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“It’s seven o’clock,” Derek said. “You should probably take Anthony now, in case any of the guys from second-shift get here early.”
He gave me the keys to his house, which were on a little red fire extinguisher keychain. I pulled my car around to the back of the station, and they discreetly brought Anthony’s little basket out to me. We placed him on the floor of the front passenger seat, but then Derek lingered outside my door.
“I didn’t think about getting a car seat,” Derek grumbled.
“Don’t worry—I’ll drive as slowly and safely as possible,” I replied.
He ran a hand through his dark hair and scowled. “Maybe I should carry him to my house. That would be safer.”
I glanced at the GPS on my phone. “Your house is four miles away!”
“I can jog,” he said stubbornly. “I ran seven-minute miles at the fire academy. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“I promise I’ll keep him safe,” I said.
He didn’t look happy about it, but he finally nodded. “We’ll see you later tonight,” he said while closing the passenger door.
As I drove to Derek’s house, taking the back roads and never going above ten miles per hour, I thought about how protective he was of the baby. He was willing to carry him in his arms all the way across town just to avoid him being in an unsafe car for a short period of time. It was endearing.
Not to mention how he was risking his job to make sure Anthony was given the best possible care, rather than becoming a number in a system. Firemen probably had a pension program for retirement, plus other benefits. Derek was thirty-seven, I had learned, and had been doing this for fifteen years. He had accumulated a lot of service time toward that pension.
And he was risking it all for the tiny bundle of joy on the floor of my car.
He’s more than just a big, burly, grumpy fireman,I thought.He’s a good man.
Anthony wiggled happily in his little basket, unaware of what was going on.
Derek’s house was on a big corner lot on the north-east edge of Riverville. None of the lots around him were developed, so it was just his house surrounded by empty land. It was a big two-story Craftsman, painted electric-blue with crisp white trim all around. A white picket fence surrounded the big yard, and I had to get out of my car to swing open the fence gate so I could pull up the driveway. Four newspapers were scattered around the front porch, the ones he had missed while being at the firehouse.
“Derek’s got a really nice place,” I whispered to Baby Anthony while carrying him inside.
Despite being an older house, the interior was clean and well-maintained. It was a four-square house on the first floor, with four bedrooms upstairs. The wooden steps creaked as I carried the baby up there, exploring the house that would be my weekend residence. The first two rooms I checked were guest rooms, adorned with old wooden furniture and beds that were topped with quilted comforters.
The third room had a bed and its own bathroom, but half the room was filled with typewriters. Six of them were sitting on tables, gleaming and pristine as if on display. There were boxes stacked in the corner, and a quick glance showed that there were more typewriters in there.
“Weird,” I said, leaving the room.
The last room I checked was the master bedroom. A huge four-post bed occupied a large chunk of the room, with a stand mirror and an adjacent bathroom. Everything was orderly and tidy. It made me wonder if Derek had a maid.
I was starting to leave the room when I noticed a framed photograph on the bedside table. I took a closer look at the couple in the photo: the woman was wearing a chiffon wedding dress with a transparent veil, and the man was wearing a well-fitted suit with a red vest and a matching red pocket square.
Derek was so young in the photo that I almost didn’t recognize him.
He was married?I wondered.
Suddenly I felt like I was snooping, so I put the photo back and left the room. I carried Anthony downstairs, retrieved the rest of the things from the car, and set him up in the living room. I turned on the Dodgers game on the big TV and began feeding Anthony.
“See them?” I told Anthony. “Those are the Dodgers. They’re winning, which is a good thing. We like the Dodgers. Wehatethe Giants.”
Anthony sucked happily on the bottle.
17
Clara
The guys got home around nine-thirty, their headlights spraying across the house and through the living room windows. They came through the front door quietly, like they were trying to break in without anyone noticing.
I hefted Anthony and met them by the door. “Don’t worry. He’s awake.”
