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I look up at him, “You don’t want that in your head, Hudson. Trust me.”
He takes a few moments and then breaks the silence. “My father was an amazing man. He loved my mother and I so much. He went to work each day, but not before kissing my mother goodbye and giving me a hug.” I watch the smile cross Hudson’s face as he remembers.
“He taught me how to fish, how to be respectful of others, and to love God with all my heart. On weekends, we would work around the house together fixing things up.” He chuckles, “I think he even made-up projects just so he could spend time with me. I loved it. Loved learning how to use his tools, how to make my mom smile, and just spending time together. My father was my hero and I remember wanting to be just like him when I grew up. I had a great life. Until the day I found my father on the floor in the kitchen when my mother was at the store. I was ten years old and had been playing in my room for a few hours. It was lunchtime, and I wanted to eat. And there he was. I didn’t know what to do. He was lying there so still. So very still. When I shook his arm to get him up, he was cold, and I’ll never forget the bluish tinge of his skin.”
He takes a deep breath and looks away, at something or something that isn’t there, “I started screaming at him, but he wouldn’t respond. Grabbing the phone, I dialed 911 like they taught us in school. All I could do was scream into the phone for help. The operator tried to calm me down, but it was no use. My father, my idol, the strongest man in the world to me, was lying helpless on the floor and I couldn’t do a damn thing.”
He takes another deep breath and continues, “It seemed like forever before help finally arrived. But it was too late. He was gone. Heart attack at such a young age. When my mother came home from the store, I was sure she was going to blame me for his death, for not finding him sooner. But instead, she grabbed me and held onto me. She kept telling me it was going to be okay. That we would be okay.” His brows tweak up, “Of course, she was right, but I didn’t believe her at first. How were we going to live without my dad? I kept telling myself that I was just a kid. I didn’t know everything that Dad knew yet. How was I going to take care of Mom? I was so scared. But after a while, we figured it out and found our new normal and made our way through life.”
“Is that why you’re a Paramedic-Firefighter?” I ask, needing to understand.
He takes a few minutes to answer, “Yeah. I never want to feel so helpless again. The rest of my childhood, and maybe even my older years, in the back of my head, I always thought that if I just knew CPR or if I had gotten to him sooner, I could have helped him, and he’d still be with us. But I know better. My father was gone before he hit the floor. If I was standing right next to him, there still wouldn’t be a different outcome. But I believe everything happens for a reason.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“What?”
“That everything happens for a reason.”
He turns towards me on the couch and takes my hand. Even in the mental state I’m in right now, I still feel the electricity flowing when he touches me. I don’t understand that, and I’m not interested in trying to right now.
“Yes, Kate, I do. Even if it sucks, there’s got to be a reason it happened. I have to believe that. If I don’t, then what the hell is the point of life?”
I nod at his answer. I’m not sure I agree about the ‘everything happens for a reason’ bit. I mean, what would be the reason for a little girl to hear her parents scream as fire engulfs them. There isn’t a reason, but Hudson just spilled his guts about how he feels about his father’s death, about finding his father dead in the kitchen at such a young age, and about why he does what he does for a living.
Maybe what happened to him was for a good reason, but you’ll never convince me what I went through was for a good reason. But I decide to tell him about that night.
All of it.
CHAPTER 14
HUDSON
I’m not sure she’s going to tell me about the night of the fire, but I’m hoping she does if for no other reason than I think she just needs to air it out instead of keeping it all bottled up inside. At least that’s what I learned through a few years of therapy my mother made me go through after my father’s death. I hated it at the time, mostly because I was angry at him for leaving. All these years later, I appreciate that mom made me go. I can only imagine how messed up I would be now.
Kate and I are still sitting on the couch, and I’ve got one of her hands in mine. I don’t know why I constantly feel like I need to be touching her. There’s been nothing romantic about the last few times we’ve been together, but I can’t seem to stay away from her. This is something I’m going to just go with for now. I enjoy touching her, looking at her. She’s beautiful in a way I’ve never seen or experienced before.
I like a woman that has meat on her bones. Boney or rail-thin isn’t for me. The other day at breakfast, I was glad to see Kate eat, like really eat. Not pick at her food like a bird. She’s beautiful with long brown hair that is so shiny I want to run my fingers through it, and she still smells like orange blossoms. It’s intoxicating. She’s intoxicating.
“That night, the night of the fire, was a normal night. I had gone to school, came home, did some of my homework, played with the kids on the block, ate dinner and we watched television until it was time to go to bed. Normal. We’d done the same thing every night for as long as I could remember. At bedtime, my parents came in, kissed me good night, tucked me in with my favorite blue blanket, and I went to sleep never realizing my life was about to change forever.”
She pulls her hand out of mine, “I don’t know what woke me up. But something just felt off. Then I heard it. My mother screaming. It was terrifying. It was a sound I’d never heard before. I didn’t realize what was happening, but then I could smell it. Smoke. My bedroom door was closed, but I could see smoke coming in under the door and the flickering light of the fire. I kicked off the covers, grabbed my blue blanket, and went to the door. When I grabbed the door handle, it was so hot. I remember that clearly. I couldn’t touch it, so I used my blanket to open the door.”
Kate stops and wipes away a stray tear. Then another. “I saw my mother down the hall trying to get to me. Something large pinned her to the floor. I don’t know what it was, but she was trying so hard to get out from underneath it. There were flames everywhere, the ceiling, walls, floor. Everything was on fire. Even my mom. All her hair was gone. Singed off. She saw me and screamed to get out. She kept screaming to go. At the time, I didn’t realize what she meant, and I was hurt that she didn’t want my help. I started crying, and she screamed again to go.”
“She wanted you to get out of the house.”
Kate nods, “Yeah, but as an eight-year-old, I thought she wanted me to ‘go’. I know that doesn’t make any sense now, but at the time I was just a kid, seeing her mother without hair, flames all around us, and I was just awoken out of a dead sleep into a nightmare. So, I ran and hid in my closet. That was my safe place when I was in trouble with my parents. The back of my bedroom closet.”
She stops, and I let her process what she’s telling me, but after a few moments, I encourage her to continue. “Then what happened? How’d you get out of the house?”
“I held my blanket to my face because the smoke was so thick that I was having trouble breathing. The heat was getting unbearable, but I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed put in the closet. I kept hoping my father would come and save me and my mom. Of course, he never did.” She turns to face me, “Unless you’ve been inside a fire, you have no idea how loud it is.”
I nod, “That was eye an opening experience the first time the instructors put you in a fire when at the fire academy. It’s very loud.”
“Almost deafening. But, above all the noise of the fire, the heat, smoke, falling debris, I could hear the cries of both my parents. They were trying to get to me instead of getting out of the house. Then suddenly, the screams stopped. That’s what I have the most difficult time with. Knowing that I listened to them both die because of me. I hear those screams in my dreams and it’s always terrifying.”
I take both her hands in mine, “Your parents didn’t die because of you. They died because the fire overtook them. They both loved you so much that they risked their lives trying to save you. That’s not your fault and they didn’t die because of you. You survived. That’s all they wanted. That’s what it means to be a parent.”
