Vanessa reached over and took his hand.
“He was in the hospital,” she said softly. “Not for the burns. The other kind of hospital. For two months. When he was thirteen.”
I closed my eyes.
“A counselor there asked me something,” Danny said. “She asked me what I thought your daughter would want. If she could see me. Starving myself. Hating myself. And I said I didn’t know. Because I never met her. Not really. I only knew her for about four minutes.”
He looked down at the table.
“So the counselor said, ‘Well, what did she do in those four minutes?’ And I said, ‘She ran into a fire to save a kid she didn’t know.’ And the counselor said, ‘Then I think she wanted that kid to live. Really live. Not just survive.’”
He looked up at me.
“That’s when I started writing you letters,” he said. “I wanted to tell you I was trying. I wanted to tell you I’m going to make it count. Whatever I do with my life. I’m going to make it count for her.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m going to be a firefighter. Like the ones who came that night. I’ve already signed up for the junior program at the fire station in Lee’s Summit.”
