Chapter 7 - The Next Thing
Six months later, I returned to Charleston.
This time, my clothes were clean.
Mom had organized a small dinner at home.
She promised it was small.
She lied.
Forty people were waiting.
I stopped in the doorway.
“Mom.”
She smiled innocently.
“What?”
“You said family.”
“These people are basically family.”
Henry Wallace raised a glass from the dining room.
“Welcome home, Director.”
Everyone applauded.
I groaned.
Grant walked over.
He looked different.
Not physically.
Something else.
Quieter.
His company had survived.
Barely.
He had sold two divisions to finance the safety recall and created an independent compliance board with authority even he couldn't override.
He was making less money.
According to Olivia, he was also sleeping better.
Grant handed me a beer.
“How's Washington?”
“Too many meetings.”
“You wanted authority.”
“I didn't realize authority came with PowerPoint.”
He laughed.
Then the doorbell rang.
Mom smiled.
I immediately became suspicious.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom.”
“Answer the door.”
I opened it.
Caleb stood outside with his mother.
He was holding something behind his back.
“Hey, Doc.”
“Hey, troublemaker.”
“You ready?”
“For what?”
He revealed a framed picture.
It was his original drawing from the night of Mom's retirement party.
The yellow bus.
The brown river.
The red rescue vest.
But he had changed one thing.
The stick figure had hair now.
A ridiculous amount.
I stared at him.
“Absolutely not.”
Caleb laughed.
“You complained.”
“This is worse.”
Everyone gathered behind me.
Caleb pointed at words he had written beneath the picture.
THE NEXT THING.
I stopped joking.
“You remembered.”
“Of course.”
His mother smiled.
“He says it before every soccer game now.”
Grant stood beside me.
“I've used it a few times too.”
I looked at him.
“You?”
“Board meetings.”
“Basically the same danger level.”
He laughed.
Then Mom approached.
She looked at her three children.
Olivia.
Grant.
Me.
“I spent years worrying that all of you were choosing the wrong lives.”
Grant smiled.
“Turns out we were just making them difficult.”
“Speak for yourself,” Olivia said.
Mom ignored him.
She looked at me.
“I worried most about you.”
“I know.”
“I thought because your life didn't look stable, you weren't building anything.”
I glanced around the room.
At my family.
At Caleb.
At Grant.
At the framed drawing.
“You weren't completely wrong.”
She frowned.
“I wasn't?”
“I didn't build much.”
Grant shook his head.
“Six thousand people work under you.”
“That's not what I mean.”
I looked at Caleb.
“I spent most of my life showing up when things were falling apart.”
Mom took my hand.
“And now?”
“Now I'm trying to build something before they do.”
She smiled.
“That sounds like something.”
Grant lifted his glass.
“To Nathan.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Everyone paused.
I raised mine.
“To the people who go back.”
Henry smiled.
“To the people who go back.”
Everyone repeated it.
Glasses touched.
Later that evening, Grant and I stood outside overlooking the harbor.
He leaned against the railing.
“You know what I keep thinking about?”
“What?”
“That party.”
“Mom's retirement?”
“Yeah.”
He looked embarrassed.
“I called you a failure.”
“Technically you said I could've been somebody.”
“That's worse.”
“Probably.”
He laughed.
Then became serious.
“I wish I could take it back.”
I looked across the dark water.
“You can't.”
“I know.”
“But you can do the next thing.”
Grant smiled.
“There it is.”
“There it is.”
My phone vibrated.
I checked it.
Emergency notification.
Grant saw my expression.
“You have to go?”
I nodded.
“Wildfire deployment out west.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
He looked toward the house.
“Mom is going to kill you.”
“Probably.”
“You just got here.”
“I know.”
Grant stared at me for a moment.
Six months earlier, he would have asked why someone else couldn't go.
This time, he simply asked:
“Need a ride to the airport?”
I smiled.
“Yeah.”
He opened the door.
“Then let's go.”
Mom complained.
Olivia hugged me.
Caleb demanded that I bring his picture to Washington.
And twenty minutes later, Grant and I were driving toward the airport.
There were no speeches.
No television cameras.
No applause.
Just two brothers in an old truck.
At a red light, Grant looked over.
“Hey, Nathan?”
“Yeah?”
“Come back safe.”
I nodded.
“I'll do my best.”
The light turned green.
And as Charleston disappeared behind us, I thought about the school bus, my family, the job waiting in Washington, and every stranger I would probably meet on the worst day of their life.
I couldn't control what happened next.
None of us could.
But Caleb had taught me something by remembering the words I had once used to keep him alive.
You don't have to solve everything at once.
You don't have to know how the whole story ends.
May you like
Sometimes you only have to do the next thing.
And make sure it's the right one.
