Mmm. A lot of them know they would have done the same thing where a child’s at risk, but he broke SOPs and one of his team got hurt. It’s drilled into them: putting themselves in danger means putting the team in danger. It’s supposed to be sacrosanct, a line never crossed.

And being lauded in the press, that must be rubbing the salt.

It’s the whole ‘bravery’ label, public perceptions. A lot of firefighters resent it. And yet the adrenalin rush, the chance to play hero—I’ve heard Cooper say it’s why some of them go into the force in the first place.

She turns her face to the rain whipping at the window. And you, Cooper? What about you? Ben’s right: it’s complicated.

When they cross the railway line, into a bleak industrial suburb, she directs him, by memory, to a low warehouse complex sandwiched between two salvage yards. He pulls into the front car park and lets her out to explain to Security that she has a key but not a code to get past the gates. It’s not until she produces an invoice that they’re buzzed through.

Laura shivers and winds her scarf around her neck as they run from the car to the units. She’s trying to remember the way to 72B, the number engraved on the keytag.

Gideon breaks the silence. You know, your mother’s brother, the one who died in the well …

Steven?

People would have called him a hero, too.

~

Every year, when the invoice arrives, Laura thinks about getting rid of the storage unit. She’d taken over the rent when Kathryn died, always intending it to be a short-term solution to a problem she wasn’t ready to deal with. Her beautiful mother had been in good health, still working, strong—and seventy-seven, that terribly old-sounding number, had suddenly seemed too young for a heart attack, too young to die. The furniture and the filing cabinet, the welding gear, the potter’s wheel, the works in progress—all of them went to the unit Kathryn rented for storing her ceramics and stone pieces and what her mother used to call a whole lot of family junk. That was twelve years ago. At one point, Laura had almost decided to clear it out and bring in a removalist to shift the rest to her shed, but it was around then that she’d become interested in breeding butterflies. A better use for a shed.

She turns the key in the lock, hoping the barrel mechanism hasn’t fused or rusted, but it pops open with a click.

Bloody hell! Gideon’s surveying the unit from a clearing in the middle.

She’s dismayed, too. God, I’d forgotten how much is in here.