The days seemed to blend together after that. Off-shift Casey swung by Linda's place whenever he could before she went to work and after she was done teaching the two youngest kids. On shift the guys had stopped asking about her and he didn't offer anything, he was worried he might jinx his luck and thought things might go better in his favor if they didn't pour over the subject.
One day shortly before Christmas, he got a call at 9 in the morning. He'd slept late and was just getting around when his phone rang.
"Hello? Linda?"
"I'm sorry to call you, Matt," she sounded frantic, "Are you at work today?"
He sat up and had to think for a second. "No. What's going on?"
"I hate to ask, but can you come over here?" she asked.
She wasn't making a lot of sense but she did seem to be coherent for the most part, and insisted nothing was wrong, not really. Casey got dressed and drove over to see what was going on. It was a cloudy day that threatened snow at any time and looked more like it was still night. Linda met him on the porch.
"I just got a call from my lawyer, he said he couldn't go into details over the phone, but he needs me to come in right away," she explained as she shrugged her arms into her coat.
"Lawyer?"
"The one handling my problem with the insurance company," Linda said, "they've been stringing me along for two years, so I'm hoping it's good news."
"Okay..." Casey wasn't quite sure what the problem was then.
"I know this is a lot to ask, but can you stay here and just keep an eye on the kids until I get back?" she asked.
Now he got it. "Oh, sure, no problem."
"Oh I'm sure it'll be a problem," Linda replied, wordlessly reminding him of the pre-existing issue of the kids not liking him, "and I wouldn't ask if I had any other options, but there's just nobody else I can ask."
"I think we'll be okay," Casey told her. "Are there any special instructions I should know about?"
"I don't think, wait," Linda said, "Peter and Janice both have to read out loud for half an hour each, they do it every day, it's part of their work for getting caught up to grade level, can you..."
"That won't be a problem," he assured her.
"I think that's it, everybody else is out for Christmas break, the older girls already left earlier and will probably come and go but the younger ones are staying home until I get back. They already had breakfast and I should be back before lunch, basically I just need an adult here who can verify everybody's accounted for and the house hasn't been destroyed."
Matt chuckled, "I think I can handle that."
"Things are still pretty raw with them, so don't be surprised if they pull any stunts to try and drive you off," she warned him, then groaned, "Oh, Dee and Cecily especially, those two are horrible, they're always staging these horrific scenes to scare people."
"Copy that."
"I know it's asking a lot, Matt, but you have no idea how much I appreciate this," Linda hugged him before she headed down the porch steps.
"Good luck!" he called after her, "Hope he's got some good news!"
"So do I!" she replied as she dashed out to her car.
He watched her drive off, then headed into the house, closed the door behind him, looked around and noted the unusual silence. He tilted his head back and looked up to the second floor but didn't see any signs of life up there, though a quick sweep of the first floor told him none of the kids were down there.
"This is gonna be fun," he dryly commented to himself.
Casey stopped in the kitchen and took a look around. For some reason he couldn't resist the urge to check the burners and make sure the gas was off. Probably just because of all the house fires and subsequent explosions they had responded to over the years. Yep, all off. He checked the oven just to make sure it wasn't on. Nothing there either. He didn't have any idea what Linda's lawyer might want to see her about, but he wouldn't write off the possibility she could be gone longer than she thought. What if she was gone until the afternoon? He went over to the fridge and looked to see what was in there that the kids could eat for lunch if it came to that.
In that moment, something gave Casey the strange sensation he was being watched. He hadn't heard anybody moving around, but he could feel the presence of eyes watching him. He closed the door, turned around and saw the smallest boy standing in the doorway, watching him intently.
"Peter, right?"
The boy nodded. "What're you doing here?"
"Didn't your mom tell you she had to go out?" Casey asked.
"Yeah, what're you doing here?" Peter asked.
Casey rolled his eyes slightly. "Your mom asked me to keep an eye on you guys until she got back. Where is everybody?"
"Upstairs," the boy answered skeptically as he inched his way into the kitchen.
"I might've guessed," Casey looked towards the ceiling, and wondered what they were doing up there, what they had planned for him.
"How long's Mom going to be gone?" Peter wanted to know.
Casey scratched the side of his head, "I'm not sure, she was hoping to be back soon."
He looked down at the dark haired boy and asked him, "What're the odds everybody else will come down if I ask them?"
Peter merely shook his head.
"Okay, can you ask them to come down?" Casey asked.
The boy shrugged, "They don't listen to me because I'm the youngest."
A small snort escaped Matt, "Oh yeah, been there, I had an older sister growing up."
"You did?"
"Yep, there were a lot of times we didn't get along," Casey answered. "Is that how it is for you?"
He shrugged again. Casey felt like sighing, he could tell this was going to be a long morning.
"Your mom said you and your sister had to read out loud today, that correct?"
Peter nodded.
"Okay, is there a book you're working on?" Casey asked.
He nodded again.
"Would you go get it please?"
The small boy rolled his eyes as he turned and left the kitchen. Casey sighed and commented to himself, "I can sense this reaching a roaring stop," and followed the kid into the living room.
Matt heard footsteps and turned to see Janice, the blonde girl with pigtails, enter the room. She looked at him but didn't speak to him.
Peter also noted her presence and called out, as if she couldn't see it for herself, "Janice, Matt came back."
The blonde girl gave a stiff half-hearted wave and just walked by like she didn't see the man.
"She's shy," Peter explained as he dug a book out from the arm of the couch.
"Oh yeah?" Casey asked as he sat down. "What about your older sisters? For instance, is Dee shy too?"
"No, she's just mean," Peter answered matter-of-factly.
That made the Truck captain smirk in amusement, "Well maybe she's really shy but she just acts mean because she doesn't want to say so."
"No, she's just mean," Peter insisted as he sat on the couch beside Casey and gave him the book.
"Is she mean to you?"
"No, just everybody else," the boy answered.
"Is there a particular reason for that?" Casey inquired.
Peter looked at him and answered without missing a beat, "Yeah, she doesn't like people."
"Do you know why that is?" Casey asked.
He just shrugged again.
Casey looked at the book cover and saw it was a kids' horror book from the early 90s, he also noted how well worn the spine and pages were and asked Peter, "Is this your book?"
"No," he answered, "It was my mom's when she was a kid."
"I see," Casey said as he flipped through it. Then he thought of something else and asked Peter, "Does Janice have a different book she reads every day or does she read this one too?"
Peter pointed to the paperback in Casey's hand.
"Okay, go get your sister and let's get both of you done at once," Matt told him.
Peter hopped off the couch and headed into the kitchen screaming, "JANICE GET IN HERE!"
Casey's eyes widened at the pair of lungs that kid had on him. A few seconds later both kids returned to the living room. Casey moved to the middle of the couch and told them, "Okay, let's get on with this. One of you sit on this side of me, the other sit on this side of me. Now how does this work?"
The blonde girl poked him in the arm and explained, "Mom sets the timer and when it rings we're done."
"For an hour?"
Janice nodded, "First she reads a few pages to get us started, she used to have me read first for half an hour and then Peter read for half an hour, but it got boring waiting, so I read one side of the book, and he reads the other side."
Casey thought about it. "Okay, that should be easy enough." He found the bookmarked page and started reading from the top.
He'd no sooner got out a few words before Janice told him, "That's wrong."
Casey looked at her, "What's wrong?"
"You're doing it wrong," she said.
He looked at her and asked, "How am I doing it wrong?"
"That's not the way Mommy reads," Peter said from the other side of him, "she does voices."
Casey turned to look at the boy and repeated questioningly, "Voices?"
He nodded.
"That's right," Janice told him, and explained, a slight lisp breaking through in a few places, "Mom says you really pick up speed if you can hear how the characters would sound to fit their personalities, since in real life nobody sounds like each other, like when you just read pho-neti-cally and everything sounds flat. People don't talk that way in real life, so she says they shouldn't sound that way in a book."
Casey slowly nodded as he thought he was starting to get it, and asked the 11-year-old girl, "And what does this character sound like?"
The two kids got into an argument each trying to imitate a deep gravely voice, perfectly accompanied by humorously cantankerous expressions to fit the character. Casey turned his neck back and forth watching them and it took everything he had not to bust out laughing. "Okay," he told them, "I think I get it now."
He did his best to adequately imitate the gruff voice the kids had done as he read through the dialogue, and since he got no further critiques on his performance, he took that as meaning he must be doing something right.
Casey hadn't been keeping an eye on the time but before he knew it, they'd reached the end of the book. He checked the timer and saw there was still 15 minutes on it.
"Apparently your mom knows what she's doing," Casey commented. "Do you have another one to start?"
"The next one," Peter answered, "It's a set."
"Okay then, get the next one," Matt told him.
Peter hopped off the couch and ran out of the room, while he was gone, Casey heard the front door open and then saw Dee step into the dining room and glare into the living room at him.
"What're you doing here?" she demanded to know.
"Your mom asked me to keep an eye on everybody until she got back," he answered.
"From where?" she asked.
"Her lawyer wanted to see her," Casey said.
She didn't respond in any way, not with words, and not with a movement of her head.
"Dee, can I ask you a question?" Casey asked as he got up from the couch. "Have we ever met before I came here that night you guys were having that party?"
"No," she answered.
"So then it stands to reason I've never done anything to you, right?" Matt asked.
"So what?" she asked.
"Then why don't you like me?" he wanted to know.
"What're you always hanging around here for?" she replied.
"Because I like your mom," he answered. "Why, don't you like her?"
"Don't give me that crap," the teen girl sneered, "why do you like her?"
Casey almost laughed. "Because she's a nice person and she seems to like me."
"Why?" Dee asked.
Casey blanked on the question for a second, then shrugged his shoulders, "Beats the hell out of me."
"You know she doesn't have any money," Dee said.
"I know that."
"You know she has seven kids."
"I know that too."
"Then why are you still here?" the girl asked him.
He looked at her. "Is it really so hard to believe I just like your mom?"
She shrugged, "Nobody else ever lasted this long."
"Yes, so I heard," Casey remembered Linda's comments about the kids scaring off every other man she'd dated since her husband died. Then something occurred to him and he looked at her, "Your dad..."
"He was the one that died two years ago," Dee answered. "Jason, Janice and Peter are her brother's kids."
Casey slowly nodded as everything sunk in.
"My dad died when I was about your age," he told her. Her eyes moved slightly but there was no readable expression on her face. He continued, "We didn't have a great relationship but it was still hard, I can't imagine how hard this has been on you and your siblings. I have no intention of trying to replace your dad, anymore than your dad tried to replace their dad...but I like your mom and I'm going to keep seeing her. Don't you think as hard as she works to keep everything going that she deserves to be happy?"
Dee narrowed her eyes to slits, "Don't turn this around on me, we were fine until you showed up."
"And has that changed?" Casey asked.
She looked at him for a few seconds before responding reluctantly, "No."
"I get that this is an adjustment for everyone," Matt told her, "have you ever known any firemen, Dee?"
"No," she answered flatly.
"Well we don't give up, ever," he told her bluntly, "so you and your siblings want to keep this up, go ahead, but you're not getting rid of me, your mom's the only one who can make that call."
The blonde girl didn't say anything after that, but Casey thought they just might be at a turning point. He hoped anyway.
