He shakes his head. “No, I’m thinking Florida.”
“Okay, complete opposite direction,” I chuckle. “What’s in Florida?”
He shrugs and rinses out his coffee cup in the sink.
“Aren’t you from there? You tell me.”
“There’s nothing there, Bubba,” I joke, “trust me.”
Slowly nodding, he shuffles back toward the stairs without another word. I guess he is satisfied with my plan for today.
I’ve never heard of him taking a vacation. Florida seems like a strange choice for the end of summer. This is the hottest season to go there. He’s entitled to vacate wherever he wants. It’s just coming at me out of the blue.
I grew up in South Carolina, mostly, not Florida. I spent some time in Florida on a construction job site and perhaps I mentioned that to Bubba at some point. Florida is not for me. I prefer the northern climate.
My parents were both in the military, so I grew up in family housing on a military base. It was a lot like a regular neighborhood, to be honest. Not like people imagine with armed guards constantly walking around and stuff like that. The only way that you could really tell that it was a base for military housing was that there was definitely a lot of green and camouflaged clothing pretty much all the time.
I have two sisters, both much younger than me. My parents were both deployed, one at a time, through most of middle school and high school. One of them would be with us, the other one would be in another country, doing their service. My sisters, Tina and Midge, were easy to take care of. They adored me, and I am not ashamed to say it. They followed me around like baby ducks. They always wanted to know what I was doing, and constructed elaborate spy schemes, complete with coded note-taking about my activities that they kept at the back of their spiral notebooks from school.
I didn’t mind it. It was my job to take care of them, and to help my parents keep the house together. Tina is a nurse in Phoenix now, and has been on the edge of divorce for a few years, sadly. Midge went to New York to follow her dream of being in theater on Broadway, and she has been in some musicals that got good reviews. Her dream hasn’t exactly come true, but as long as she’s trying, there is still time.
After high school, I naturally joined the Army. I worked at the fire station on the base, and probably could have made a career out of it. It’s a pretty good life, as long as you don’t get deployed. Stable employment, and a tight community of friends and coworkers.
I heard about the position in St. Charles from a buddy at the station. I was ready for a change, I guess. It wasn’t a lot more complicated than that. When my four year stint was completed, I took the chance to move. There was no good reason not to, and so I moved to Illinois.
It’s different here. I like the weather, definitely. I like the way the snow is like a clean slate every winter. Everything starts over again in spring: the animals, the trees, even the bugs.
St. Charles is a nice community. Not too hectic. Safe and quaint, with lots of old buildings, which I like. I miss the calm monotony of living on the base sometimes. Even though there are houses all around the fire station, it’s not like a neighborhood. It’s not like what I grew up with.
For the most part, I just hang out with my team. Rather than having a huge neighborhood full of families, I just have Trigger and Stephan. And Bubba, of course.
We are close. We can’t help it—we sleep in the same room. In a way, they are like my kids. No. That’s not it. They are more like… my little brothers. They need my guidance more than anything. Even if they think they don’t. And one day, they probably won’t need me anymore. I think that day is a long way off.
Finally, I hear them upstairs, moving around as though they are just about done. Both of them should be out of the shower now. I’m happy to get this paperwork done finally, and maybe have a chance to talk to them about the barn yesterday. It’s important that we do everything by the book. People are counting on us.
Trigger and Stephan are finally ready to go by seven o’clock. They come down and grab travel mugs. We take our coffee on the road, and head out to the fire department pickup truck.
Chapter 5
Trigger
I love this job. I love this town. I grew up on a farm just north of here. It isn’t a farm anymore, since my parents retired and sold the place. Now it is a gas station and Burger King on one corner, with a bunch of townhouses where the house used to be. The other corner lot is a strip mall with a Home Depot on one end.