“We could add some of these to the tree,” he said after a minute. “To remember and honor the good chapters.”
So we stood together and placed a handful of the ornaments Marcus and I had shared between the newer ones Fraser and I had picked up at the Christmas market last week—tiny knit mittens, a wooden bear for Fraser, a delicate little ceramic book that somehow felt like me. The tree didn’t look curated or elegant. It looked lived in. It looked true.
When we finished, Fraser settled behind me on the couch, arms wrapped around my waist. We sat like that, looking at the lights, sipping mulled wine, and listening to a jazz version of “Silent Night” crackling from the old record player.
“I love our first Christmas together,” Fraser murmured against my ear.
“It’s not the l-last.”
“No, we’ll have many more, sweetheart.”
I turned in his arms and pulled him close, burying my face in the crook of his neck.
Outside, the rain continued its quiet rhythm. Inside, we held each other under the soft glow of a tree that now held pieces of two lives woven into one. A past honored. A future beginning.
And in that in-between space, I found peace.
24
FRASER
Two weeks into the training program in Missoula, I remembered how much I’d loved the rhythm of early mornings and structured days. Wake up before dawn, stretch the stiffness from my knee, grab the thermos with coffee Calloway made me and a homemade breakfast sandwich, and head into snow-covered classrooms full of eager, slightly terrified rookies who hadn’t yet figured out just how many ways fire could outsmart you.
It felt good to be back. Not in the “I wish I’d never left” way, but in the way you smile when you bump into an old friend who reminds you of a different version of yourself. I wasn’t trying to revive my old life. I was integrating it into the new one.
Calloway helped. He adapted to Montana with quiet resilience. He’d never been here before—never dealt with snow measured in feet, not inches—but I’d watched him break in his boots with a sense of purpose, stack the fridge in our rental house with enough soup ingredients to feed an army, and coax warmth into the cold, boxy space with the fireplace and a massive stack of throw blankets.
Each day, I left for the forest service office before sunrise, a thermos in one hand and a goodbye kiss still warming my lips. When I returned in the evenings, he was always there—either reading in the worn armchair we’d dragged closer to the fire, or curled up on the couch with his laptop open, editing his memoir.
Our days orbited each other without effort. Which made returning to my old orbit—even if for only one night—feel like stepping into a different kind of gravity. I’d asked Calloway to come with me for a reunion with my old crew, but he’d declined, saying I needed time with them alone. Maybe he was right.
Friday evening, I left him in the living room, a mug of cinnamon tea warming his hands, a blanket drawn up to his neck, and a book resting in his lap, and drove to The Timberline Tavern downtown. It was the kind of place that hadn’t changed in twenty years, with dark wood booths, peanut shells on the floor, and beer signs that buzzed just a little too loudly. The air smelled like sawdust, whiskey, and the memory of cigarettes long since banned.
I spotted my old crew immediately. They were in a corner booth near the pool table, already halfway through beers. Martinez stood to greet me first, his wide grin as familiar as my own name. He’d filled out in the years since he’d been a rookie, but the mischief in his eyes hadn’t dimmed one bit.
“Well, if it isn’t Grandpa Smokejumper,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder with enough force to make my leg wince. “Thought you got lost in the Pacific Northwest.”
I grinned, squeezing his shoulder in return. “Figured I’d wear flannel, grow a beard, and make peace with the rain.”
“Peace?” boomed Chase, our sawyer and a walking mountain of sarcasm and biceps. “You? You were born to argue with wind direction.”
They all laughed, and I let it wash over me. The jokes, the camaraderie, the way our conversation fell into old patterns like we’d seen each other last week instead of a year ago.
Dinner was greasy and perfect—burgers dripping with melted cheese, fries so salty they probably violated a health code. We passed pitchers of beer around—alcohol free for me since I was driving home—and shared stories, none of which ended the way they were supposed to. Martinez reenacted the time a raccoon broke into our truck mid-briefing, and Chase reminded everyone of my spectacular wipeout on the muddy slope in Idaho.
“Still think about that tumble every time it rains,” he said, chuckling. “You went down like a sack of bricks with grace.”
“I still have the scar,” I replied, touching my right elbow reflexively.
“You should see his biggest one, on his shoulder,” Martinez said, elbowing me. “Some shrapnel from the Oregon tree incident, right?”
“More like an entire widowmaker decided to get revenge. That rookie still owes me beers for life.”
It felt good. Familiar. Like shrugging into an old jacket you didn’t know you’d missed. These were my people, the ones who understood without explanation what it meant to run toward fire, to live on smoke and adrenaline, to catch your breath only when the season ended.
Later, as we had switched from beer to bourbon, sticky with condensation, someone asked about retirement.
“You miss it?” Chase asked, not unkindly. Just curious.
