3000 Degrees Read Online Free PDF Page B

the rim of the Grand Canyon. Tom had never traveled when he was a boy. By the time he met Kathy, when he was a senior at St. Peter's, Tom had never spent a single night away from home. The first time he'd slept in a different bed was his freshman year at the University of Massachusetts–Lowell, fifty miles to the northeast, but even then he'd come home on weekends, work all night Friday and all day Saturday bagging groceries, go out with Kathy Saturday night, drive back to campus Sunday. He wanted his own three kids to grow up differently, see more of the world.
    Kathy found him in the kitchen, layering turkey breast onto whole wheat bread. Tom had been trying to eat healthier the past few years, ever since his cholesterol ticked up. He didn't cut back on the portions, though. Kathy would pack him a lunch when Tom worked the day shift: a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Tom would swallow that by ten o'clock, then have lunch with the rest of the guys at noon. He had a stunning appetite, especially for such a little fellow. “The Lilliputian,” some of the guys in the Grove Street station called him. He weighed 150 pounds dripping wet, still wore pants with the same thirty-one-inch waist he had when he took Kathy to see
Jaws
on their first date in 1976. But he was tough. Tom walked up mountains for fun, two thousand vertical feet to the top of Wachusett Mountain once a week or so, his English springer spaniel, Freckles, panting behind him, trying to keep up.
    Lunch with Kathy had put him in a particularly good mood. She would be out of town for the weekend, riding a bus to New York City with their daughter, Casey, and Kathy's best friend, Cheryl. An extra hour with her was a pleasant surprise.
    “So what do you want to see in New York?” he asked her.
    “I don't know. I've never been there.”
    Tom nodded, smiled, chewed his sandwich. Tom was a veteran of Manhattan. He made a pilgrimage to see the Metropolitan Opera every year. If he was lucky, he'd catch a performance of
La Bohème,
his favorite. Kathy never went with him because she hated opera, all those CDs Tom had properly alphabetized in a cabinet in the living room. “Tell you what,” he said. “I'll make you a walking tour, make sure you see everything. And I'll time it so you can go to mass at St. Patrick's. You can sit for an hour and it won't cost you anything. Try to sit down and have a cup of coffee in New York and you'll have to spend five bucks.”
    “Would you? That'd be great.”
    “Yeah, I'll leave a map on the table.”
    Kathy ate quickly, rushing to make her shift at the nursery. When she finished, Tom walked her to the door, kissed her goodbye. “Oh, hey,” he said brightly, “I think tonight's my last night.”
    “Really?” Kathy had heard that before, a few times during the past month, but Tom always went back to Ladder 2. He was trying to move to the fire-prevention unit, a regular day job inspecting houses and businesses and construction sites. She knew he was torn about it. Tom had been riding a fire truck for twenty years, been the boss—a lieutenant—for seven. He still got juiced by flames, by action. But firemen on the trucks worked a quirky schedule: two-day tours, one day off, two night shifts, three days off, a forty-two-hour week. The prevention job, on the other hand, would be the same four days every week, either Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday. He'd have all his weekends off, more time to spend with three kids who he'd realized lately were growing up much too fast. Patrick, the oldest, was seventeen, a senior in high school; in less than a year he'd be off at college.
    Not that he neglected them as it was. Tom was one of those fathers that every man imagines he will be before the rest of his life gets in the way. “The Ozzie Nelson of Grove Street,” some of the guys said. When Patrick and Daniel, his youngest, joined the Boy Scouts, so did Tom. He spent lazy summer nights in the backyard, staring up at the