Visiting Them

Ben

I struggled to sleep that night. Everyone was telling me it wasn’t my fault that it hadn’t happened because I had done anything wrong. It was purely a matter of circumstance that someone else had been injured instead of me.

Logically that made sense. I knew Ted had called me back at the last minute to ask for advice. I knew Jonas had jumped at the opportunity to go into the warehouse instead, and the accident had been exactly that—an accident.

But I couldn’t shake the guilt. I felt terrible that Jonas was fighting for his life, that his face was mangled beyond recognition, that he might not be able to fight fires for a long time to come, if ever. I felt like I was responsible for the difficult time that lay ahead of him and the pain he had to endure.

The worst was that there was nothing I could do about it. I could pay for the best possible care and therapy there was. And I planned to do just that. I could be there for him every day and ensure that they were doing everything possi