Epilogue
Beck
One year later
I walked across the dampened ground, blackened and charred trees with flames still flickering in the distance behind me. My crew was at the end of a rotation, helping manage a fire deep in the backcountry in Alaska. It had been a viciously exhausting two weeks. This part of the forest had been hit hard with spruce bark beetle, leaving far too much dry fuel for the fire. Our crew had spent the good part of two weeks establishing a solid firebreak to keep the fire at bay in the distance with several small Alaskan Native villages at risk from the fire. A hotshot crew from Fairbanks was flying in within the hour to pick up where we were leaving off.
I missed Maisie so much, my heart ached. Just as much, I missed our son Max. I still loved my job and alway
