“You ever think about that day?” Carmichael asked one night.
Walter looked down at his cup. “Every day. Not the hero stuff. The faces.”
“The ones you saved?”
“The ones I couldn’t.”
The judge was quiet for a moment. “You did what you could, Walter.”
“So did you,” Walter said. “That’s what matters.”
They raised their cups. Two survivors, still keeping their promise to breathe.
Rebecca and her family became his anchor. On weekends, they filled his apartment with noise—children’s shoes by the door, the smell of pancakes in the kitchen. Sometimes, late at night, he’d find himself smiling at the small handprints on his window. Life was messy again. Real again.
One evening, as they cleaned up dinner, Rebecca asked, “Do you ever wish you’d gotten help sooner?”
Walter thought about it. “Maybe. But then I wouldn’t have learned what help really means.”
