PART 1
I arrived at my husband’s fire station carrying balloons, a birthday cake, and a plan to embarrass him in front of his crew.
Instead, the moment I walked through the bay doors, every smile disappeared.
My husband, Tyler, had been a firefighter for nine years, so I understood that our life rarely followed a normal schedule. Dinners were interrupted, holidays moved, and birthdays sometimes happened early or late.
Tyler always claimed his birthday didn’t matter.
“It’s just another day,” he would say.
But I knew better. He preferred
