CHAPTER 12: BOARD GAMES
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(October 17)
Mike had fallen asleep on the couch, his head on the pillow in her lap. For a while, Patty simply studied his face, memorizing its lines and planes. Reassured by the easy respirations of his broad chest, she began counting the slow, strong pulse in his neck; the mounting numbers lulled her as she stared with unblinking eyes at her future.
The vision that appeared was not as rose-tinted and sky blue pink as it would have been even a few years ago. Derek's funeral had been unsettling but she had to accept that it might prove to foreshadow her future. Her specialist might not run into burning buildings with a charged line every shift but there were still risks – real, life-threatening, world-shattering risks – that he faced regularly. The death of that child, Michael Dylan Varela, had shown her that things he witnessed and experienced could hurt him beyond the physical realm and change him.
Patty wished she could deny the fear Mike would become a closed-down stranger to her again because of what happened "on the job" one day, and pretend he would always shed the stresses of the job as easily as his turnout coat after a run. But she knew better. Some things were more like the lingering smell of smoke on uniform pants or a smudge of soot on the back of the neck – present but not always immediately obvious.
Maturity and experience had their drawbacks, and sometimes she missed the schoolgirl innocence she'd had back when she'd first met Mike – before she'd understood why it was a Kyson Drill, before she'd dressed her father's burns after that accident in Boston, before she'd known the names of the six little kids who'd died in that fire on Washburne.
Tonight was one of those times.
Her emotional turmoil from what Derek's funeral could portend for her future was, Patty knew, minor compared to how upsetting the firefighter's funeral was to her father, a bare fact that stung her. The echoes from his past were just too hard to ignore. When that past got stirred up, Henry's demons could swarm like locusts, stripping his defenses clean away, consuming his reserves, then smashing into him. The resulting battle was familiar to both of them.
Most of the time these days, Henry would win it. But not always.
Patty sincerely hoped her father was still fighting with himself, still trying to resist the urges he had – mostly because she wasn't sure there was enough left in her right now to hold the line if he faltered. If he asked again, she'd probably join him in a glass.
Or two.
Chief Tomcat leapt up to the back of the couch, startling her. When she realized she still hadn't heard the squeak of the study door re-opening or some other sound indicating Henry had gone to bed as he'd planned, she wondered how long it had been since she'd left him alone. It hadn't been that long … or had time passed more quickly than she realized? Patty glanced down at Mike, biting her lip. At first she'd seen Mike's head on the pillow in her lap as a little bit of extra insurance, a reason not to get up and check on her dad prematurely. But now, it had become, well, not exactly a burden to her but at least a restraint she both longed to and feared to shed. Would she find her dad asleep and worn out from grief? Or drunk in the study, the lock picked, the cabinet plundered? Patty didn't want to know. She didn't want to check. But she couldn't leave him to battle his own demo –.
The doorbell rang, cutting off the anxious flow of her thoughts and waking Mike. When she recognized the peculiar pattern of the ringing, she smiled, exhaling her breath with relief. Mike looked up at her sleepily then became alarmed when he heard the front door opening. Patty put a restraining hand on his chest when he started to get up then called out, "We're in here, Uncle Tommy!" At the mention of his battalion chief, Stoker sat up abruptly, wincing when his ribs protested. Patty caught the grimace and pushed him back down firmly. He grabbed for the bag of peas before it could slide off his knee and into his lap, as Tom McConnikee strolled into the room.
"Hello, Patty Mack," Tommy said, bending over the back of the couch to kiss his niece on the forehead and taking note of the harried-looking young man whose head was in her lap. "Stoker," he said with a nod and the beginnings of a grin as he looked down at him. It's a good thing I'm not given to teasing. Or telling. "Ah, and how are you, Chief, m'boy?" he asked the cat now prancing along the edge of the couch toward his waiting hand.
Patty pulled the bag of frozen peas from Mike's senseless fingers and handed it up to her uncle. "Could you get me another cold pack? I think there's a bag of corn in there somewhere that'll work if they others aren't refrozen yet."
"I don't need – ."
"You gonna tell me your ribs don't hurt, specialist?" She glared down at his nearly upside down face on her lap, rearranging it mentally to make sure he wasn't blowing off her concern.
"It's nothing serious, I just sat up a little too quickly." Mike took a careful deep breath to prove his point and smiled. "See?"
"I'll just put this back in the freezer, then," Tommy said, "and go see if Henry's up for a game or two." He raised an eyebrow at Patty who glared at her uncle for a few seconds, miffed he hadn't taken her side, then nodded toward the office with a sigh. "I'm sure Stoker will be fine if he sits up more slowly this time," he said over his shoulder.
"Yes, Chief," Mike responded automatically. Tommy tried not to smile when the cat meowed loudly in response and failed miserably; only the semi-frozen peas he was putting back in the freezer, however, witnessed the slip. He headed down the hall to Henry's office, leaving Patty to assist the engineer to an upright position. If that boy is as smart as I think he is, he'll let her fuss over him a bit more tonight, Tommy thought. Women do like to do those kinds of things.
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Tommy lifted the door handle slightly before pushing the door open to avoid the telltale squeak of the hinges. As a result of his stealthy entrance, he saw Henry kneeling in front of the Prohibition-era liquor cabinet in the corner, letter opener in his hand. His brother slid the thin blade along the top of the door, feeling for the catch that would spring open the side panel disguising the location of the actual lock. If the cabinet was opened with the lock in the wrong position, only an empty space would be revealed. It had saved many a bottle of good Irish whiskey from confiscation back in the day.
"Did you forget how to dial the phone again?" he asked with a sigh, coming in and sitting on the corner of the big desk. "Marissa would be glad to give you lessons." You're supposed to call me when it gets this bad! You know I'll keep you out of the bottle. One way or another.
"I thought you were working tonight," Henry replied without turning, not even startled by his brother's voice. I – I didn't want to bother you.
"Decided to knock off early – and beat the pants off you in Scrabble." Idiot.
"I was only going to have one," he said, reluctantly removing the letter opener from the slit, licking his lips.
"I know, Henry, I know." Tommy held out his hand and pulled his twin up easily when Henry grabbed it. "C'mon, we've got a game to play with Patty – and with Stoker." He grinned invitingly, willing his brother into a better frame of mind.
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For the life of him, Stoker couldn't remember what color shirt Patty's father had been wearing earlier. If he could only remember, Mike would be able to tell the McConnikee brothers apart … which might be useful if he kept score again.
Patty chuckled at the look on Mike's face when the two white-shirted men walked in, side-by-side, smug doppelgangers in mischief. "I think I'd better keep score tonight," Patty said. Part of that odd tension in her had dissipated when Tom had arrived and mentioned playing games; she was now much more light-hearted and vibrant. At some point, Mike planned to dig into that, but not tonight.
"That would be a good idea," he admitted, as his girlfriend's family flanked him at the kitchen table.
"Anyone want a bite before we start playing?" Patty asked. "I think I saw some of Joanne's banana pudding in there."
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"Uh, are there any special rules I need to be aware of?" Mike asked as he prepared to select seven tiles from the bag.
He was on the couch again, sitting this time, leg stretched out underneath the adjustable table. Patty sat cross-legged across from him while the McConnikee brothers were situated in chairs on the other two sides of the table. Chief Tomcat kibitzed from behind Patty. Part of the high back of the couch folded down cleverly to accommodate the table, making it possible for an invalid like Morgana McConnikee to be comfortable in a wheelchair or on the couch. He'd learned about the couch the night he'd arrived here when they'd played cards. The McConnikee penchant for elaborate 'house rules' for every game imaginable was unveiled the next afternoon, during a quick game of Boggle.
"Nothing in particular. Challenges use the Oxford Concise," Patty replied.
"Firehouse slang is okay," Henry added. "But no foreign languages."
"And no bad words," Tommy said. "Draw for who goes first."
"Yes, sir," Stoker responded and pulled out an L. For the rest of the night, both McConnikee men would be sir.
Tommy started, playing G-R-O-U-C-H vertically for 24 points, casting a sly glance at his twin as he did. Patty crossed the U with C-O-U-R-A-G-E, scoring 12, before turning to her father with a smile. Henry passed, exchanging one tile, without acknowledging either of them. Mike covered double-letter and triple-word cells with his parallel play on the end of COURAGE. He counted up the score – Eighteen plus three is twenty-one plus three is twenty-four – pleased with the total, and started to pull new tiles from the bag.
"Challenge!" Tommy crowed suddenly, grinning.
"Sir?" All the words looked correctly spelled to Mike so he double-checked his arithmetic: A-R-S-O-N across with a double-letter R is one, three, four, five, six and triple-word makes eighteen, A-G down is three, – nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, – and R-E down with a double-letter is three – twenty-one, and three more is twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. "Re and ag down, and arson acr – ," Stoker began.
"That's a bad word," Tommy declared stoutly. "Right, Patty?"
"Well, not when a fireman uses it!" she quipped, laughing, and started to explain to a mystified Mike.
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(Several years before)
"Gentlemen, we will have a visitor with us for part of the afternoon," Tom McConnikee informed his men sternly. "I expect you to act appropriately at all times. And that goes double for you, Smitty," he added, glaring at the chunky man with a well-deserved reputation for speaking crudely.
"You don't have to worry about me, Cap, I'll be good as gold," Smith responded jovially. When the captain's blue eyes moved on, Smitty whispered something to the man next to him, causing him to snort in laughter.
"My niece had better not hear that kinda talk, Smitty, or this time I will wash your mouth out with soap," McConnikee said over his shoulder.
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Little Patty Mack loved spending time with her uncle at the fire station. It was a big station, with lots of different trucks and, usually, only a few trucks left the station at a time when the loud bells rang. When Tommy was there, she would follow him like a shadow at noon, eagerly helping him with anything he might be doing. When he was on a run, Patty would sit quietly in the day room next to one of the firefighters she knew. Sometimes the man watching over her would break out the crayons and color with her but more often they'd play cards together, roping in a few of the other firemen for a rousing game of Go Fish or, once she'd more or less learned the rules, Firehouse Poker. She might be there for an hour at most before her father or someone else came to pick her up and take her home but it was a magical hour for her, surrounded by heroes who smelled of coffee and smoke.
On this particular day, she'd come over after school, walking the six blocks with one of her classmates who lived just down the street from the fire station. If the station had been completely empty, she would have continued on with her friend. Although Uncle Tommy had been on a run, one of the other firefighters greeted her warmly and smiled at how she waved good-bye to her friend. He sat her down at the table, poured her a tall glass of milk, and sliced an apple up for a snack. By the time Captain McConnikee returned on this particular day, her milk mustache was well-established.
"Uncle Tommy!"
"There's my Patty Mack," he responded, picking her up and giving her a smoky hug, before setting her on the table. Soon she would be too big to pick up and swing around but he intended to do it as much as he could until she was. "You been keeping these guys in line for me?" he asked.
"Yes sir," she said proudly, "although he said a bad word a little while ago." Patty frowned at Smitty whose mouth dropped open in surprise. He knew better than to cuss in front of the kids, especially when he was given fair warning. His mind skittered over the conversations he'd had since the kid had shown up.
"Cap, I didn't – ," he began before being cut off by McConnikee's glare. The fire captain drew in a deep breath then exhaled; like a dog raising its hackles, the action made him look bigger. Smitty could almost taste the soap now.
"Patty, what did he say?" Even though Tom had spoken to her pleasantly, she could sense his anger and hesitated. "Was it a four-letter word?" he asked euphemistically.
"No, Uncle Tommy, I'm pretty sure it's a five-letter word," she replied literally after silently spelling the word and counting the letters on her fingers.
"A five-letter word, huh? Can you tell me what he said?"
"It was," and her voice dropped to a whisper, "arson." She looked at Smitty and informed him sternly, "That's really bad."
"Yes, miss, I agree," the big blond fireman responded contritely while trying to keep a straight face. He remembered now the shocked look on the girl's face when he and a couple of the others had debated whether a particular fire was arson or not. Smitty had assumed it was the mental image of a pile of teddy bears being used to start a fire in a toy store that had upset her – and had changed the subject with a nod toward the girl as soon as he'd noticed.
Tom sighed and wondered how to explain, especially with half the station watching him now, grins appearing here and there. A bit of comeuppance for McConnikee was apparently well-received by his men, but the battalion chief on station that day didn't want it to get too far out of hand. And, it was pretty obvious the still young captain didn't know how to handle it.
"Miss Patty, you're right that arson is really bad," the gray-haired veteran explained, sitting down at the table to be at her level. "But sometimes firemen have to talk about bad things like that as part of their jobs. So, Smitty here, well, he didn't really do anything wrong when he said arson." He paused. "Do you understand?"
"I think so." She turned her big green eyes on Smitty, biting her lip slightly. "I'm sorry I told Uncle Tommy you said something bad when you didn't. Will you forgive me, Mr. Smitty?"
"Of course, Miss Patty. It was an honest mistake," the big man said with suitable gravity, honestly taken aback by the youngster's manners. Someone's raising this kid right.
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"How old were you?" Stoker asked when the story ended. He'd seen pictures of her as a little girl and had no doubt she had charmed all the firemen she came in contact with. You've certainly charmed me.
"Oh, about seven or eight, I think, right, Daddy?" Who me? She sent a sweet smile in Mike's direction.
"Something like that, yes," Henry replied with a smile that Tommy echoed. "So, are you going to let Mike play this word or not?"
"Hmmm. I dunno, Daddy, I dunno." Patty looked over at Mike, silently daring him to say something in his own defense. C'mon, specialist, say it, say it.
"Hey, I am a fireman, you know," Mike protested. "So I can use words like that, right?" Fireman and proud of it, girl. He gently ran his sock-covered foot along her ribs, counting on the table to hide his action. Chief Tomcat peeked out from behind Patty, fascinated by the movement beside his mistress.
"Well, now, don't I remember someone telling me he wasn't a firefighter anymore? Do you remember that, specialist?" she purred back, eyes twinkling as he walked right into the trap. Shall I relate the story of how we met, Mike? She tweaked his toe for good measure which was enough for Chief to slink closer.
"Uncle!" he said, blushing. No need, you win!
"Mike, I know I told you to call me 'Tom' … but I think I'd better draw the line at 'uncle,'" the elder McConnikee dead-panned. He'd seen the footsie Stoker'd indulged in and waited for Chief's reaction.
"So, what should I say when Patty's … hey … got me … hey … over a barrel?" He wiggled his foot in a futile attempt to keep Chief from latching onto his toes again.
"Yes, dear," the other two men intoned as one, causing Patty to laugh delightedly and corral the cat.
"Besides, I'm not the person you need to convince," Tommy added, "to defeat the challenge and be able to play the word." Mike turned an expectant eye toward Henry who merely shook his head and glanced significantly at Patty who had schooled her features to judge-like sobriety.
"So, what's it gonna take to convince you that I am a fireman?" Mike asked Patty, yielding to the game's intricacies and inanities. There were other words he could play, but something told him it was expected that the challenge be, uh, challenged.
"Challenges use the Oxford Concise, Mike," Henry reminded him, handing the thick tome over.
"Oh, right," Mike said, starting to catch the drift of the McConnikee version of challenges. Nothing special, huh?
The sweet smile reappeared. Ah, this one's easy. "What's a fireman?"
Mike turned to the appropriate page and began to silently read the various definitions. He stopped and looked up, blue eyes merry. "It seems I fit the definition quite well."
"Can you prove you're 'employed to extinguish or prevent fire' though?" Patty responded, quoting the first definition from memory.
"Don't need to," he said slyly and passed the book to her. "I'm going with definition two."
" 'A person employed to tend fires; a –'," she read dutifully then stopped. Oh.
"Yes, Miss McCon—?" Mike prompted.
"Stoker!"
Fireman, n.
1. A person employed to extinguish or prevent fire; firefighter.
2. A person employed to tend fires; stoker.
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