Back tonight. Lock the door behind me. M.
I put the note on the table by the brass key. I put my boots on at the door. I put my coat on.
I look at the bedroom door.
I do not open it.
I go out into the dark.
---
The drive in is forty-two minutes. I do not put the radio on. I count the mile markers between the cabin road and the highway and then I count the lights at the on-ramp and then I do not count anything for a while, and I think about her on her back in the bed with her hand under her cheek, and I think about her sayingI love youin the lamp-warm bedroom, and I think about my own mouth on her neck sayingI have known I love you since I first saw you, and I think about Val.
Val is a fact.
Val is a fact at the end of the road I am driving.
I have not slept enough. I have slept four hours, and the four hours were good, but I have not slept enough since Tuesday and now I have to go to work and respond to fires.
I am going to have to be Val's firefighter today.
I pull into the lot at five-fifty-two. The bay door is up. The lights in the apparatus floor are on. Captain Doyle's truck is in the second slot. Val's pickup is in the chief's space.
Val is here at five-fifty-two.
Val is here at five-fifty-two on a day she does not have to be here until seven.
I sit in the truck with my hands on the wheel and I count to four, and I count to four again, and I get out.
---
She is at the coffee pot in the bay kitchen.
She does not look at me when I come in. She is in her uniform shirt with the chief's bars and her hair is tied up the way she wears it when she is going to be at the station all day. She pours coffee into the white mug with the chip on the rim. She sets the pot back on the burner. She looks at the wall.
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Drills at six-thirty."
"Yes, Chief."
"You are on the line."
"Yes, Chief."
"All day."
"Yes, Chief."
She takes her mug and she walks past me out of the bay kitchen, and she does not look at me, and her shoulder does not touch mine in the doorway.
I stand at the coffee pot.
I pour a cup.
I drink it black at the counter.
