The Firefighter in the Snow

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cody had always wanted to be a firefighter; it had been a childhood dream. As a boy, it had seemed to him the noblest of professions. He had also always wanted to leave his hometown and go to a big city. In a way, he had made both his dreams come true. It had been bliss for the first few years. Slowly he had come to realize that sometimes dreams were but shiny fruit on a tree that turned out rotten on the inside. Living in New York was both curse and blessing—blessing, because in the anonymity of the megalopolis it was easy to withdraw; curse, because in the anonymity of the megalopolis he had learned that nobody truly cared.

Cody Laughman had left his hometown to be alone; now he was lonely. He ate breakfast alone and dinner by himself. When he wasn’t on the job, he was at home, doing chores, reading a book, or, more often, catching up on sleep. He didn’t own a phone. For work emergencies, he had a pager; for everything else, there was a pay phone in front of the parking garage across the street. No iPad, no computer—Cody didn’t believe in availability. He had nobody to be available for.

Which was why the information came via a letter.

He found it when he checked the mailbox after a very late breakfast. Expensive, heavy paper, an elegant header. Waterman & Son Law Firm. The letter was addressed to him; it simply stated to get in touch with the office as soon as possible. A phone number he found at the bottom of the page. Cody had never heard of them, but a chill crept down his spine when he read the location of the firm: Fairbanks, Alaska.

As it turned out, Waterman was a harsh-sounding woman with little time. Standing in the pay phone booth outside the parking garage, trying to ignore the stench of urine and cold ash, Cody listened as the woman told him he needed to get the house ready.

“What house?” he asked, because for one dumb moment he couldn’t make the connection. He was still tired. He wondered why he was never able to shake his exhaustion.

“Your parents’ house, at 1313 Aurora Avenue, Muffin, Alaska.” She was getting impatient, probably because she had more important clients to tend to. Although Cody wondered just how many clients she had on a Sunday in Fairbanks.

Her words didn’t make sense to him. “I thought it was already sold,” he said.

“No. Your father left it to you after he died, but there was a clause in the will stating that if it stood empty for more than three years, it was to be sold.” She made a pause for effect, then added as if he didn’t know it, “It has been three years.”

Cody took a deep breath. This was not as bad as he had feared. He could deal with that. So they’d sell the house, big deal. Good riddance. He gave a mental shrug and said, “Fine. What do I have to do?”

Selling it was for the best. He didn’t want to live in the house; it held too many memories. Besides, he didn’t want to move back to Muffin. A village as close to the North Pole as you could get while still being on actual land. It was cold. And dark. The money from a possible sale could only come in handy, too. Ms. Waterman informed him that the movie industry was growing in the Last Frontier state, which might mean, her choice of words, they could actually sell the property. All Cody had to do was fly out there and make sure the estate was in presentable condition. He cut her monologue short at this point. There was no way he would fly out there. Not only did he not have the money for an airplane ticket, but he didn’t want to set foot in the house he had run away from so long ago. However, Ms. Waterman’s desperation to get the house up for sale as quickly as possible came across vividly when she gave Cody the option to borrow the money for the flight from the possible profits of the sale.

“Unless of course the house doesn’t sell within the next six months. Then you’ll have to find another way to pay back the money for the ticket.”

Always a catch, he thought; it seemed his life was full of those.

* * * *

Leaving for Alaska meant Cody had to reschedule his work shifts and put up with the famous temper of his boss, who told him in no uncertain terms that being a firefighter was not a job like any other, where employees could take off whenever they pleased. Being a firefighter, he told Cody not for the first time, was not a job, it was a vocation. However, Cody had three years' worth of accumulated free days; the chief had to be lenient.

“Just make sure to be back on the twenty-second, Cody. You’re my fall-back guy for the Christmas and New Year’s Eve madness.”

Cody didn’t need to ask why that was; he didn’t have any family and therefore could be relied upon to volunteer for the holiday shifts. He literally had nothing better to do than sit in his apartment and wait for somebody to set fire to their curtains on Christmas Eve, out of idiocy or sheer desperation. And while Cody waited for yet another call to save someone’s life, night after night, day after day, holiday after holiday, he wondered if anybody out there would bother to save him, if they only knew he needed it.

Not for the first time he wished somebody did.