by Steven James
“I’m good. Yes.”
I set my things down and gave her a kiss.
The kiss she gave me back was quick.
Relationships are measured in fractions—fractions of a second, fractions of an inch. Maybe he leans just that close to her and no closer, maybe she hesitates just that much before answering him.
Those fractions speak volumes.
She says, “I love you,” and then waits, expecting a certain reply, expecting to hear, “I love you too.” But she’s listening not just to the words, but to the silence that precedes them.
Is it too long? Does that mean he’s unsure about how he feels about her?
Or is it too short? Is he answering like he knows he’s supposed to, but there’s no real meaning behind the words?
Timing.
Fractions.
Of course you can read too much into silences, but you can’t help reading something into them. It’s just human nature. We want to be loved and we look for affirmation and affection wherever we can find it.
And now I found myself wondering about the brevity of the kiss, if there was a message there that I should be deciphering.
I put some of my things in the dresser in Christie’s bedroom, then stowed the rest in my suitcase in her closet.
Back in the living room, I told her as much as I could about saving Lily and D’Nesh, which basically amounted to what would be on the news.
She listened quietly and when I was done she asked me, “Pat, do you believe in demons? In demon possession?”
At first it seemed like the question came out of nowhere, but considering her faith and the nature of the things I’d just told her, it wasn’t really so surprising.
“I don’t know. I’d say I believe people can be possessed by evil, though. Some would say that’s the same thing.”
“Some would. Yes.”
“But not you?” I got myself a drink of water from the sink.
“No.”
“Water?”
“No, thanks. So you don’t believe in spiritual entities? Demons, the devil, any of that?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure what to believe concerning them.” I joined her again in the living room. “In a certain way it would make it easier for me if I did believe in demons. It might help explain some of the things I’ve seen.”
“Some of the evil?”
“Yes.”
“Like with this case? The people who took that boy? Who abducted that young woman?”
She seemed deep in thought, but also solemn.
I put my hand on her arm. “Hey, are you okay?”
“It just bothers me, thinking about all this.”
“It bothers me too. I’d say that even if demons were able to possess people, I think we’re all still responsible for our choices, for the things we do.”
“Sure, yes. I understand.”
In this job I’d found that some people blame their parents for their actions—they didn’t hug them enough, or they spanked them too much. Or the kids at school called them names. Or they were born into poverty or wealth, or whatever. Some people blame their genes for giving them a disposition toward violence. Others blame the devil or demons.
I think we all have baggage, we all have extenuating circumstances, but we’re all accountable for the choices we make. If not, there would be no reasonable way to ever serve justice or punish people for crimes. After all, how can you fault someone for doing something he couldn’t avoid?
I thought Christie might take the demon topic deeper, but instead she was silent and though I tried to read the pause, what she might have been trying to communicate by it, I failed to.
Finally, I said, “Things cool with you and Tessa? I know you were going to sort some things out with her.”
“We’re good.”
“You mentioned on the phone earlier that you wanted to talk about something tonight with me, and I’m guessing it wasn’t demon possession.”
“We can discuss it tomorrow.”
I didn’t like that word “discuss.” It sounded a lot more serious than the phrase “talk about.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave me a faint smile. It didn’t look forced, but it also didn’t look like she was particularly happy. “We’ll talk in the morning. How about we step out for breakfast? Eight o’clock?”
“I told Jodie I’d help her move at ten. Will that give us enough time?”
“Let’s go with seven thirty.”
“Okay, it’s a date.”
“Oh. I almost forgot. I need to do some shopping tomorrow afternoon. Tessa hates shopping. I wondered if maybe you two could spend some time together instead. Get to know each other a little better. Hang out.”
Often, stepping away from a case gives you the perspective to see things with new eyes.
The change of pace would be healthy.
“No problem.”
“Great. Hey, sit with me, okay?”
I positioned myself on the couch and she leaned into my arms.
I thought of demons and evil and choices and excuses and of the Final Territory and that web of red dots spreading out across the city indicating all the IP addresses that had downloaded child pornography.
We are a strange breed. Study history and you’ll see blood splashed all across the pages of our story. We’re so confused and backward.
As one of my instructors for my doctoral program once put it, “We choose as a remedy the very drug that worsens our condition.”
It’s so true. I’ve seen it over and over. People turn to affairs when their marriages are crumbling, to drinking when they’re depressed. They work extra hours to assuage their guilt for not being there enough for their kids. They buy clothes and cars and houses and gadgets to fill their empty hearts, even though they know those games of distraction and diversion will never work in the long run, but will only leave them feeling more hollowed out.
Human nature hasn’t changed much in the millennia of our existence. We are just as lost as ever, trying desperately to get back up the hill by running headlong into the valley. We willingly avoid the things we know we need, and desperately embrace the things we know will destroy us.
What lies at the heart of human nature? The quest for happiness as we willingly take roads we already know lead to pain instead.
Those were my thoughts as I held the woman I wanted more than anything else to make happy, but felt distant from her even though she was enfolded in my arms.
+++
With all that had happened today, with trying to help the FBI agent, with meeting Skylar, and then going back to search for the files for Agent Bowers, Francis was feeling disoriented, but at least now good things were happening.
He was helping the FBI. That was good.
He was going to see Skylar again tomorrow. That was good too.
Tonight he did not chat with graciousgirl4 before going to bed.
But neither did he fall asleep right away.
Instead, he went to bed to try to sleep, but he was distracted thinking again of how he’d missed seeing that backpack in the video he’d shown the FBI agent and of how he might have missed other things in the past.
37
Saturday, June 16
7:28 a.m.
Even though the diner that Christie chose was only a block and a half from her apartment, I hadn’t been here before.
The place was mostly empty. Since this was a Saturday morning and there were only three other people inside it when we arrived, I couldn’t help wondering if their food was going to be any good.
But truthfully, the quality of the menu items wasn’t the main thing on my mind. Based on the vibes I’d been getting, I was a lot more concerned about the discussion we were about to have than whether or not my oatmeal was going to be tasty.
While we waited for our order to come up, we made small talk, something neither of us is good at, and that only served to accentuate that something big was going on and that she was trying to feel her way into the topic.
I didn’t push things.
“What are you thinking of doing with Tessa this afternoon?” she asked me.
“I’m not sure. I’ll do some brainstorming.”
“She can be a handful sometimes.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“Of course.”
The server brought my steel-cut oatmeal and blueberry muffin and Christie’s pancakes and two sunny-side up eggs.
“Now you’ll have to help me finish this if I can’t make my way through it all,” Christie said somewhat mechanically.
“Sure.”
She prayed over the meal and we both started into our food.
More small talk: weather, news, sports, nothing that mattered.
Minutes passed.
“I’ve got one for you,” I said.
“You’ve got one?”
“A tongue twister.” It was something I’d thought of yesterday when Lily Keating was telling me about how she’d picked the lock in the basement. “The tip of the clip’s clasp. Try it. Five times fast.”
She did, then I did, then awkwardness settled in even thicker than before.
Finally, she set down her fork. “On Wednesday night when you came over you promised that you were going to be with me, not somewhere else.”
Ah, so that’s what this was about. Alright, that made sense. She was upset I’d been distracted.
“I’m sorry, really. I tried to. There’s just been—”
“No. That’s what I need from you right now.”
“Alright.” I waited. “I’m here. I’m listening.”
She took my hand. “Would you say things are going well between us?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
A fraction of a moment. One that spoke volumes.
“I’m going to have to ask you to make a decision, Pat.”
“What decision is that?”
She let go of my hand. “They’re eliminating my job.”
“What?”
“The owner ran into some financial problems. I don’t know the whole story—I think it’s fallout from his divorce. He just told me at the beginning of the month about the downsizing. About letting me go.”
She prodded her eggs with her fork, then put it down again. “I’ve been looking into things and I think I found another job. It’s doing pretty much the same thing, except with more managerial duties, but . . .”
“Yes?”
“It’s not here in the city.”
“Is it nearby?”
“It’s in Omaha, Pat.”
“Omaha? As in Nebraska?”
A nod. “There’s a Midwestern firm that’s opening up a new division. They want me to head it up.”
“And you’re seriously thinking about this? About moving to Omaha, Nebraska?”
“You know how expensive it is to live here. I can barely make my rent every month. And as far as saving up for college for Tessa, for the future, I don’t have anything set aside. Nothing. It’s enough of a struggle just making ends meet every week. The benefits are good, Pat. There’s health and dental. They would even pay my moving expenses.”
“So you’ve looked into this pretty closely already.”
“Yes.”
“How does Tessa feel about it?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
“Oh.” I found it a bit puzzling that she would be bringing this up with me first. “A minute ago you said you needed me to make a decision. What decision is that?”
A beat of silence. “There’s an FBI Field Office there. I looked it up.”
“What? In Omaha?”
“Yes.”
I was stunned. “Are you asking if I would move out to Nebraska with you?”
“I’m asking where we go from here. I need to do what’s best for my daughter, but I want to do what’s best for all of us—for all three of us. I want you to be a part of my life, Pat.”
“I want that too, but . . .”
She bit her lip. I took it for nerves. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m thinking this is a lot to process. We’re serious about each other, we’re close, but we’ve . . . I mean . . .”
“What does your gut say?”
“I try not to trust my gut.”
“Then what does your heart say?”
“That I care about you very much.”
That I might just be falling in love with you.
It was the first time those words had strung themselves together in that order in my mind, but I wasn’t sure I should go so far as to say them aloud. “That we have something special, something worth holding on to,” I said instead.
“Yes. I agree.” She waited as if she could read my mind and knew there was more I wanted to say.
“I want the same things you do, Christie: what’s best for all three of us. And that you’ll be a part of my life. Not just now, but long term.”
“I can sense a ‘but’ coming.”
And again I thought something I didn’t say, But my heart says I wouldn’t be happy in Omaha. You must know that already, Christie. You must know I belong here.
“But you’re good at what you do. Certainly there are other job opportunities for you nearby.”
“That’s probably true,” she acknowledged.
“I can help you look.”
“With the cost of living here, I just don’t think I can do any better than I am now—and what I’m doing now isn’t enough. I checked around. There aren’t any jobs in the income range of what I need to take care of Tessa.”
“But you didn’t give it a lot of time. You’ve only known about this for the last couple weeks.”
She nodded. “True, but I have to admit, I’ve been keeping an eye on possibilities for a while. There’s just not a lot out there. I haven’t been able to get ahead and I can’t live from behind forever.”
“If it’s money you need, we can try to work something out. I mean, I—”
“You don’t have any extra money, and even if you did I wouldn’t ask you to—” She sighed. “But here I am, asking you to consider moving across the country. I know, it doesn’t make any sense.”
She picked at her pancakes, and as she was searching for the next thing to say a tear formed in her left eye.
“Hey, don’t cry. We can figure this out.”
She took care of the tear with the corner of her napkin. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“And I don’t want to be lost.”
A sea of emotion swirled through those tragically sad eyes from her turmoil, her questions, her uncertainty. I wanted to calm it but didn’t know how.
Life doesn’t always offer us good choices, but it seemed like there had to be other possibilities for her in this case. There just had to be.
“I have to do what’s right for my daughter,” she told me unnecessarily.
“Of course.”
Where to take things from here?
“When do you need to let them know?” I asked. “The firm in Omaha?”
“They’re going to want me to start as soon as I can make a decision.”
The ground seemed to shift beneath me.
Six years ago I was in L.A. during an earthquake, and I’ll never forget that feeling of the earth quivering underfoot, and the way I couldn’t get my balance because the very thing I was relying on for support was unsteady beneath my feet.
That’s how I felt right now.
An earthquake deep inside me.
What I thought had become a solid, reliable part of my life was trem
bling uncertainly and I didn’t know where to turn, what to lean on to find my balance again.
“When do you think you’ll tell Tessa?” I said.
“This week sometime. She’s a big-city girl. I know she’s going to hate moving. I wanted to wait until I . . . well, I had my ducks in a row before telling her.”
“And I’m one of those ducks.”
She smiled faintly. “You’re the main one.”
“I’ve never been called someone’s main duck before.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Her smile was short-lived, as the seriousness of the conversation weighed on her again.
“I wish I knew what to tell you, Christie, but I—”
“No, wait.” She held up a hand to stop me midsentence. “This isn’t right. I put you in an impossible situation. I know, I know. I shouldn’t have . . . It was wrong of me to bring all this up to you, to drag you into this. I’m sorry, it’s—”
“No, no. It’s alright. I understand that you’re just—”
But then she was standing up and I could tell that a corner of a napkin wasn’t going to be able to take care of the tears that were about to come.
“Christie, I . . .” Words failed me. She fumbled with her purse, but I laid some money on the table and said, “I’ve got it.”
“I . . . I’m sorry.”
“There’s no reason to be. There’s—”
But she avoided eye contact and offered me a manufactured smile.
It hurt to see her trying so hard to be happy.
Trying and failing.
While everything I said seemed to push her further away.
“Christie, please.”
“Excuse me, Pat.”
She hurried to the restroom and a few moments later I got a text from her: “Please go. I need some time.”
Unsure what else to do, I stepped outside, alone, into the piercingly bright summer morning.
38
Back in her living room, I tried to process what had just happened, what she’d asked of me.
New York City was where my life was, my career, my future. I couldn’t move with her to Omaha. It was out of the question.
