…ran back into the Riverside Hotel fire, and never came out.”
My grandmother unlocked the wooden box and handed me the letter. It was written in careful, slanting handwriting.
“To my daughter, who isn’t born yet. Your mother says you’re kicking a lot these days. I’ve been thinking about what kind of father I want to be. I want to be the kind who keeps his promises. So here’s my first one: I will always come home to you. — Daniel.”
Daniel Price was a twenty-six-year-old firefighter. In 1983, he and my mother were engaged. Six months before I was born, the Riverside Hotel caught fire. Daniel carried out four people. Then he went back in for a fifth, a little boy trapped on the third floor. The boy survived. Daniel didn’t.
My mother was devastated. A year later, she married Daniel’s best friend, Tom, the man I’d always called Dad. Tom raised me as his own. My mother asked everyone in the family never to tell me, because she was afraid I’d feel I’d lost a father before I was born.
My mother died five years ago. Tom died last spring. My grandmother was the last person alive who knew.
“I didn’t want you to find out after I’m gone, from a piece of paper,” she whispered. “I wanted to be holding your hand.”
I found Daniel’s grave the next weekend. His name is on a memorial plaque outside the old fire station. Beneath it is a list of the five people he saved that night. The fifth name is Michael Hayes. He was five years old in 1983.
I contacted him. He’s forty-eight now, a firefighter himself. When I told him who I was, he was quiet for a very long time. Then he said, “I’ve visited his grave every year. I always wondered if he had any family.” We visited it together on the anniversary. I brought his letter. Michael brought flowers.
