Eternal

ALEC

“Ithought you said you were coming home today. The girls miss you.”

Disappointment. It colors her voice. An all too familiar sound these days. “I’m sorry, Tee. It’s double-overtime plus a holiday bonus. I couldn’t say no.”

Her sigh fills my ears. “You know you don’t need to pick up all these extra shifts. We’re doing alright.”

“I know we are. I just want to make sure we don’t get in a tight spot again.” Our whole marriage had been full of tight spots. I’d promised her when we got married that I’d take care of her, and I meant it. She and the girls are the most important things in the world to me.

Her voice softens, and she says, “We won’t. I got a raise, and you’re making good money. It’s okay to slow down every now and then. Enjoy us.”

“Why don’t I make it up to you, and we take a vacation together? I’ll show you how much I enjoy you.” It’s a pipe dream, at least this month, but I mean it. We don’t get away together often enough. As soon as we have time, I’m going to take her back to the same hotel where I first told her I loved her. Lock her in there. And not let her come out until I’m certain she forgives me for working so goddamn much.

She gives a sultry laugh I feel all over. Maybe I shouldn’t have signed up for that overtime, damn it. “Oh, really? And how are you gonna do that?”

I whisper filthy things in her ear—all the things I’ve wanted to do to her but haven’t had the chance. And for a little while, it doesn’t feel like we have any problems. It feels like it was when we first met. Sure, I’m never home anymore, and we spend more time talking about the kids than naked in bed, but we’re still solid. Tana has been the love of my life since the day she planted a kiss on me by the river. She has me as wrapped around her finger as it’s possible to be.

I know I don’t get to show her as often as I’d like, but she knows how much I love her. I work hard every day to give her and the girls every nice thing they could ask for—and some they don’t. A nice house in a good school district, all the pretty clothes their hearts desire, and any stray cat or wild animal our oldest Gemma comes across. Our youngest Paisley is in all the lessons. Karate, guitar, pitching, and horse riding. She never sticks to one thing long, but she gives each of them her all until she’s on to the next. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them.

“I’m going to hold you to it,” Tana says when I finish telling her things that would make my old drill sergeant blush.

“Oh, you can hold it alright.” I can practically hear her eyes roll over the phone.

“Miss you,” she whispers.

Fuck, man. That’s what gets me. Every time. To know how much she wants me there with her. I know she thinks she’s being needy when she texts while I’m gone, but I eat it all up, even if I don’t tell her that.

I look forward to her constant stream of consciousness updates. When she gets busy and doesn’t text me every five minutes about something crazy the girls have done or asking if I’ve had any interesting calls at work, I find myself calling her to see what she’s up to because I miss her voice.

Yeah, I’ve got it bad.

“Miss you, too, sweet pea,” I say. But I can’t help but feel that something’s wrong. Something she’s not saying. Before I can ask her, the line goes quiet.

The call comes, like so many others, at three a.m. Only this one isn’t like any of the others. This call changes everything I thought I knew about my life.

It’s a typical night on shift. The bunkroom is quiet as everyone tries to get as much sleep as possible before the next catastrophe. Everyone but me. I can’t sleep for shit.

I’ve got my usual coping techniques: an RPG audiobook I’ve listened to a hundred times, a daydream about the perfect homestead farmhouse I want to build on my property, and I’m thinking about the fencing around that dream home when the tones drop. The very normal sound is followed by a high-pitched sound, a low pitched sound, and then a feeling of dread.

The speaker blurts out a vague, “Attention EMS and Battleboro first responders, I need you 51 to highway 278 for a two-vehicle MVC with possible entrapment and ejection from vehicle. LEO is also en route, and bystanders are currently on scene performing CPR on ejected patient.”

Within a few minutes, I’m out of the bunk and my sleep pants and jumping into my uniform pants and lacing my boots. All the while doing a mental check of my supplies (sheers, belt, flashlight, knife, window breaking tool, razor to cut seat belts if needed). Our current station has a giant open room with a dozen or so twin beds/bunks. Across from me, the three others on shift are doing the same. Our captain, Zeke is already in the common room.

My EMT on shift, Walker, shoots out to the ambulance to get it turned on and the back heated. Keeping a patient warm is almost as important as giving them oxygen. He gets on the phone for the correct address and plots the quickest route to the accident scene. While he’s doing that, I get my laptop to record notes on the call, run out the door, and jump in the passenger seat. As he pulls out of the station, I take notes on the laptop and go over information on trauma responses to keep it fresh in my mind.

When I first became a first responder, I was excited about the interesting or unique calls. After having been a paramedic nearly five years, I don’t get as amped up because sometimes the calls can be complete bullshit. People often seem to think the ambulance is synonymous with a taxi service. Generally, not the case with an MVC, but you never know what you’re going to see when you pull up to a scene.

As we drive, the fire department radios in, “Hey there, EMS. First responders on scene. Yeah, we got two vehicles here. A big ass wreck. Two patients. Possible signal seven.”

Signal seven. A fatality. It’s gonna be a long night.

We arrived at the intersection, and there are already several police cars pulled to the side of the road with their lights flashing. Walker pulls as close as possible to the vehicle reported to contain the entrapped patient. Med 1, the ambulance with Jax and Remy in it, pulls next to the ejection, where LEO is already performing CPR on the potential signal seven.

There’s never a name attached to the call when we get dispatched. The calls usually include a make, maybe a paint color. In this case, there was neither.

But I don’t need that information for my world to start crashing down around me.