was one for me.” The man extended a hand. “Frank Roberts. I was real sorry for what you went through.”
“Frank,” Caden said, returning the shake. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
“I was on that one, too, said a white-haired man sitting at the table. Damn impressed that you’re in this line of work after that accident. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to do that. Wallace Hart, by the way,” he said, giving a little wave.
Caden nodded, just about as gobsmacked as he could be that these men were not only still here but actually remembered him, too. Remembered what had happened. His father had never been willing to discuss the accident. Hell, his father had barely talked to Caden beyond that which was strictly required for basic life logistics, so to find people after all this time who’d been there, who knew what’d happened, who’d known Caden then. Dave was right. That was a helluva thing.
“You have time to sit?” Dave asked. “I could grab you a cup of coffee. And we have pie.”
A little overcome by their reaction to him, Caden nodded. “Does anyone say no to pie?”
“Not if they’re in their right fucking mind,” Frank said to a round of laughter.
Some of the men cleared out, leaving Caden, Dave, Frank, and Wallace at the table. The other three men all had a good twenty or more years on Caden, which maybe explained why they talked to and looked at him in almost a fatherly way. They asked about the aftermath of the accident, about what he’d done after school, about his training and station, and about his personal life—whether he had a family of his own.
“Not yet,” Caden said, finishing the last bite of his apple pie. “Truth be told, I had someone, but I messed it up. I’ve struggled with PTSD and anxiety ever since the accident, and I let it get the best of me. I’ve been working on how to make it right. How to make myself right. I guess that’s what led me here.” It felt right to be honest with them. And, frankly, he was in the middle of a more meaningful conversation about his life than any he’d ever had with his own old man.
Sitting next to him, Dave nailed Caden with a stare. “Let me tell you something, Caden.” He paused for a long moment. “We talked about you around here. Those of us on that call, we were all affected by what we encountered out there that morning, and we talked about it more than once. I’ll tell you straight, every single one of us was surprised as hell that you survived that accident. Your father, too, though the rear section of the car was in the worst shape. I can still picture how flattened it was. Like it had gone through a compactor.” The other men nodded. “Whatever difficulties you’ve faced, I imagine you came by them honestly after that. But you need to know that you surviving, that was a miracle to my mind.”
“Yeah,” Frank said. “You were damn lucky.” Wallace nodded.
Lucky.
For so long, Caden hadn’t believed such a thing existed, not for him. And here these men all agreed that’s what he’d been. Had he been looking at it wrong all these years?
Emotion clogged Caden’s throat and momentarily stole his ability to speak. He nodded. “I appreciate that because…because sometimes I’ve had to ask myself why I survived when my mother and brother didn’t.” He shook his head.
“It’s the wrong question,” Dave said. “A better one is, what happened because you survived? And I’ll tell you. Because you survived, you went on to become a paramedic. And what you did today for me, by coming in here and telling me what my help meant to you? There are people out there who feel the same way about you. You may never meet them—hell, you probably won’t, that’s the nature of the thing—but they’re out there for you just like you were for me. And I want to thank you for that, for what you said. Because this job makes you confront a lot of hard things and it takes you away from your family at all hours and it puts you in harm’s way, so it’s good to know that what I do—what we all do,” he said, gesturing at all of them seated there, “matters.”
“Amen to that,” Wallace said, raising his coffee cup and taking a swig.
As Dave’s words sank in, Caden felt a