After the proposal, which I‘d spent fucking months planning, almost a year settling on the right ring. A nice pretty diamond, elegant all that shit that makes my girl, my girl. I’d taken her to the lake, the one a few hours drive from Ballylaggin. Dined her at a nice restaurant and had Joey, AJ, Johnny and Gibsie - or should I say fattie (Sue me, old habits die hard) set up a ton of candles and fairy lights all around the pier into the lake.

She’d cried, and I mighta shed a tear or two into the haven that was her hair after my killer speech and getting into one knee. I’d promised I’d keep her happy, safe. ‘I’m a 6,3 fireman, I’ll be damned if you ever scrape your knee again, you hear me?’

Aoife had mentioned to her to wear white. Everyone had helped. And so when we got married it was perfect. Utterly perfect. The big venue she wanted, with the drapey fabric on the walls, the roses, peonies and lilies with little wildflowers beside them. The wildflowers that had grown on the grass after my Mam’s house burnt down. When I was just a kid.

It was the fact she remembered and seamlessly slid her hand into mine when we were at the florists when she suggested them. Like she knew every inch of me, insecurities and weaknesses - and she held me stronger.

After the fire I knew I wanted to be a fireman. It had taken a while, but after having some careers day at Tommen when I was in my third year I decided - I’d save people from fires - wether they were worth saving or not, because no one should lose parents the way I did. If they even were parents to me. Edel and John were more parents to me than mine ever had been.

So for months I trained alongside the intakes, got accepted, and became a firefighter. And I felt proud returning to my wife every day. Cause maybe I’d just ran drills at the station. Or put out a bonfire in a field. Or taught a school assembly on fire safety, on the odd occasion. But I’d done something.

So four years into my career, when we had a baby boy on the way I totally relapsed. Like royally.

I believed myself to be over that shite, the utter dread and fear that had gripped me when we drove past the house again, seeing nothing but charred ashes, and burnt grass and charcoal covered fences. But when we drove to that house fire tonight - the family was huddled outside. Two little girls, who were screaming at their older sister to get out. Two of us had moved them out of harms way, half of us had been getting equipment out as me and some of the others ran forward towards the house.

For some un-fucking-known reason I went into the house first, slipping my oxygen mask into place, I climb up the stairs, stamping out a flame that flickered at the edge of the carpet. I extinguish the flames on the carpet on the upstairs landing. I bang open doors, and find a young girl passed out from smoke. I hurry into the room, scooping her up, and get her out. But it feels like flames stop me at every turn. It’s a blur after that. We stumble out, I get her on the stretcher and for a moment I see her face. Mam’s.

Every Hurley game she missed. Every parent’s evening. Every excuse she gave Dad. Everything came back.

So when I toed my boots off at the front door, and walked the newly refurbished hallway to the stairs, past newly renovated rooms and slipping into the master, where I see my wife, curled up on her side of the bed, in one of my shirts I shake my head as I close the door.

She looks up, and recognises the look on my face as an appropriate time to hold me. She abandons her book, and unzips my jacket. Past thick fireproof layers until it’s thin enough that I can feel her.

My arms encircle her, as my head falls to her chest and I whisper roughly. “I saw her. I fucking saw her face tonight. There was a fire and- and the girl she- I thought she was Mam-“ my voice broken on the word and her shushes as she stroked my hair was enough to ground me. I’m safe. I’m at home. With my girl.