Chapter 10: The Chief's Office

On Monday night I carried Reva's meatloaf across town to the fire station in a foil pan.

I had not seen Alister since Saturday.

He had waved from his truck on Sunday, and I had waved back.

The Fairview company had two bays, an engine, a rescue truck, and a kitchen with a long scarred table.

The weekly drill was over, and the last of the volunteers were backing their trucks out.

One of them looked at the pan, and at me, and said, "Chief's in the back."

His office was a closet with a window.

There was a desk, a green couch, and a framed photograph on the wall of Front Street under six feet of brown water.

Alister was writing in a logbook with his head bent.

He looked up, and his pen stopped.

"Reva made it," I said. "She says you're too thin and I'm to watch you eat."

"Reva's a tyrant."

"She also said to tell you the pan goes back."

I set it on his desk and stood there.

He didn't touch the foil.

"Understood isn't a plan," I said.

"What?"

"On Saturday you said 'understood' and went home. I've been thinking about it for two days."

I crossed my arms.

"I'm tired of being understood, Alister."

"What do you want me to say?" he asked.

"Something that isn't careful."

He put the pen down.

He stood up, which was a long motion in that small room, and came around the desk.

"I'm careful," he said, "because the last time I said what I wanted, I stood in a yard for an hour."

"Then I spent years being sorry I hadn't said it."

He looked at me.

"So say it now," I said.

"You'll be gone in eighteen days," he said.

"I know how many days," I said.

"I want you to stay," Alister said.

It cracked out of him, flat and hard.

"I want you to stay, and I'm not going to ask."

"If you stay, it has to be yours. And it's killing me."

His hands were fists at his sides.

"Then be killed in front of me, not across a street," I said.

"Odalys," he said.

"I want you to stop being careful."

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