The Burning Road to Divorce After the Fire novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Order on the Radio

Kurt plays Brent's radio order to hold the ground crews and admits he obeyed it for eleven minutes; Lainey asks Brent for a divorce and comes home to find her things on the lawn.

I met Kurt Corbin at the third switchback, because I could not make myself drive anywhere else.

The turnout was still black.

The pine that had blocked the road was cut into pieces and stacked against the guardrail.

He was leaning on the tailgate of a dusty fire truck when I pulled up, with a small recorder in his hand.

"I didn't want to do this over the phone," he said.

"Do what?"

"Play you a radio channel. Hotshot captains record every channel on their chest, in case something goes wrong."

He pressed the button.

The speaker hissed, and then I heard my husband's voice, bright and calm.

"All units, this is Breckenridge Air. Sunflower has Cedar Grade. Ground crews hold your line, repeat, hold. Do not enter the road."

A woman at dispatch said, "Copy, Breckenridge."

The time stamp on the screen read 4:04.

One minute after I called him.

I looked at the hill.

"Sunflower never had Cedar Grade," I said. "It flew over me."

"I know."

"You were on that road."

"I was at the bottom of it," Kurt said. "My crew was at the bottom of it, with the engine running and the hoses out."

His jaw moved.

"I held eleven minutes, Mrs. Breckenridge."

I did not move.

"At 4:15 I stopped listening to him. I put the engine in gear and we came up. I didn't make it."

"You stood there."

"Yes."

He did not look away or give me a reason.

Something in my chest wanted to scream at him, and I let it, quietly, for about as long as it took the wind to turn.

"Why are you telling me?" I said.

"Because he'll say it never happened. And because there's more on this recording. At 4:19 there's a second call from him." He held out the recorder. "Keep it. I made a copy."

"This is your job, Captain."

"It's my fault," he said. "It's his crime."

I took the recorder.

It was the first thing anyone had given me in eleven days that I wanted.

I drove home and put it inside Pearl's sewing tin at the back of my closet.

When I walked into the kitchen, there was a woman standing at the stove with a casserole dish.

She had a ponytail and ranch boots and a denim jacket, and red eyes.

A golden retriever lay under the table with one paw wrapped in gauze.

"Lainey," said Melanie Lindner, and put the dish down so fast it rattled. "I'm so sorry. I came to say it to your face."

I had a speech ready for her, and it went out of my head.

She crossed the kitchen and hugged me.

She smelled like hay and smoke.

"I didn't know," she said into my shoulder. "I swear to God, Lainey, nobody told me your grandmother was up there. I would have walked the dog out myself."

"It's okay," I said, and heard my own voice come out thin.

"It isn't." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I keep seeing his face on the news and thinking, I've killed somebody's grandma for a golden retriever."

Brent leaned in the doorway with his arms folded and his flight jacket still on.

"Mel, it wasn't you," he said gently. "Nobody could have known."

I looked at the dog.

The collar around her neck was blue, and the tag on it read BISCUIT, with a second line below it in small letters.

BRECKENRIDGE.

I said nothing.

Melanie took the dog out to her truck after a few minutes and hugged me again at the door.

"Call me for anything. Anything at all."

She seemed to mean it.

When the truck pulled out, Brent poured himself a glass of water.

"Dinner is Sunday," he said. "My mother wants you in the blue dress."

"I'm not going."

"Lainey."

"I want a divorce."

He laughed.

It was a real laugh, with his head tipped back, and he put the glass down to finish it.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, babe. That's good. Is this what the silent treatment was?"

"Pearl called you at 3:58 that morning," I said. "You let it ring."

I was guessing.

Pearl always called him first in an emergency, because he was the one with the helicopter.

His face did not change at all.

That was how I knew.

"You're grieving," he said. "I understand. You'll say a lot of things this week."

"I'll say it in front of a judge."

"With what?" He came around the counter. "The house is the company's. The car is the company's. Your job at the clinic exists because my mother plays cards with the owner."

His hand came down on my shoulder, warm and patient.

"You're being dramatic. You'll be sorry by Sunday, and I'll forgive you."

I took his hand off my shoulder and put it on the counter.

"Don't touch me," I said.

I slept in the guest room with the sewing tin under my pillow.

At seven in the morning I left for my shift at the clinic, and Brent was already gone.

When I came home at noon with a bag of groceries, a locksmith's van was pulling away from the curb.

My suitcases were on the lawn.

So were my winter coats, my boots, Pearl's quilt, and the boxes from the hall closet, stacked on the grass.

Two neighbors stood on their porches with their phones up.

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