25 June 1994 – West Ware Road, Enfield, Massachusetts

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”

Jeff’s smile threatened to split his face wide open; he’d never seen his little sister look lovelier, or happier. He stood next to Stu and Matty Masterson -- Stu’s almost eight year-old son -- as one of Stu’s groomsmen. While Matty was Stu’s Best Man as far as he was concerned, the state required an adult as a witness, so Jeff’s name would be on the marriage certificate.

Kara looked at her soon-to-be-husband with pure adoration. She smiled down at Matty. The two forged a special bond as she and Stu formed their own. Kara understood that she’d inserted herself into a very special dynamic.

Stu Masterson met Jenni Kim early into his first Navy enlistment, in March of 1983; she was a nineteen year-old waitress at a favorite breakfast place just outside Naval Submarine Base Bangor, Washington. Her parents were not fans of Stu. Stu and Jenni fell in love and married by the end of that enlistment; her parents cut off all contact shortly after they announced their intent to marry.

They didn’t tell her parents when Stu was reassigned to NSB New London, Connecticut and the submarine training school there in 1987. Her parents had made their decision which made the young couple’s easier; they moved without informing her parents. They didn’t inform them a year later when she gave birth to their grandson.

Stu’s family was the only family he called two and a half years later when Jenni was killed by a drunk driver. That driver hit her head-on as she drove home from work in 1991, just before he was to reenlist for a third four-year hitch. Instead of receiving transfer orders, he was granted a hardship discharge from the Navy. He and Matty landed in Wilbraham, Massachusetts soon after, the hometown of a buddy from New London who recommended it as a good place to live.

The youngest of five, Stu was fully a dozen years younger than his next-oldest sibling, an ‘oops’ baby. His parents held the Masterson family together; when they both died within six months of each other - his mom of cancer and his father of loneliness - he and Matty found themselves alone. There was no common ground between him and his siblings without their parents so they drifted out of contact.

Stu’s life focus narrowed to Matty’s well-being. He found a local EMT class offered during early evenings, and a babysitter available those two nights of the week. He signed up. By the end of 1991 Stu was a certified Massachusetts EMT. He found a home-based daycare that would accommodate his unusual schedule once he started at CRVA. Both did their best to help out the single father.

It was while working at CRVA that he started to make good friends again: Connie Willis, Bill Harris, and Gene Choamsky; Jeff Knox joined that list when he started. Stu helped train Jeff and partnered with him for a July 4th detail in Jeff’s hometown. Jeff introduced Stu to his family there.

It was in that instant that Stu’s life changed again. A pair of hazel eyes froze him in his tracks when Jeff introduced him to a young lady -- Jeff’s younger sister, Kara. Stu’s mind registered that on some level the eyes’ owner looked a lot like Jeff. He couldn’t help but stare at her. Something about her reminded him of Jenni in a way that no woman had since Jenni’s death.

Stu spent the entire cookout portion of their standby detail talking with Kara, then another three hours at Jeff’s apartment doing the same. The drive back to the CRVA garage following their detail was the cherry on top: Jeff suggested that Stu go out with his sister if he wanted to. It was like an invisible wall crumbling away. Stu helped Jeff put the ambulance away, then rushed home to Matty.

“Matty, I think I’ve just met someone special. You need to meet her.”

Stu and Kara’s first date was at his apartment with Matty there, both at her insistence. Kara won Matty over almost right away by talking to him like he was an adult, not as an almost six year-old boy. Matty gave his dad a nod during dinner.

“I like her,” he told Stu later that night.

Stu and Kara dated often after that. On most of their dates, they spent hours talking. By October she offered to watch Matty on the evenings and nights Stu worked; that’s when she and Matty started to bond even more. By July of 1993 Stu proposed marriage with Matty’s urging and Joe Knox’s blessing. They opted for a small wedding in her parents’ back yard rather than a large church wedding.

After the ceremony, the new husband and wife walked down the aisle with their son following behind. Matty Masterson hugged his father before turning to Kara and giving her the same fierce hug. Matty then whispered into her ear. Kara’s hand shot to her mouth as tears leaked from her eyes.

“Really?” she sobbed. Matty nodded and she wrapped him in another hug.

“Babe?” Stu asked with concern.

“Stu, he asked if he could call me ‘Mom.’”

Jeff was glad Stu and Kara’s invitations asked everyone to dress comfortably and for the weather, forgoing the normal dress clothes for such an occasion; even the bridal party dressed down for the ceremony, wearing summer casual clothes. Jeff sat in a lawn chair with his feet up, holding a beer, while the party continued around him.

A plate of barbecue chicken, beans, cole slaw, and potato salad sat in his lap. He soaked up the sun, happy his sister and his friend had found someone to spend their lives with; the fact that ‘someone’ turned out to be ‘each other’ was pretty cool. The almost ten-year age difference didn’t matter to them or his family. Jeff looked over at the person who dropped into the chair next to him.

“This meal isn’t going to do anything for my figure.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your figure, Heather, and you know it! You’re twenty-six and an absolute beauty! Geez, woman, stop fishing for compliments.”

“Maybe something needs to be wrong with my figure! I keep attracting every numbnut and dickhead in the Metro Boston area! And that’s at the BU library!”

“Well, you do look fabulous Heather, all kidding aside.”

“Thanks. And thanks for being my date today; I didn’t want to come solo.”

“I though you were my date?”

“Potaytoe, potahtoe. How have things been in Malden?”

“Busy. I’m about to change my work schedule to get ready for paramedic school. The good news is that Sean wants to keep on being my permanent partner.”

“I would imagine being the owner’s son helps with scheduling, too? Has anyone else figured out who he is?”

“No, which is shocking to the both of us; we figured someone would have figured it out by now. I don’t think even the HR person knows. And that ties into his scheduling, too. We requested to keep working together in an open schedule slot; that’s why we’ll still be together, not because he’s Seamus’ son. I have to give the kid a lot of credit: he wants to know the job before he tries to run the company.”

“‘Kid?’ He’s only two years younger than you!”

“Potaytoe, potahtoe. How is the quest for your Masters going?”

“I’ll finish in time for the October commencement ceremonies, which is fine with me. I’ll already be working on my doctorate by then. Speaking of doctorates, any word from Allison? I know Kara sent her an invitation. It would have been cool to see her again.”

“She sent a card and a gift,” Jeff shrugged. “She’s already started her Ph.D., which doesn’t surprise me. She said she was sorry that she couldn’t make it back for the wedding, but that she might be up later this summer. By Christmas, at the latest.”

“It’s too bad the timing hasn’t worked for you with any of us. Pauline, Allison, me? I’m surprised you have any capacity for love left in you sometimes with how we left you high-and-dry.”

Jeff’s feet dropped to the ground as he sat straight up.

“Whoa, where is this coming from? Is that what you guys think you’ve done? Left me ‘high-and-dry?’” Jeff asked, surprised. “Don’t I tell you enough how lucky I’ve been to know all you ladies and to still count you as friends? You’re here with me now even though there was no ‘spark’ when we dated. Allison, Pauline, and I are still in touch with each other on a semi-regular basis. How can I complain about any of that?”

Heather had no answer for him; she sat in her chair staring out at the woods.

“Heather? Heather, what’s going on?”

“What ... What if he’s not out there, Jeff? What if I’ve already met him and don’t know it?”

“Heather? This isn’t like you. What’s the matter?” She didn’t answer him again, only shaking her head as her eyes watered. “You think you’re destined to be an old spinster or something? You think you’re going to be alone, is that it?” She continued to stare at the trees.

“It amazes me how often smart people can be so dumb. Heather, like I said to you five years ago, some guy is going to be very lucky when he gets to date you long-term; you just haven’t found the guy who is good enough for you. So, as a very wise woman said to me five years ago: ‘cut this I’m-feeling-sorry-for-myself shit out, or I’m coming over there to kick your ass!’”

She barked her trademark laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that. I fight dirty.”

“If it isn’t dirty, you’re not doing it right,” he responded as he leaned towards her and wagged his eyebrows.

Heather barked another laugh. “Keep dreaming, hotshot; I’m a double black diamond ski trail, not a bunny slope. You ain’t ready for all this.”

“That’s the Heather I know!”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, have you heard the latest report on the World Trade Center bombing from last fall?”

“No, I’ve been busy with helping Mom and Kara out with today. What’s the report say?”

“The Fibbies say the Arab terrorists who carried out the attack were angry with the US for being in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.”

“We’re all just dirty infidels, that kind of thing?”

“Yeah, and they’re mad at us for bringing our unclean water purification technology, too.”

Jeff shook his head. “So we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t yet again? If we’d stayed out of the Gulf War, we’ve have been called ‘selfish,’ and because we went -- at Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s request, mind you -- we’re still targets? Great. They can do it themselves next time.”

“You’d think between the Soviets and us we could keep a lid on these extremists.”

Jeff snorted. “The Soviets can’t even keep a lid on their own trouble-makers. The power-brokers welcomed back the hardliners in 1991 when they deposed Gorbachev, but now those same people are getting fed up with the empty promises the hardliners keep making. The fact that they touted how good their military hardware was before we blew it all to kingdom-come in the Gulf War hasn’t helped. They can say it was poor use of it by the Iraqis all they want, but the truth is we cut through it like the proverbial hot knife through butter. It wouldn’t have mattered who was using it.”

Jeff and Sean walked into one of Brophy’s contracted facilities in early August. The Malden House wasn’t as bad as the River House in Springfield, but it wasn’t the Ritz Carlton, either. The nursing home odor was mercifully faint here. This call would be Sean’s tech; that is, he’d be the one riding in the back with the patient.

He and Sean stepped up to the nurses’ desk and asked for the patient’s chart. The nurse behind the desk dropped the chart on the counter and turned back to her television. Jeff and Sean shared a look before Sean started his paperwork. Another nurse walked behind the desk.

“Who are they here for?” she asked the first nurse.

“The gorked gook,” she replied. Sean frowned at Jeff. The first nurse looked up. “They told us she spoke English when she came here, but she hasn’t said anything in the last week. Just some gibberish when she first got here.”

“What room?” he asked Sean, ignoring the two women.

Sean flipped the chart closed and look at its spine. “Seven. Bed by the window.”

Jeff got a look at the patient’s name before he walked away. He pushed the stretcher down the hall to the indicated room.

Peering inside Jeff saw an older Asian woman staring out the window; her roommate wasn’t in the room. Given the patient’s last name, and the report that she spoke ‘gibberish,’ he took a chance.

“Hayashi-sama?” he asked as he stepped into the room. She looked back at him, surprised that someone in the Malden House would speak Japanese. He bowed to her and continued in that language.

“Konnichiwa, Hayashi-sama. I’m Jeff. My partner Sean and I have come to take you to your appointment.” Mrs. Hayashi continued to look at him in shock. “It’s been some time since I’ve spoken Japanese, so I apologize for my pronunciation.”

“Your pronunciation is perfect. I am shocked to find someone here who speaks Japanese. How is it that you know the language?”

“My best friend, ma’am. He taught me while we were roommates in the Army together.”

“He taught you well.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How long have you been here?”

“A week. My ‘loving’ daughter and her good-for-nothing husband found a way to dump me here after my leg surgery. They’re off on some year-long cruise around the world while this place sucks my accounts dry.”

“You can’t return home once you’re finished with your rehab?”

She snorted. “After my husband died, our daughter convinced me to sell our house and move in with them. My grandson was in college, so there was plenty of room for me; now he’s graduated and in Korea on his first assignment for the Army. His parents, my daughter and son-in-law, sold their house and arranged to put me in here while I was in the hospital following the surgery; I don’t have anywhere left to go. I speak English very well, but I’ve chosen not to speak a single word to anyone here until now. I’m not sure who I can trust.”

Jeff nodded, trying to wrap his head around the situation. Sean entered the room; Jeff put his finger to his mouth in the universal sign for quiet. They helped Mrs. Hayashi onto the stretcher and removed her from the facility without a word. Jeff offered to tech this call and to explain everything to Sean later. Sean nodded, trusting his partner.

“They dumped her there?” Sean growled as they waited at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for Mrs. Hayashi’s appointment to finish. “I can’t believe anyone would treat a parent like that!” He was pissed.

“Calm down, Sean. I know you want to help her, but we need to research her situation a little more. Can you talk to your dad? See if he has any ideas what we should look for and who else we should potentially talk to?”

“I’ll call him tonight when I get home. We can put those two nurses on the list of people I’d like to see fired after all is said and done.”

“Agreed. Looks like they’re done, let’s bring her back.”

Jeff looked around the classroom as he settled into his seat; it was the day after Labor Day and his first day of paramedic school.

The other students seemed to be about his general age. He gathered from his application and interview that he was on the low end of the normal applicant’s experience range. He wondered if his Army experience and the fact he earned his degree while in the Army helped sway the admissions committee at all.

The textbook for the class was about two inches thick. It contained a bunch of photos the average person would find disturbing. He found them interesting. This confirmed something that he’d noticed about his fellow EMTs and himself: they were all a little sick. He and Charlie often joked about things they saw at work, but they waited until they weren’t around ‘regular’ people. Those people wouldn’t understand the need to joke and blow off the pressure that silently built up inside.

An actual weekend off was a foreign concept to many in public safety or other twenty-four hour professions. The Monday through Friday daytime class schedule would take some getting used to again; EMS was not a Monday-through-Friday, nine-to-five job. There’d be days coming up where he’d go to class from nine to five, drive home to have a nap, report to work for the overnight shift at eleven p.m., and then drive back to be at class at nine the next morning. He’d do that twice during the week and work a twenty-four hour shift every Saturday to get his forty hours.

While Sean would be on the same work schedule as Jeff, the younger man would have days off during the week to get errands done while Jeff was in class. With any luck Jeff might be able to take care of any errands, with the exception of shopping, that needed to be done while at work on Saturdays.

The first day of class, as with his EMT class, covered administrative requirements. They went over the syllabus and which books would be required beyond the text book; there weren’t many other than the text. A couple of them raised his eyebrows, but he wasn’t the instructor and she’d been teaching paramedic students for a number of years.

He already read the first three chapters of the text and was well ahead of the curve. Jeff knew he would carry the text and the other books to work with him often over the year of class time. Then, by the end of the academic year in May, they’d be into hospital clinical rotations and ambulance field internships.

“Is she ready to go?” Jeff asked Sean one night two months later.

“Yeah, she says her leg feels strong enough for those few stairs at my house whenever we can move her.”

“It was cool of you to offer her a place to stay at least until her grandson gets back.”

“She’s a nice lady; she reminds me a lot of Mammy,” Sean explained. I can truthfully say that I would have never put Mammy in a place like that.”

“So we’re ready to move if they call tomorrow?”

Tomorrow was Monday and Jeff didn’t have class; the instructor would be at her son’s school that night for parent-teacher conferences. He and Sean were working later that night, but they’d gladly forfeit some sleep to make sure Aiko Hayashi was out of that place.

“Yep. The troopers will call once they’ve made their arrests. We’ll just go in there like we’re taking Aiko to an appointment while they tear the place apart. I’m gonna crash in the bunk room tomorrow during the day in case they do call.”

“Do you want to crash at my place instead? It’ll be quieter and I know Charlie and Emilie won’t mind.”

“Okay, thanks, I’ll do that,” Sean grinned.

The partners were able to swing by Sean’s place in Melrose while on-duty to get an overnight bag for him. As soon as their relief took over in the morning, Sean and Jeff headed to the condo.

Charlie was already at Malden Hospital, but Emilie was still making herself breakfast when they arrived. They got Sean set up in the guest room upstairs before she needed to get ready herself. They were both asleep soon after Emilie left at eight. Sean woke around one in the afternoon and wandered downstairs. He found Jeff at the dining room table with a coloring book, of all things.

“What the hell is that? Are you back in kindergarten?”

“Har, har, wise guy. This is homework for paramedic school, an anatomy coloring book; there’s one on physiology, too. I thought I’d be wasting my time with them when class started, but coloring this anatomy book here is already paying off; it’s helping me memorize things a lot easier. As one of my favorite sayings goes: ‘If it’s stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.’”

“At least you’re using colored pencils and not crayons.”

“I already wore out my box of crayons.”

Sean shook his head at his partner’s sarcasm. The phone began to ring. Sean stepped into the kitchen and saw from the Caller ID that it was Brophy calling.

“It’s Brophy. You want me to pick it up?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Hello? ... Hey, Dad, it’s me. Jeff’s right here, did MSP call? ... We’ll be there in fifteen minutes ... Okay, thanks, Dad. Bye.” Sean hung up and turned to Jeff.

“‘The balloon’s gone up,’ as you like to say. Dad’s gonna have one of the crews start getting Twenty-five out of the garage for us; it’ll be outside when we get over there.”

Ambulance Twenty-two was the truck they used last night and the day shift was now using it. Seamus reserved Twenty-five for them, and it was already checked out.

“Works for me. I’m glad we decided to shave and shower before taking our naps, just in case. Let’s go get dressed.”

Jeff and Sean drove over to Brophy’s garage and got up to the Malden House in thirty minutes. The parking lot teemed with State Police cruisers, marked and unmarked. A trooper posted at the lot entrance stopped them.

“You guys here for the woman they told us about?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Mrs. Hayashi,” Sean answered.

“Okay. We left the ambulance entrance open for you guys. Do you need someone to guide you in?”

“If someone’s available, ma’am? It’s a little tighter in the lot today than usual.”

The trooper guided them to the indicated parking spot herself, then returned to her post. Another trooper nodded to them as they entered. They walked down the hall unmolested; the staff looked frightened, as they should be.

Sean and Jeff knocked on the door frame of Room Seven. They stepped in and bowed to Aiko Hayashi who stood and bowed back.

“What needs to be packed, ma’am?” Sean asked in English, the time for subterfuge now gone.

“Just the clothes and the few keepsakes I have here on the table. Everything else is already in storage,” Aiko answered in English.

“Is your daughter is paying for a storage place for you?” Jeff asked, shocked.

“No, Jeff,” she laughed, “I am, though she set that up. An automatic payment linked to one of my accounts.”

The two young men packed her things in no time. When asked, Aiko said she’d prefer to walk out of the facility, not ride on the stretcher; they used the stretcher to carry her things. Sean offered her his arm and escorted her out of the room for the final time. Head held high, Aiko Hayashi walked without a care down the hall of the place she’d considered a prison for the past two months.

She pulled Sean into the large common room where the State Police held the staff while they searched the building. Aiko asked for and received permission to address the nervous staff. She released Sean’s arm and stepped to the front of the room.

“This is gonna be good,” Sean whispered. Jeff and the trooper by the door both agreed.

“I have had the misfortune to spend the past two months and thirteen days in this facility,” Aiko announced in a strong, clear voice. Many in the room blinked when she spoke; many more cringed when she spoke in English.

“Ninety-nine percent of the employees I interacted with here deserve every single thing that is coming to you. Your attitude and behavior toward me and the other residents was deplorable. That you say the things you say to society’s helpless proves to me that you are in the wrong line of work. It also convinces me that you must have chosen this work so that you could inflict pain and suffering on others. My stay here has convinced me that places like this are America’s new concentration camps. And, believe me, I know what an American concentration camp is like. You can all go to hell.

“To the few of you in this room who tried to provide comfort to us, I say ‘thank you.’ Please know that none of you, nor your fellows like you who are not here today, deserve any of what the others will receive. I know you have been outraged at what you’ve seen and that many of you have spoken up. Do not let the rest of these bastards sully the name of your respective professions. Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep speaking up and speaking out. Have no fear: heads will roll, and they won’t be yours. Good luck to you.”

Finished with what she had to say, Aiko walked back to Sean and Jeff. “We can go now, boys.”

“Yes, ma’am!” they said quickly, following Aiko to the ambulance entrance as she strode down the hall.

They loaded the stretcher into the ambulance and helped Aiko into the front passenger’s seat. This was more of a taxi ride than an ambulance transfer; there would be no paperwork and, more importantly, no bill. The ride to Sean’s house took twenty minutes. His car was in his driveway as he backed the ambulance into it.

“Hey, how’d my car get up here?” Sean asked.

Before Jeff could answer Seamus and Colleen, Sean’s step mom, stepped out of his house to greet them. Sean helped Aiko out of the ambulance and escorted her to his waiting family.

“Welcome home, Mrs. Hayashi,” Seamus said as she approached.

“‘Aiko,’ please.”

Sean invited her in to see where she would live for the near future. Aiko complimented him on the home’s interior; Sean indicated that Colleen, a designer, was the person responsible but that he learned much from her. The bedroom they gave her was as large as the one she shared at the Malden House and smelled much better; she was stunned. The surprise at her room was nothing compared to the surprise when she saw the back yard.

The yard, which backed up to a state reservation, made one forget that you were ten miles from the Boston city limits. It was quiet and shady with a number of places to simply sit and unwind, tucked in along the edge of the property. Aiko would be able to truly recover here.

The following weekend a large group gathered in a restaurant in Newton, not far from the Boston College campus. The three dozen friends and family members were celebrating Heather’s Masters degree in history; she decided to forgo a big celebration and just have the people who were important to her with her today.

The restaurant didn’t have a separate function room, but they did have room for their group when they arrived at two in the afternoon. BC’s October Commencement had been the weekend before and, with BC being a few miles down Commonwealth Ave on the other side of Newton, there wasn’t a lot of competition for the available restaurant space.

Many offered toasts to Heather’s academic prowess, both serious and light-hearted. Tom Cavanaugh’s toast drew tears when he boasted how proud he was of his granddaughter. Jeff’s toast drew laughter and prompted Heather to throw a dinner roll at him, which hit him in the back of the head -- drawing louder laughter.

Jeff was able to catch up with Alice and Jane during the celebratory luncheon. They scolded him for not keeping better in touch. He put up his hands in surrender before it got too bad. They then scolded him for allowing his schedule to be so packed while in paramedic school; his argument that he wasn’t independently wealthy didn’t carry much weight with either of them.

He shook his head in resignation, realizing that he wouldn’t win any arguments that day, and excused himself from the table. He used the restroom and took a few extra moments to enjoy the sound of not being chided. He took a deep breath to ready himself for another round of ‘catching up’ and left the washroom.

As he walked into the dining area a hand grabbed his wrist. Before he could react someone planted a deep, passionate kiss on him. He tried to focus his eyes to see who was was kissing him, but she was too close. Her dark hair and forehead were a blur.

She released his wrist; she trapped him in a tight hug and her kiss continued. His arms rose reflexively and wrapped around the mystery kisser. After many moments the kiss and hug relaxed, letting him lean back and focus his eyes. He needed a second to focus on the face of the woman; his brain took another two or three seconds to recognize her.

“KEIKO!”