Luke woke at dawn to Marie’s sweet face. “Coffee’s ready,” she said, and she kissed him on the head. She didn’t have to breathe deeply to get the stink of stale alcohol coming off him. They had a fight about…

I was entirely unequipped to be a firefighter, and not particularly rugged. I was a city kid who knew bupkus about the forest. There were trees in Brooklyn, I suppose, but I didn’t pay attention to them. I took firefighting…