Scree

By JoAnn Stuart

"Scree" ©2000 JoAnn Stuart. "Emergency!" and its characters © Mark VII Productions, Inc. and Universal Studios. All rights reserved. No infringement of any copyrights or trademarks is intended or should be inferred. The settings and characters are fictitious, even when a real name may be used. Any similarity to actual persons, living or deceased, or to actual events is purely coincidental and is not intended to suggest that the events described actually occurred.

Thank you to Linda for your comments that always make the story stronger. Thank you to CJ for the editing, the html-ing and the home on your page.

Originally published on Station 51.

Staring at the ceiling through the gloom, my muscles growing tighter and tenser with each passing tick of the clock, I listened to the breathing of my wife. Her quick, shallow breaths told me that the woman I married seven years ago remained awake on her half of the double bed, as far away from me as she could possibly get without actually falling out, as if any contact with me could prove toxic.

Maybe she was right.

"Jo," I began again, "we're not going to get any sleep like this. I could go out on the sofa…"

"No!" she hissed, cutting me off. "The children will ask questions. My mother will ask questions. I am not going to ruin their Christmas. And, I'm certainly not about to explain this to them."

I nodded my acquiescence in the dark, although I knew she couldn't see the movement, even if she could bear to look at me.

After what seemed to be several lifetimes, I heard her breathing slow and deepen into the gentle cadence of sleep. Sleep which eluded me still. Trying to avoid jarring her any more than I already had that evening, I cautiously sat up and swung my legs to the floor, the shag carpeting oddly warm on my feet after the chill in the bed. I froze as Joanne stirred, but did not waken. When I was certain that I had not disturbed her slumber, I eased my weight up, cringing with every creak of the box springs that seemed to reverberate in the stillness of the room. Funny, I never noticed how noisy the bed was before.

As I stood, I scrunched my shoulders up to my ears in an effort to ease some of the tension there and in my neck, the vertebra popping and crackling, shattering the silence like so many mini-gunshots. Again I froze, as if by my lack of motion I could take back the sound. But it was too late. Actions of the past can never be undone, and Joanne sat up suddenly.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, her voice carrying a new note of rawness I had not heard before. A rawness born of the wound I had inflicted upon her, a wound still bleeding its emotional pain into the room, a gaping wound that would weep for a very long time. I had no Band-Aids for this.

"I'm just going to the bathroom."

She made no reply, but lay back down, turning onto her left side, a position from which she would be able to see if I spoke the truth about my destination or not.

Taking her silence for consent, I soundlessly crossed the six steps to the commode, flipped on the light, and left the door partway open, as if to assure her that I had no intentions of fleeing.

I let the water in the sink run, waiting for it to warm up, and I stared at my reflection in the mirror. What had I done? Well, that was a stupid question. I knew what I had done. Now Joanne knew, too. Johnny knew. The guys at the station knew. God knows how many people now knew. A better question might have been, 'why.' No. I didn't think I wanted to know why. To examine the reasons behind the flaw in my character. Maybe the question I should have been asking myself was how the hell could I resuscitate my marriage? Or, was it already coded DNR?

Glancing at the bathtub, I idly wondered if I could sleep in there. Surely, it would feel no less uncomfortable than the mattress I occupied with the woman I called my wife. With a sigh, I shut off the tap and dried my hands, decision made to provoke no further conflict tonight.

As I slipped back into the chilly bed, Joanne rolled the opposite way, presenting her back to me, clinging to the edge as if teetering on the brink of an abyss. I had already fallen in.

Less than a year ago, I would never have imagined our life could be like this. Joanne was nearing the end of the first trimester of her third pregnancy, happily anticipating the new arrival, day-long "morning" sickness notwithstanding. I was considerably less thrilled than Joanne, not looking forward to the chaos of a new baby, the walking the floor at midnight with a squalling, colicky bundle of joy, the four a.m. feedings, and the loss of freedom that one more kid entailed. I was also very worried about being able to support another child.

In what seemed to be a godsend, I was then offered a temporary training position in a city five hundred miles away, to help implement a firefighter-paramedic program. Although it meant I had to leave my wife and family alone for three months, the position would pay half again as much as I normally made, plus living expenses. The opportunity was too good to pass up from a financial standpoint, as the extra money would keep us in diapers and formula for quite some time. LACoFD granted me a leave of absence and Joanne's mother agreed to come and stay with her and the kids. I was glad she could come, even gladder I wasn't going to be there for three months of Joanne's pregnancy, and ecstatic that I would be so far away during my mother-in-law's stay.

One morning in early February, I scanned the crowd of people standing around the baggage claim carousel, and while they searched for their luggage, I searched for the firefighter who was supposed to meet me at the airport.

A tall, blond man in his mid thirties and I spotted each other at the same time, both of us seeming to recognize a fellow firefighter. He made his way over to me and asked without preamble, "Roy DeSoto?"

"That's me," I smiled, shifting my carryon bag to my left hand in order to shake his hand.

"Carl Smith," he said, by way of introduction, his strong, firm handshake equally perfunctory. "Is that all you have?" he asked, pointing to my small bag.

"No. I have a couple of boxes over at the cargo claim area."

He nodded, and with no further ado, he led the way through the congested room to the place where I could retrieve my things. I followed, vowing not to let this first impression prematurely color my perception of the three months that lay ahead. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Or, maybe he was just taciturn by nature. Or, maybe he wasn't sold on the paramedic program, yet. Whatever it was, I resolved to not let it bother me.

We made short work of retrieving my boxes and loading them into the back of Carl's car. Within minutes, we left the airport behind, and merged into the last of the morning's rush hour traffic. Forty-five minutes later found us pulling up behind a two-story brick station house in the business section of town.

"This looks like a pretty busy neighborhood," I commented.

"We average around four-hundred-and-fifty total calls per month at this station."

I whistled. That was a bit higher than I was accustomed to. "And you have ten firefighters stationed here?"

"Yeah. Well, eight now, since two of them will be paramedics."

My role there was to serve as the third paramedic, the senior partner, until the newly-minted paramedics had completed the requisite service hours and experience to work on their own. I, plus another seasoned paramedic, would rotate between all three shifts, working every other day. The schedule would be brutal, but that's what they were paying me the extra money for.

I looked up at the brick structure and smiled to myself. This would be my first station with a real fire pole, every fireman's fantasy.

I followed Carl inside the building that would be my home for the next three months. As Carl introduced me around, I couldn't help but notice that the other firefighters on C shift demonstrated the same aloofness as he. Only the two paramedics seemed genuinely glad to have me there. The reason for this unsociable welcome became apparent that evening, when several women arrived at the station.

As they paired off with the men whom they obviously knew quite well, the captain pulled me aside and basically told me that if I couldn't live with the situation, I could leave. I decided that I could live with it, as long as it didn't interfere with the paramedics' ability to respond to calls; after all, the extra-curricular goings on at this station weren't really my responsibility.

The training progressed satisfactorily for the first month, the paramedics being well grounded in pre-hospital emergency medicine. I truly enjoyed the variety of runs as well as the company of the men I trained, and the novelty of sliding down the pole continued to thrill me. As I correctly surmised, the schedule proved hectic. During the day, when not responding to calls, I had plenty of paperwork to keep me occupied, and in the evenings, I spent my few moments of free time either writing letters home or reading or watching television, and trying to avoid the couples in their various trysting places.

On my days off, I explored the city on foot, enjoying the diverse architecture, or sitting in one of the parks if the weather was good. Although I tried to keep my interactions with the other firefighters purely professional, the tense atmosphere in the station was hard to ignore as I encountered mounting pressure to participate in their activities, to condone their actions, to be one of the gang. I supposed they figured I would be less likely to point the finger of blame if I were guilty, too.

"We all have a mistress on the side to warm our beds at night. They're happy. We're happy. So, why not?"

"It's a no strings attached relationship. You'll be gone in less than two months. What could it hurt?"

"How long have you been married, anyway? Don't you get tired of the old ball and chain and all that responsibility?"

"Just have a little fling. She'll never know."

"Get with the times. No one expects men to be faithful anymore. You've got to live a little."

"You think you're better than us? I think you're stupid. You'll never know what you're missing."

"Everybody needs a little stress relief at the end of the day. A little TLC after a hard run."

I didn't know what finally knocked the last shred of my resistance out from under me, but rationalization made a slippery slope, and once I set my foot on it, I lost the ability to maintain my balance. Maybe it was the fatigue. Maybe it was the long days of challenging calls. Maybe it was the loneliness. Maybe it was the niggling notion that perhaps I was indeed missing out on something good, that I would never have another chance at it. Maybe it was a desire for one last fling before settling down to the responsibility of three children. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was because I let the idea be planted in my thoughts, and once firmly rooted, the fruit was soon ripe for plucking.

Her name was Sara and I felt a physical attraction for her the moment I saw her. Long hair, long legs, nice smile. She'd been coming to the station for about a week or so with one of the other women, but seemed not to be attached to anyone in particular.

When she sat down next to me that evening as I slumped in a stupefied lump on the sofa in the break room, I knew I should excuse myself and get up. But I was tired, bone weary, fatigued beyond good sense. We talked a bit and I enjoyed her smart and funny conversation, her wry wit so like my own. It energized me and I seemed to revive a little bit more when she moved just a bit closer. As I put my arm around her, I offered a token protest, "I've never done anything like this before." Of course, I'd found other women attractive in the past, done my share of looking, even joked about being married, not dead, but never had I done anything about it before, save entertain a passing fantasy, perhaps.

Her response, pitched only for my ears, pleased me, made me laugh, made me feel good, and my conscience accepted this counterfeit coin of self-indulgence as payment for my doing something more. I deliberately initiated a sexual relationship with someone who was not my wife.

Two weeks later, I got the call from my mother-in-law informing me that Joanne had miscarried. Her tone implied that I was to blame, for leaving my wife alone in such a delicate condition. Guilt consumed me, as if I had in fact caused the miscarriage by my misdeeds. Rationally, I knew this not to be true; but an insistent voice in my head nagged that I was an unfit father and an unfit husband. And that voice was right.

By the time I got home, Joanne had already been released from the hospital. I held her as she sobbed, whispered reassurances in her ear, and numbly comforted her as best as I could. Three days later, I had to leave her again. She cried. She said that she loved me. She begged me not to go back, so far away. But I did.

As soon as I returned from spending those few days at home, I broke off the relationship with Sara. That night when she came to me, I stiffened in her arms, and she knew it was over. She cried. She said that she loved me. She begged me not to send her away. But I did.

The remaining weeks of training flew by, although the individual days often seemed to drag on interminably. I was glad when the three months ended. Glad to leave the station with the fire pole. Glad to leave the stress of both the long hours and the unsympathetic atmosphere of the place. Glad to leave the daily reminder of what had been.

I thought I had readjusted to being back at home, back at Station 51, and that everything was back to normal, but something about me must have seemed off kilter to my partner, who I mistakenly assumed was as observant as a clam when it came to me.

"Roy, uh, you can tell me if I'm out of line here, but... But you seem, I don't know, kind of preoccupied since you got back."

I glanced at my partner in mild alarm. Was my guilt that obvious? "Well, you know Joanne had that miscarriage. Things are still a little rocky."

"Yeah. I was sorry to hear about that."

"She took it really hard. She really wanted that baby. She kind of blames herself for losing it. And, my mother-in-law blames me for going away when Joanne was pregnant."

"That's ridiculous. She would have had a miscarriage whether or not you were there. You know that."

The desire to lay bare my soul, to confess, to be absolved of the secret burden of guilt I carried, to just tell someone, seized me, and I found myself blurting out to my partner what I had done.

Johnny stared at me for a moment, then shifted his pensive gaze out the window. "I'll be the first to admit that I don't really understand women, Roy. But I don't think you should tell Joanne. It'll only upset her." He looked back at me. "I mean, it's over right? It's done. It's finished. You'll never see this other woman again. Right?"

"Right. It's over." Relief at Johnny's lack of condemnation flooded me, making me believe that I could compartmentalize the past and forget it.

But I was wrong. My purely carnal relationship would all too soon ensnare me with emotional and spiritual consequences I wasn't prepared to handle.

"Merry Christmas, Roy. I have a present for you." She handed me a copy of the birth certificate, with my name typed in the box entitled 'Father.'

Clutching the paper in my hand, I stared dumbfounded at this ghost from my past and the infant in her arms. This couldn't be happening. It was supposed to be over. A no strings fling.

But here they were, in the flesh, demanding retribution. Sara walked back into my life, with a new life I had fathered, and ended my existence.

The others gaped in stunned amazement at Sara's pronouncement. Cap mustered the presence of mind to usher Sara, the baby and me into the privacy of his office to continue our discussion.

"What do you want from me, Sara?" I asked, my shock making the words harsher than I intended.

"Child support." She tossed an envelope with the name of a law firm embossed in the upper left hand corner onto the desk, then started to jiggle the baby, who had begun to wail. "The details are in there."

I stared numbly at the missive, afraid to touch it, as if it would burn me. Actually, it already had.

After Sara left, I faced the others and briefly told them the story. No one really said much. Not even to make crude jokes about it. Later on, I overheard Chet and Marco talking about my revelation inside the locker room.

"Ah, c'mon. Who wouldn't jump at a set up like that?"

"Not everyone thinks like you."

"Yes, they do. They just don't admit it. Out loud."

"But he's married."

"Yeah. He is married. I didn't think he'd do something like that."

The interruption of the tones prevented me from eavesdropping on any more of their conversation, but I'd heard enough to know that I'd somehow let them down as well, diminished myself in the eyes of the only people who meant as much to me as my own family. I hurried across the engine bay, and jumped into the squad, thankful for the diversion of someone else's troubles to take my mind off my own for even a short while.

Johnny switched off the ignition after backing the squad into the station, but didn't open the door. By unspoken agreement, we decided to let him drive for the remainder of the shift, I being too drained to do it myself.

"Maybe she's lying. Maybe it's not yours."

"No. It's mine."

"How can you be so sure… " He looked at me askance. "What, you didn't use a condom?"

"Of course I did! I'm not stupid!" Irresponsible, but not stupid. Or, were they the same thing?

"What about paternity tests, then?"

"No." I shook my head. My first glimpse of the child confirmed that he looked just like Chris had as an infant, right down to the odd little wispy whorl of strawberry blond near the hairline by his forehead. "It's mine."

"Are you going to tell Joanne?"

"I have to tell Joanne. I can't just start paying out all that money… working the extra shifts…." I buried my face in my hands. How could this have happened? If I worked two extra shifts per month, the gross would cover the amount that Sara demanded. Three shifts, then. I would have to work at least three more shifts per month in order to make enough. I took cold comfort in the fact that my initial misgivings about supporting a third child seemed to be confirmed. And I would be working to support a child I would probably never see. My two weeks of gratis gratification bore a hidden eighteen-year price tag. Oh, god, the sentence accompanying this crime seemed so unfair.

"I'll, uh… whatever you need, Roy…"

"Thanks."

In the ensuing weeks after that first night, the night I finally told her about my indiscretion, my error, my sin, we battled about it constantly. The children learned to tiptoe through the minefield that had become our home, cautiously peeking inside a room before entering, to see if the spoken shrapnel would send them scurrying back to their foxholes, or if the coast was clear. We tried to not fight in front of the kids, we didn't shout or throw things, but heated skirmishes would frequently ambush our good intentions any time Joanne and I occupied the same space. As a result of the hostilities, Susan became more whiny and clingy, while Chris withdrew to his room. They didn't know what we fought about, just that war was hell.

Our altercations became our only means of communication, and soon the same old arguments began to recycle, making it difficult to determine where one ended and the next one began.

"How could you? I was here, at home, pregnant with your child. It wasn't easy, you know! Puking my guts out day and night."

"I didn't want the baby, Joanne!"

"Are you saying that you're glad I had a miscarriage?"

"No, honey, that's not what I meant…"

"Don't touch me!"

"I didn't do it to hurt you."

"Well, how noble."

"Do you love her?"

"No, I never loved her. It was just physical."

"Am I too fat and ugly for you? If you were that desperate, you could have used your hand at least!"

"Do you want a divorce?"

"Oh, no, Roy DeSoto. That's too easy. You married me and fathered two children. I see how Amy struggles alone. I'm sure that Sara…" she spat the name out as if it were poisonous, "will have a difficult time raising your son on what you send her each month. We're staying married. I'm not letting you out of your responsibility so easily. Besides, you're gone so often that it's almost like being divorced."

"I'm sorry."

"That's not enough."

"What would be enough, Joanne? You're making my life a living hell!"

"Oh, that's rich. Blame me for what you did."

I held up my hands in surrender. "I need to get out for a little while."

"Don't you dare walk out on me in the middle of this! Where are you going?"

Part of me childishly wanted to slam out of the house without answering her. I shoved that part back down; irresponsible behavior had caused this mess. Hand on the doorknob, without turning around, I replied. "I'm going to Johnny's."

"That figures. You spend more time with him than with me, anyway. Why don't you marry him?" she snapped.

Angry, I rounded on her. "Because I'm not in love with him!" I regretted the words the instant they left my mouth, knowing what her next question would be.

"And, are you in love with me?" I thought I detected a spark of pleading in her eyes, although her tone expressed only sarcasm.

Was I? I didn't feel any love at that moment. Was love more than a feeling? I hesitated a heartbeat too long before responding, "Yes, I love you, Joanne."

Her face hardened into the angry lines that seemed to be the only expression she showed me these days. "Well, you have a funny way of showing it. Get out." She waved her hands at me in a shooing motion. "I don't want to spend the evening with you, either."

After far too many beers with whiskey chasers, I looked across Johnny's kitchen, only to find that I couldn't focus on the hands of the clock. My voice sounded slurred to my ears as I asked, "What time is it?"

Apparently Johnny hadn't drunk quite as much as I, since he squinted at the clock and responded, "Almost midnight."

"I'd better go. Joanne's already mad at me." I rose unsteadily to my feet and fumbled in my pocket for the car keys, but Johnny managed to wrest them from my clumsy fingers.

"You can't drive home, you know. And, I don't think I'm in much better condition."

As the room tilted, I had to agree.

"We can give her a call…" Johnny continued.

"No," I said, flopping back down heavily on the hard chair. "It's too late. We'd only wake her up. Besides, she's mad at you, too."

Concern and confusion knitted Johnny's brow at my words, as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Never mind," I said, cutting him off. "It's not you. I think she hates all men right now." I closed my eyes, then immediately reopened them, as the lack of a visual reference point made me feel even dizzier. I didn't drink like this very often, and my body rebelled at dealing with the amount of alcohol I had consumed. "Joanne wouldn't care if I were dead," I continued morosely, my voice quavering. "In fact, maybe she'd be happier. She'd have the insurance money and be rid of me."

My statement rendered my partner speechless for a few seconds. Then he leaned forward and very soberly said, "Roy. You're not thinking of killing yourself, are you?"

I waved him back, struggling to regain my composure, the task made more difficult by my self-induced chemical imbalance. "No. No. That's just too many beers talking." Although, the way my head and stomach felt at that moment, death was not an unattractive proposition. Or, at least unconsciousness.

I lay my head on the table, hoping that would make me feel better. While the coolness of the Formica laminate felt good on my flushed face, the change in position afforded no real relief. Sitting back up, I asked, "You remember that movie where the guy was running real fast, and the ground was collapsing behind him?"

"Yeah."

"That's how this is. I can't run fast or far enough. The ground under my feet is crumbling."

The next morning, I awoke in John's lumpy recliner, my back, my head and my stomach all doing penance for my transgressions of the previous evening. More innocent bystanders paying for another lapse in my judgment.

Johnny found me scrubbing the latrine, a solitary station chore I had grown to prefer, and told me that Cap wanted to see me in his office. As I rinsed the chlorine cleanser off my hands, I mentally ran down the checklist of things that might warrant a summons from my captain. Professionally, I couldn't think of anything in my performance that had been less than stellar. Personally… personally was an area I didn't care to discuss.

Cap looked up from his paperwork and pushed it aside as I rapped on the doorjamb. "Have a seat, Roy." He beckoned to the chair next to his desk. "Oh, and close the door before you sit down."

I reluctantly complied with the order, my premonition that I wouldn't like this discussion to which he called me becoming stronger.

We sat in silence for almost a minute, Cap stacking and restacking the papers on his desk before speaking. "You know I'm not one to pry into the personal affairs of my men. Especially when they don't concern anything at work."

Expression blank, I nodded, my studied composure betrayed by the convulsive working of my throat as I tried to swallow.

"I know you and Joanne must be having problems," he finally said.

I nodded once in affirmation, then shifted my gaze to the window beyond Cap's right shoulder, but quickly looked away, as the bright sun glinting off the rain-slicked road made my eyes start to water.

"I can see you beating yourself up over it. But you're human, Roy. You made a mistake. You're not perfect." Cap's eyes crinkled a little at the corner as he added, "Although, god knows you paramedics try to be."

His hands began their restless shuffling of the objects on the desk once again. Abruptly he stopped, and looked me straight in the eye. "I don't share this with many people, and I'd appreciate it if what I say doesn't leave this office."

Once again I nodded, my throat too constricted for sound to escape.

"A couple of years back when Margaret and I were having problems, we went to see a counselor. A marriage counselor recommended by our pastor. I didn't really want to go, but I did want to try to make things work. Turned out that the counselor helped us a lot." Cap spread his hands with a small smile. "I mean, we're still together, still trying to make it work. And, while things are far from perfect, they are better than they were."

I nodded yet another time, feeling foolish, like one of those little dogs you see in the rearview window in some cars, heads mindlessly bobbing at every bump in the road. Finding my voice at length, I asked, "Do you have the name of this counselor?"

When Cap nodded, I had to fight the urge to laugh. He pulled out his wallet, removed a worn looking business card, and wrote down a name and phone number on a scrap of paper. He pushed it toward me and met my eyes. "I wish you well," he said, seriously.

I took the paper and put it in my own wallet. "Thanks," I said as I rose from the chair, the interview over, nothing more left to say.

The visit to the counselor yesterday was both worse and better than I'd expected. I hate admitting that I can't handle my problems by myself. I hate airing my dirty laundry in front of strangers. I hate feeling like this. I guess I hate a lot of things right now.

I was a little surprised that Joanne so quickly agreed to go. I thought she wanted to continue punishing me, making me suffer, making me as miserable as I had made her.

I suppose that's not an entirely fair statement, as she is not truly the source of all my pain. I do it to myself, my guilt accuses me, condemning me to my own, private purgatory.

One thing the counselor said keeps running through my mind, though. He said:

Love is more than a feeling. Feelings come and go. Love is a commitment.

So, this is the assignment the counselor gave us, to start a journal and write down our version of what happened. Mine's all jumbled up, I began in the middle. I guess I'm all mixed up, too. I can't begin to say how much I regret the pain I've caused Joanne, the kids, and myself. How I wish I could undo what I did. Through the kitchen window I can see a line of orange on the eastern horizon as I write this. I've stayed up all night again. I don't know what this new day holds for us. For her. For me. Or, for my new son. But I think I love them all.