Page 3 of At First Spark
Another buzz.
Rowan. My grumpy eldest brother. It seems my family has come out of the woodwork this morning.
Rowan:Don’t screw this up.
Rowan:Proud of you.
I huff out a breath through my nose.
That’s exactly the kind of encouragement I expect from my brother. One line to keep me humble. One line to keep me steady.
I eat the second muffin because Mom put it in writing, and I’m not dumb enough to tempt whatever maternal forceruns this universe. Then I carry my coffee back to the bedroom and pull on the uniform.
Navy shirt first. The department patch sits over my chest, the stitching still new enough that the edges feel stiff. Then pants. Belt. Socks. Boots, laced tight. I tug once on each knot and stand.
The man in the mirror looks exactly the same as he did twenty minutes ago. But the uniform changes the frame around him. Sharpens things. Makes the morning feel less theoretical.
I think about all the hours that led here. Town meetings. Paperwork. Fundraisers. Training in neighboring counties. Long conversations about response times and insurance and equipment and whether this whole thing would actually become real or stay one more good idea everybody talked about and no one built.
People talk about emergency response like it comes built into a place. For years, if something happened in Coral Bell Cove, you waited. You called county and prayed the roads were clear, the bridge wasn’t backed up, and whoever you loved had enough time left in whatever crisis they’d fallen into.
Today, we’re the call.
My phone rings just as I’m grabbing my keys. Mom. I answer on the first ring. “Hey.”
“Hi, baby.” Her voice comes warm and steady through the line. There’s noise behind her—cabinet doors, the low murmur of a television, maybe Mason already pretending he isn’t listening. “Did you eat the muffins?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
I glance toward the empty container. “All of them.”
“That’s my boy.”
I smile despite myself and step onto the porch. Morning has brightened while I’m dressing. Sunlight spills gold over the edge of the field, burning off the chill one slow degree at a time.
“You nervous?” Mom asks, softer now.
I lean one shoulder against the porch post. “A little.”
“That’s alright.”
I look toward the truck parked at the end of the driveway. Beyond it sits the town and the station and the first real shift of something we built from almost nothing.
“It feels stupid,” I admit. “I’ve done the work.”
“Being nervous doesn’t mean you’re unprepared,” she says. “It means you care.”
I let that sit.
Then she adds, more firmly, “You don’t have to prove anything today, Holt.”
My fingers tighten around the porch rail. “It feels like I do.”
“No.” Her tone sharpens into certainty. “You don’t. You just have to come home.”
That one settles deep. It doesn’t erase the nerves. It changes them. Takes some of the performance out of them.
