwich.

Ten minutes later, they all hopped back in and drove downtown to the parade lineup. The organizers told him where to park, and they waited there for what seemed like forever while the rest of the parade lined up behind them. Since Sparkle had just one engine, they were always in front, right after the veterans who carried the flag, just in case they needed to take off for a call.

While they waited, Mike noticed John’s wife, Becky, approaching. She held their new baby in her arms, picked up one of his little hands, and made him wave to John. John got out and went to them. Mike waved. Becky was like a sister-in-law to him, and their baby was like his nephew. That’s the way it was. The brotherhood truly was a family. Becky and John reminded him of the years Kate brought Cassie to the station when he was on a shift so that he could sit back in one of the recliners and let Cassie sleep on his chest. Those were good days.

He looked for Cassie with Nancy but didn’t see her.

He checked his cell phone and found a message from an unfamiliar number. He listened. It was Nancy in a panic. Cassie had run off.

Nightmare after nightmare flashed before him of all the calls he had gone on involving dead or injured kids who had done something stupid. Just two days before, he had responded to a call for a kid who had held on to the bumper of a UPS truck so he could snowboard behind it through town. He hit some gravel and went down, but his arm got caught in the bumper and he was dragged for about two blocks. Stupid kid. He had to have surgery, but thank God, people on the street had screamed at the driver to stop before the kid was killed.

Here’s what Mike knew about kids: They did stupid stuff. Pretty much all of them. Often it was the ones no one ever suspected would do something stupid who did the most stupid things. In addition to playing in traffic, kids dove in shallow water, played with fire, broke into abandoned and structurally unstable houses, jumped off and out of things and climbed things that no one should ever climb, and drove drunk. If you were lucky, they just got hurt. If you were really lucky, they just got stuck and scared. Several times a year, though, he saw families that weren’t lucky.

And he didn’t know what he would do if something happened to Cassie. He honestly didn’t know.

“My daughter’s run off,” Mike said to Pete.

Pete frowned. “Do you need to go? We can handle the parade.”

The guys had already covered for him so much in the last year. They’d covered for him when he had to take Kate in for chemo. They’d covered for him when he stayed home for her final days. They’d covered for him for a few days after she died so he could be with his daughter and just hold her while she grieved. And they’d covered his nights for months so he could be home for Cassie. He shook his head. “There’s nothing I could do right now anyway. If it gets dark and she hasn’t shown up, I don’t know.” He bit his lip, irritated. “See what you’re missing out on, Ben?”

Ben was the one bachelor at the station. “Looks like fun,” he said.

Pete chuckled. “Ah, it turns out okay. There are lots of moments when you think it won’t, but it does. And then one day you get to be a grandpa and watch your kids get theirs. Very satisfying.”

Mike couldn’t picture Cassie getting married and making him a grandpa. He could picture her rappelling out of helicopters. He could picture her trekking in the Himalayas. He could picture her doing impossibly high jumps and stunts on skis in the half-pipe in the X Games. He could picture her kayaking down treacherous rivers. But he could not picture her walking down the aisle. He could not picture her pregnant. But if he was wrong, or even if he was right, Kate was going to miss it all. She wouldn’t get to hold her grandchild. She wouldn’t get to watch Cassie in the X Games. She was going to miss it all, whatever “it” turned out to be.

“Want me to call Barb and have her put the word out?” Pete asked. Barb, his wife, had an ability to mobilize a lot of people in five minutes or less. She rallied volunteers to pass levies, to bring safety education to the schools, and to raise money for burn victims. Whenever anyone needed anything, Barb was there.

Mike sighed. “Nah. It’s her first Thanksgiving without her mom. Maybe she just needs a little space. Let’s wait awhile and see if she shows up on her own.”

Pete patted Mike on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “but she might not be after I find her.”

Pete and Ben heard it for the empty threat it was.

*   *   *

At the end of the day, Jill counted the number of people who had come through the first-aid room–fifty-two. Thanksgiving was every bit as busy as she remembered it being. Right around closing time, an aid car showed up to whisk a man with heart problems to the hospital. Tom and Jason had just brought him down on a sled two minutes ago.

“Hey, Mike,” Tom said to one of the paramedics, and handed him a copy of his notes and the EKG tape while he and another paramedic loaded the man onto their stretcher.

“Thanks,” Mike said. “Hey, Cassie ran away this morning and no one’s seen her since. I suspect she’s here. It’s getting late. Will you keep an eye out? I’ll let you know if she shows up.”

Tom picked up his radio. “I’m on it.”

“And if you know anyone who could use extra work, Cassie’s sitter quit because of this. Can’t blame her,” Mike added as he rushed to wheel the patient out the door and into the aid car.

Tom radioed to everyone to look out for Cassie.

*   *   *

Cassie startled awake when Howard opened the door. After he saw her sleeping next to his copy of
Siddhartha,
he turned his head a little so his headlamp wouldn’t shine directly in her eyes and blind her. He picked up his radio, and said, “I found her.”

That’s when Cassie realized she was in big trouble. She stood up. “I guess I fell asleep,” she said.

Uncle Howard nodded as if it were no big deal. “Well, come on, kid. People are looking for you.”

Cassie picked up the skis she had leaned against the wall in the corner. She stepped out of the shack, locked the door behind her, hung the key back on the nail, and put on her skis. Uncle Howard stepped into his skis as well. Cassie waited for him to scold her or judge her, but he didn’t seem to want to. He just looked off toward town and waited, and maybe because he didn’t ask for it, Cassie felt she should offer him an explanation. “I just wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my mom,” she said, barely louder than a whisper.

“Of course you did,” Uncle Howard said. He paused for a moment. “Maybe there are some leftovers at the fire station,” he said. “We’ll go see. Ready?”

Cassie nodded. She knew that what awaited her at the fire station was anger—not leftovers.

Howard skied slowly in front with his headlamp and Cassie followed right behind. When they reached the bottom, they carried their skis back to Cassie’s house and then walked to town.

At some point, Cassie broke the silence and asked, “If heaven is in the sky, why do people walk through a tunnel to the light instead of going up an elevator?” Howard had an ease for talking about these topics matter-of-factly that other adults did not. Cassie also had the sense or maybe the hope that Howard knew some things other people didn’t.

He scratched his chin with his free hand. He was a blocky man with a face that was both stoic and peaceful. “Good question,” he said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie replied.

“There are people who think the dimension of heaven isn’t up in the sky, but just a few feet above this dimension,” Howard offered.

“How would that work?” Cassie asked.

He shrugged. “There’s no such thing as a solid. Everything is in a state of movement.”

Cassie gave him a skeptical look and let it drop.

They walked in silence through downtown Sparkle, Cassie’s anxiety about facing her father building.

At the station, the guys were only beginning to get to their dinner. They had been called out on several kitchen fires that day, most of which involved giant vats of oil that overflowed when people dropped their turkeys in and then ignited. The din of conversation quieted when Howard and Cassie entered. Cassie felt all their eyes on her accusingly, as if they all wanted to scold her but had to wait for her own father to do it first.

She picked out her dad’s tired blue eyes. He stood up and shook Howard’s hand. “Thank you,” he said. “Please join us.” He did not look directly at Cassie. “Come on, Cassie,” he said, and walked out of the station.

Outside, he leaned his back against the wall and looked up at the sky.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Cassie said.

He took a big breath. “I just kept thinking, What if I lost you, too?”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Nancy was a wreck,” he added.

Cassie was silent.

“She quit,” he said.

Cassie was happy about that but had the good sense not to show it.

“I’m really mad, Cassie.”

She looked at the deicer crystals on the wet sidewalk and squirmed under his gaze. “Sometimes when I’m on the mountain, I feel like Mom is with me,” she said quietly.

Mike rubbed his forehead with both hands. “You’ve put me in a tough spot. I can’t have this. I need to know you’re safe, and I need a babysitter to do that. You’re only ten years old. After this story circulates through town, no one is going to want to be your babysitter. You’re a liability to them. If we can’t solve this, I’m going to have to send you to Phoenix to live with Grandma and Grandpa.”

Cassie’s eyes bulged with disbelief.

“I have to know that you’re safe,” he said unapologetically.

And both their hearts sank as they walked back into the fire hall, each of them wondering what they would do without the other. They ate silently, as the others around them laughed and chatted, and when it was over, Pete’s wife, Barb, brought Cassie to their house.

*   *   *

“Are you staying here for the whole winter?” Eric asked as he drove Jill to the top of the mountain in the groomer.

“I think so. Right now I’m just taking it day by day.”

“You’re not going to sleep on a couch all winter, though, are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just not thinking that far ahead yet,” she replied.

“Well, look, think about this. Travis is out for the winter. If we don’t get another housemate to replace him, we’ll have to cut back on our consumption, and no one wants that. We’ve never had a lady housemate before, but I don’t think Tom or Hans would object. Cheap rent—think about it.”

“Lisa made me promise never to go in there,” Jill said with a smile.

He laughed. “We know you’re in a tight spot, so you can pay rent after you get your first paycheck. Just think about it.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

He dropped her off at the summit and continued on to groom more of the mountain.

She walked over to Tom, who was gathering wood for a fire. “Lisa’s got the food and is on her way up with Hans.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “It won’t be long now!”

“Hey, did that little girl turn up?” Jill asked.

“Yeah, Howard found her sleeping in the racing shack. Do you remember Kate?” Tom asked.

“Kate?”

“Kate Paulson,” Tom said.

“Yeah,” Jill answered. “I used to race with her. She was fast.”

“She died last summer,” Tom said. “Breast cancer. Spread to her lungs. Her daughter, Cassie, has been breaking downhill records since she was five. We’ve all been waiting for the day she’s old enough to dominate international competitions, but this year she’s not racing at all. I used to see her all over the mountain all the time, but I haven’t seen her once since her mom died.”

“Oh,” Jill said, and shook her head. Then she frowned, thinking. “I heard her dad say he needs a sitter. If it works with my schedule, I’d be interested.”

“I know he works twenty-four-hour shifts. I’ll get more info for you, or you could track him down yourself.”

“David cut off my access to our funds, so extra cash would be welcome.”

But it was more than that. Jill had no child. This child had no mother. They needed each other. In principle, it sounded great. A lot of things sounded great in principle, though. Kate Paulson had been one of those people she just hadn’t liked, and near as she could tell, Kate hadn’t really liked her. There had never been any aggression or hostility. It was the little things, like moments when she and Lisa were laughing at something and Kate hadn’t laughed. Sometimes it seemed Kate looked at them as if she thought they were stupid, but maybe that was all in Jill’s imagination. Maybe she truly didn’t understand why something was funny. Maybe she had misunderstood why they were laughing and thought they were laughing at her. At this point in her life, she could think of a multitude of reasons. Kate surprised her once, though. Jill had forgotten her lunch, and Kate had given her an apple. It seemed funny to remember such a little thing, but sometimes little things are big things, like when you’re hungry.

Tom crumpled and twisted some newspapers and wedged pieces of them in the woodpile. Jill joined in and helped. Then he lit the papers, and they stood back as fresh sap crackled and sparked.

Hans and Lisa pulled up shortly after. Over her parka, Lisa wore a silly vintage apron, pink with ruffles and an embroidered pocket. Jill and Tom walked over to help carry two Dutch ovens, a huge kettle containing a ten-pound turkey and a lot of Crisco, a few smaller pots and pans containing the rest of the food, and some lawn chairs. Then Hans drove away to groom for a little longer while Lisa cooked.