The scanner crackled. A voice, breathing hard, distorted. Ladder One, we have the occupant, coming out the second-floor window. Need EMS at the ladder.
Nora's whole body went tight as wire.
Static. Long, long static.
Ladder One, occupant is out. Elderly male, conscious, breathing. All personnel out of the structure. Going defensive.
Mrs. Pruitt let out a long breath and squeezed Nora's hand. "There," she said. "There. They're out. Now they'll pour water on it till it gives up, and that'll take most of the night, and they'll come home stinking and soaked and starving, though they ate enough this afternoon to feed Philadelphia."
"How did you do it?" Nora said. Her voice cracked. "Fifty-one years. How did you sit here and listen to that for fifty-one years and not go out of your mind?"
Mrs. Pruitt was quiet for a while.