Ember (The Everyday Heroes World) - Jo-Anne Joseph Page 0,2

front of a furnace instead of a nursery, their baby in a tiny coffin instead of a cot. That same tiny coffin is bring pushed into a machine which is far too big for a thing that small. I hate that I know these things.

When the rumble of the furnace turning on starts, I can almost feel the heat permeating the room. I loosen my tie because it feels like I’ll pass out if I don’t. The door bursts open, and Bronwyn staggers out, her brown hair hanging over her face. Her breathing ragged. Someone, a relative maybe, reaches for her, holds her shaking shoulders, leading her away from the crowd.

I pull open the door she exited, and two crematorium staff look at me. I walk over to stand beside Pres quietly, just watching the large metal structure that holds the baby he’d been waiting for, for nine months. Mia, that was her name. I remember him telling us that it meant mine. He was a typical dad-to-be, overly excited bordering obsessive. He used to call Bronwyn so often I wondered if he was a hovercraft husband. They made lists together. It was nauseating, but sweet too.

Pres and Bron made me want to hope again. They made me wonder if there was more to life than what I’d been living for the last couple of years. But then this happened, and I knew I was right not to believe.

When the crematorium staff tells me there is nothing more for us to do there, I lead my friend outside. His brother and a few family members approach, so I slap his back lightly, then leave to check on his wife. She’s sitting in the passenger seat of their white Mercedes Benz, surrounded by a few family members. She’s staring into space, but nobody seems to notice. I do. The crowd ramble on, some laugh about mundane things, brown leaves fall, and her glassy gaze makes my soul hurt, so I walk away.

PRESENT

Grief is a personal thing. There is no one size fits all bullshit those self-help books like to feed you, unless you’ve been there, you can’t throw judgment. You can’t say a fucking thing. You can take pictures of the dead, or don’t. You can video call a deceased person’s sister who couldn’t make the funeral because she was days away from giving birth or not.

Grief can drive you mad. It can set you straight.

It can break you or piece you back together.

I know, I want to tell Preston, I know what you mean. How you feel, what you’re going through. But it isn’t about me like I told Aidan the night before. It’s about Pres, this man beside me whose world is crumbling.

“I’m sorry, man,” I tell my friend because I truly am. He looks over at me, raises his flask. I tap mine to his.

I wake up to yelling and cold water being splashed on me; no, that’s an understatement, someone is trying to drown me. I gasp as water enters my nose and mouth, and for a second, I think I’m dreaming. When I finally manage to pry open my eyes, I have to squint through the sunlight.

“You fucking selfish, asshole,” Bronwyn yells, her hair a wild mess of curls. She’s in pajamas and a robe, feet bare, tears streaming down her usually cheerful face.

I try to stand but end up falling over onto the wet ground. I look over at Pres, who is in no better condition. She continues yelling, and Pres gets off his ass and grabs her around the waist as she howls and thrashes against him. Her torrential storm finally let loose on the world.

We fell asleep out there last night. Aidan must have disappeared sometime in the night.

I watch them, two broken people, holding onto each other like lifelines. They fall to the ground, and he clings onto her for dear life. “Shh,” he murmurs against her head. “I got you.”

I walk away, my insides shattering. I head straight for the bar at eight in the morning, and I don’t give a fuck what people think.

It’s my last day at the station. I look at the portraits hanging on the walls, all our goofy smiles. There’s the usual “Firefighter of the month” pictures and the time we had to pose shirtless for charity. It’s kind of a thing everywhere. I remember those guys in Australia did the same thing to raise money for the wildfires.

“Still time to cancel that plane ticket?” Aidan