A Father in the Making

Was that smoke she smelled?

Mia took another sniff as she walked out of the grocery store, the evening light slanting over the parking lot. Probably just her overactive imagination.

As she came around the corner of Mug Shots, she heard Evangeline call her name. She was leaving the café, Denny and Nate right behind her.

“You only now finished your grocery shopping?” Evangeline asked.

“Talking to Zach took longer than I thought, and the grocery store was busy today.” As they walked along the street, she tried to ignore Nate’s presence behind them. She didn’t need to mix up her life by getting distracted by someone like him.

“Is that smoke I smell?” Nate asked.

“Yeah. I thought I smelled it, too.” Then she looked up and saw a plume of black smoke in the sky above Mug Shots. Her heart stopped.

“Looks like it’s coming from Main Street,” she said as she hurried her steps, trying to shake off the idea that it could be her store and home. Then she took another look and saw smoke twining around the telltale crooked brick chimney of her store. Panic clenched her stomach as she grabbed the handles of her stroller and hurried down the street.

“Mia. Wait,” Denny called out, but she ignored him, her panic growing with each step. And then she came around the corner.

“It’s my store.” Her legs turned to rubber as she clung to the handles of the stroller. “My boys. My boys.” She started across the street, unable to move fast enough.

Someone caught her by the arm. She shook it off, her entire focus on the smoke pouring out of her store and flames starting to curl up from the roof. She started walking again, but then an arm snaked around her waist. “Don’t. Stay here,” Nate’s voice growled in her ear as his iron-hard arm clamped her against him. “You can’t do anything.”

“My boys. My boys are in there.” She thrashed against his hands, her fear and panic twisting like the flames now flickering from the roof. “My boys and Angie.”

She heard the squawk of a two-way radio and then heard another voice behind her.

She spun around. Jeff Deptuck, a local fireman, stood beside her, his cell phone to his ear and a two-way radio in his other hand. She grabbed at him. “Jeff. They’re not here yet. My boys are in there with Angie.”

“Are you sure?” Jeff’s gaze was suddenly intent on hers. “Angie and your boys?”

“Look, someone is at the window,” Nate called out.

It was Angie, waving. She was probably trapped.

“The trucks are out of town. They won’t be here for another ten minutes,” Jeff called out. “Someone get an extension ladder from the hardware store.”

A tall man broke away from the group that had gathered and ran down the street.

“By the time he gets the ladder out, it’s going to be too late,” Mia called out.

“We’ll have to go in up the stairs at the back,” Jeff said.

“I’m coming with you,” Nate said. “I’ve worked as a volunteer firefighter.”

“You listen to me and do exactly what I say,” Jeff warned, his voice stern.

Then without another word, Jeff dashed across the street then ducked into the gap between the buildings to get to the alley, Nate right behind him.

“Make sure she doesn’t go anywhere,” Nate said to Denny, then ran across the street after Jeff.

Mia pulled at Denny’s hands that held her arms like a vise. “I need to go and help them,” she called out. “I know how to get in.”

But Denny pulled Mia back again as the ominous sound of fire crackling battled with the growing wail of sirens.

But it was only a police car that came down Main Street.

“The fire trucks aren’t coming,” Mia sobbed, pulling ineffectually at Denny’s hands. She stared up at Angie’s panicked figure in the window. “They won’t get here in time.”

Then Angie disappeared and Mia’s heart turned to ice.

She couldn’t watch, but she couldn’t look away, thoughts, fears and half-formed images seething and twisting through her tortured mind.

The policemen got out and moved the gathering crowd back.

Mia’s entire attention was on the building and the smoke billowing out of it now. After what seemed to be hours, the fire trucks finally showed up at the end of the street, the men piling out in a flurry of activity, their bulky suits and reflective tape flashing in the failing sunlight.

“Stay here, Mia. Evangeline, you make her stay,” Denny warned as he ran toward the firefighters calling out that there were people in the building yet. One of the firefighters spoke with him while others donned masks and hooked tanks over their bulky coats. There were still more who worked in a rhythm, laying out the hoses, hooking them to the nearest fire hydrant. Instructions were called out, verified as the men with masks grabbed their axes and entered the front of the store.

Then, with a whistle of steam, water was poured onto the building and into the open window. Then more sirens as ambulances came, blue-and-red lights strobing through the smoke and gathering dusk.

Neither Evangeline nor Denny spoke as the drama unfolded in front of them, but Mia felt their hands on her, holding her back, yet at the same time, comforting her.

“Dear Lord, please keep Jeff and Nate safe. Help them to get Angie, Nico and Josh out of the store,” she heard Evangeline praying aloud.

Mia couldn’t pray, her gaze stuck on the building. The brick facade was now charred with smoke and dripping with water as the flames momentarily retreated. Where were the boys? Jeff? Nate? Time ceased as her world narrowed down to the building with smoke pouring out of the windows, the shouts of the firemen, the drone of water pumps, the hiss of flames being extinguished and the cries of the onlookers now gathered along the street.

Then another wave of noise caught her attention. It came from a side avenue. People shouting. Cheering.

Then she saw them.

Jeff, limping as he carried Josh, supported by Angie.

And behind him, Nate holding Nico close, his head tucked against his neck.

Mia ran toward them, her heart threatening to burst in her chest.

“Josh. Nico.” She reached out her arms to take them. But just as she got close, EMT personnel came between her and her boys, taking them from Jeff and Nate and escorting Angie to the ambulance.

“Those are my boys,” she called out, desperate to find out how they were.

“They’re okay.” Nate came up beside her, reeking of smoke, his face smeared with soot. She caught at him, her fingers digging into his arm.

“Are you sure? Are you sure?”

Nate looked down at her, then gave her a tentative smile. “We managed to get them out before the fire got too intense.”

Her legs gave out as the reaction sank in. Nate caught her before she fell. “C’mon, let’s go see how your boys are,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulder and holding her up. Together they walked to the ambulance, him supporting her, her entire attention focused like a laser on the back of the ambulance.

Yet, at the same time, she was filled with gratitude for the man holding her up. The man who had rescued her sons.