Last Man Out Read Free Page A

said he would drive them to Mount Auburn Hospital. It was the same hospital where Tommy and his sister had been born.
    â€œWhat happened?” Tommy said.
    â€œHe didn’t get out in time,” she said, and then added, “Not this time.”
    Tommy realized he was still in his uniform, but he didn’t care. He turned to see Greck and Nick standing there, just staring at him. Tommy handed Nick his helmet, just because he would have felt stupid taking it with him.
    Nick said, “I’ll get your bag.”
    â€œThanks.”
    Then Tommy was on his way to Coach’s car with his mom and Emily. He felt Emily take his hand as they all started running, saw his little sister running as hard as she could to keep up.
    Tommy saw his mom crying again.
    â€œFirst one in,” she said, as if talking to herself. “Last one out.”
    It wasn’t a long ride to the hospital and there wasn’t much traffic on a Saturday morning. Tommy’s mom told him as much as she knew, as fast as she could.
    She’d spoken on the phone with Brendan Joyce, Patrick Gallagher’s best friend since high school, who had also been at the scene of the fire. Brendan and Patrick had become firemen together.
    The fire had started in the kitchen of an old two-family house on the Allston side of the Allston-Brighton line. By the time Tommy’s dad and the rest of the crew from Engine 41 had gotten there, the flames were out of control.
    â€œThen they called for more guys to come to the scene,” his mom said. “Those were the sirens we heard, along with the ones from the ambulances.”
    Tommy’s dad
had
been the first one in, right through the front door with the hose. Brendan had come in right behind him. A kid on their crew, a probationary firefighter named Ben Storey, had worked the engine.
    â€œUncle Brendan said the fire was already at the front door when they got there,” his mom said. She started shaking her head. “Never good.”
    The mother of the family had been on the front porch, screaming that there were still kids upstairs. The front stairway had already been engulfed in a fireball, but Patrick Gallagher had been able to clear a narrow path with the hose and gone up the stairs.
    At the top of the stairs, Patrick had found two terrified little boys. He’d carried one piggyback and the other under his arm, somehow clearing enough of a path with the water shooting ahead of him to get them back down.
    In a quiet voice Coach Fisher said, “Of course he did.”
    It was when they were all back outside, according to Brendan, that the mother had started screaming again:
    â€œWhere’s my little girl?”
    Patrick Gallagher hadn’t even hesitated, even though the fire had been getting worse by the second. He’d gone back up the stairs, right into the heart of the fire. The next thing Brendan and the guys had seen was Patrick breaking a small upstairs window, making enough room to get the little girl through the opening.
    â€œUncle Brendan said he probably told them what he’d told kids before,” Tommy’s mom said. “That his friend standing outside hadn’t dropped anybody yet.”
    Brendan said he’d caught the girl right before more flames came shooting out of the window. He hadn’t been able to see Tommy’s dad after that.
    Tommy listened, still feeling as if he couldn’t breathe. He kept waiting for his mom’s phone to ring. But he wasn’t sure if he wanted Uncle Brendan or anyone else to call because he didn’t know whether the news would be good or bad.
    Or the worst news in the world.
    After the flames shot out of the window, Brendan saw everything that’d happened in the next moment. He saw the stairs collapse, saw Patrick jump from the second-floor landing.
    Watched Tommy’s dad nearly make it back through the front door before the roof caved in.

FOUR
    T OMMY G ALLAGHER KNEW BEFORE he