The really embarrassing part is that at first, I believed my dad. He railed against the injustice of a soldier being unable to find honest work, and I believed the world was out to get him. I thought those other firefighters were jealous, and that the fire chief was a coward who’d fired my dad two weeks before Thanksgiving because that was easier than believing him. Than confronting those other guys on their bullshit.

I even called him once. At the end of Thanksgiving break, when my dad was so upset about losing his job that he hardly got off the couch. When my mother had to work over the holiday, to get overtime pay. I went out into the backyard, where no one would hear me, and I called the fire chief, demanding to know how he could be so heartless as to let one of his best firefighters go right before the holidays.

He was super polite, but firm about the fact that he couldn’t discuss human resources issues with the child of a former employee. And I was so mad. In that moment, it felt like everything that was going wrong for us was the chief’s fault, for firing my dad, and I needed to know why. But he couldn’t tell me that my father had been showing up for work late, and high. That he had put other people’s lives at risk. That he was a liability to the entire department.

And even if he’d been allowed to tell me that, I don’t think he would have. Who wants to say something like that over the phone to a fifteen-year-old girl? So I got nothing from him but repeated, gentle, and humiliating encouragement for me to talk to my parents. Then, suddenly, my anger—my utter outrage—fell apart like a cookie crumbling in my fist. And I started crying. Right there on the phone with the fire chief.

I hung up when he asked if I was okay, and the next day, it was all over school, because the chief’s son had overheard him tell his wife how worried he was about Kyle Bergen’s family. That’s when the rumors at school reached a fever pitch. When I started to feel like people were staring at me and whispering behind my back. When—depending on my mood—I started either hurrying through the hall with my head down or making aggressive, confrontational eye contact with everyone I saw. And it all started with my father hiding text messages.

Just like Jake.

My mother exhales slowly. Pain crackles behind her eyes, as if I’ve just pried the coffin open and demanded she take another look inside. As if I’ve disinterred his memory.