Not Alone

by Liz Bradford

  He stepped up the two steps and joined her on the porch closing the gap between them. He reached his hand up to her face and then gently cupped the side of her head in his hand. “I am here, and I’m not going anywhere. I will see you at work tomorrow; I promise. But you need to not run away either, physically or emotionally.”

  She nodded as she leaned her head into his strong hand. They needed to do this now. “Come in, Jared. Help me put Callie in bed, and then we can talk.”

  He smiled. They walked into the house and found Callie in the family room. “All right, Callie, time for bed, sweetie.”

  “But Mom, it’s only seven. I have until 7:30.”

  “Not tonight, sweetheart.” Then she turned to Jared and said under her breath, “Darn, learning to tell time this early in the year of kindergarten.”

  He just laughed and shook his head.

  “Not joking, Callie, let’s go. Upstairs, now.” She pointed to toward the stairs.

  “Yes, Mommy,” she replied with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Rebecca followed the little girl up the stairs and motioned for Jared to follow.

  “Callie, what pj’s are you going to wear?”

  “My princess nightgown.”

  “Okay, go in the bathroom, go potty, and put your jammies on. Then we can read stories after you brush your teeth if you do everything in a timely manner.” Callie was ready for bed in record time tonight, she was clearly showing off for Jared, to which Becca could only shake her head. When she came out of the bathroom, Becca asked her, “Would you like to ask Jared if he would read you a story?”

  “Mr. Jared, would you read me a story, please? And do you do voices? Because Mr. Caleb doesn’t do voices.”

  “I would love to read to you, and of course I can do voices. What good is a bedtime story if there are no voices? Did Mr. Caleb help tuck you bed when he was here?”

  She didn’t blame him for asking with the way Callie asked it was an easy assumption.

  “No, he just read me a few stories downstairs while we were waiting for you and Mommy last night.”

  “Oh, ok.” She watched the jealousy fade from Jared’s face.

  “I’ve never had anyone but Mommy or Aunt Amy, oh and Uncle Tom once, tuck me in.”

  “And Grandma, too, when she came to visit.”

  “Oh yeah, Grandma too.”

  Jared’s smile grew as he realized he was now entering a sacred category. Jared sat down on the bed with Callie and read one of her favorite princess stories to her.

  Becca went over and sat on the flat footboard that rose just above the mattress at the end of Callie’s bed. She pulled her feet up onto the bed and leaned her chin and hands on her knees as she listened to Jared read to their daughter. Once again, she had another beautiful picture to tuck deep into her heart.

  “All right; goodnight, Callie,” Jared said when he finished the book.

  “No, wait, we have to pray.”

  “Oh, of course,” Jared said.

  Becca interjected, “Callie, do you want to pray, or should I pray tonight?”

  “I’ll pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for today. Help us sleep well tonight. Thank you for Jared. Thank you for Mommy. And thank you that they found each other. In Jesus name, Amen.”

  “Amen,” both Jared and Becca echoed, but Becca added, “Callie, where did you get the idea about us finding each other?”

  She shrugged and nonchalantly said, “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Goodnight, sweetie. I love you.” Becca leaned over and kissed her daughter and pulled her covers up over her.

  “Love you too, Mommy. Goodnight. Goodnight, Mr. Jared.”

  “Goodnight, Callie.”

  Becca turned off the lights and closed the door almost all the way, and Jared headed down the stairs.

  “Jared, do you mind if I put something more comfortable on?” From where he was halfway down the stairs, he turned to look up at her.

  “Not at all. Do you still have your ritual cup of tea before bed? Would you like me to heat the water up?”

  “I do. That would be great. Thank you.”

  “Sure.”

  She ran into her room and quickly exchanged her dress slacks for a pair of yoga pants and her button-down dress shirt for a t-shirt. She spent the entire time changing praying about the conversation that would need to happen over the next few hours. They would need the Lord’s help to process everything, because it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Becca found Jared in the kitchen with her tea ready and waiting for her, just the way she liked it. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” His smile was enough to melt her into a pile of goo on the floor.

  She walked into the family room and over to the fireplace on the far wall. There was a bit of a chill in the air on this late September evening, so she flicked the switch that ignited the gas, opened the glass doors and sat on the rug in front of the fireplace. She looked up at Jared who had slowly wandered over after her. He was just watching her as he held a glass of water. Finally, he set the glass down on the coffee table and said, “I’m going to run to the restroom real quick before we settle into talking, okay?”

  “All right.” She watched as he went in the powder room and closed the door; he had ditched his tie and jacket long ago and would most likely come out of the bathroom belt one notch looser and shirt untucked and possibly even unbuttoned. As she waited for him, her mind wandered back to the day over five and a half years ago that had changed everything.

  It had been a cool January day, if you can ever call a day in San Diego cool. Becca and Jared had been out on traffic cop duty. They were camped out in one of their usual speed trap spots but had already met their quota for the day. They had been together for five years, both professionally and personally. When they had first been assigned as partners, Becca was a newbie to the force, fresh out of college and the police academy, and Jared had only a year under his belt. They instantly had a connection, and it didn’t take long for them to start hanging out outside of work. They would spend their off shifts drinking and one thing led to another. Before long they were serious and had become each other’s whole world. They tried to keep it a secret at work since that type of fraternizing was highly frowned upon.

  She had kept up appearances that she was living with her sister, but within a year of when they started dating she never again slept at her sister’s. Her sister’s husband’s job moved them away just a week before this dreadful day, so it was feeling a little trickier to make people believe they weren’t living together. She would find out later that everyone knew, but Becca and Jared made such a good team that no one said anything to them.

  The spot where they were parked was well hidden from anyone driving by, and they had a good forty-five minutes before they were expected to report in. So, they climbed in the backseat and started fooling around. Ten minutes later a call came across the radio. “In foot pursuit of armed suspect. Request back up immediately. Headed northbound on Park Avenue.” It had been Carl’s voice that came across the radio. Carl was Jared’s best friend, and they were close to his location. They rushed to put their clothes back on and sped to the scene. Becca checked their weapons while Jared drove. They were ready as they turned onto Park Avenue. Then another call came over the radio. “Officer down. I repeat officer down. At Park and College.” But before the radio went silent they heard the unmistakable sound of two more gun shots. Dread filled both of their faces. They were so close but weren’t there yet. They pulled up to the scene just as officers were getting out of two other squad cars. They were too late. The suspect lie dying on the ground, and Carl’s partner was fighting for his life, but Carl was already gone.

  Jared had held it together at the scene but lost it when they got back to their apartment later that day. His anger had been out of control. Never before had she been afraid of him, but she had been that day. She couldn’t even remember how many things he had broken, but she dutifully cleaned up the mess he had m
ade after he had gone to bed that night.

  Becca had already been planning to take a pregnancy test the next morning. She had suspected for weeks that she was pregnant but had kept putting it off. So, she peed on the stick. The little white stick seemed to laugh at her as two bright pink lines appeared confirming what she suspected and, frankly, feared. She didn’t know how she was going to tell Jared. He didn’t want kids. And she didn’t blame him. With all the horrible things they saw in their line of work, who in their right minds would bring kids into this decrepit world?

  So, she avoided telling him. First, she put it off until after Carl’s funeral, and then she just kept chickening out because they kept fighting. They were fighting constantly and over the stupidest things. “Why do you have to have a cup of tea before bed anyway?” he had yelled at her after she had spilled a little of her tea on the comforter on their bed. She had yelled at him about needing a haircut, even though she loved it when his hair was shaggy. Neither of them was dealing with the real issue at hand. They both felt responsible for Carl’s death, that maybe if they hadn’t been fooling around they could have been there soon enough to stop him from being shot. Their personal lives had interfered with their professional lives, and Carl had paid the ultimate price for it.

  Finally, one day she had worked up the nerve to tell him. She was sitting at the little kitchen table in their tiny one-bedroom apartment, waiting for him to get home from the gym. She sat there for five hours before she realized he wasn’t coming home. She cried the rest of the night and all the next day. Two weeks she waited for him to come home, but he didn’t. He never called her, and his phone went straight to voicemail. She left him a few messages, but he didn’t call back. So, she left. She went to her sister’s new home in a small city in the foothills of North Carolina.

  She had relived that entire experience in the time it took Jared to go to the bathroom, so by the time he joined her on the floor she was already crying. Hot, silent tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t even look at him. She thought she had worked through so much of this, but now with him here sitting next to her the wounds were fresh and bleeding. He just sat there and waited for her though. She finally worked up the nerve to look over at him, and she saw that he was playing the exact scene through his head. Tears started streaming down his face, too. She had already seen the regret in his eyes and heard him apologize for leaving like he had. She had to forgive him; she thought she already had, but apparently not completely. She wanted to forgive him, but it was so hard.

  She silently wrestled with the forgiveness for several minutes. Finally embracing it, she scooted a little closer to him and reached her hand out and touched his arm. He looked up at her with such sorrow in his eyes that it broke her heart anew. But this time it was with a deep-seated compassion for him, tapping into the true love she had always felt for him. It was amazing how few words they needed to speak to communicate with one another. But some words still needed to be said, so she started. “Jared.” She wiped tears from her face, “I’m sorry Carl died.”

  “Me too.” His face changed to a questioning gaze. “Becca, it’s not our fault that Carl died. You know that, right?”

  “But if we hadn’t… then we could have been there… and……”

  He turned towards her, scooted closer to her and put his hand on her back. “Becca, there’s no way our getting there five minutes sooner would have saved him. If anything, we might have gotten shot too. We shouldn’t have done what we did while we were on duty, but Carl did not die as a result.”

  She juggled what he said around in her brain for a moment. “How can you be sure?”

  “Becca, I have spent hours going over the reports. Even drove the distances again and replayed everything a million times. He died instantly. There is no way we could have done anything.”

  She embraced the truth that Jared was laying before her. They sat there for a few more moments in silence. Jared dropped his hand to the floor behind them and leaned back on it. Finally, he broke the silence, “Becca, I am so sorry I left. I’m sorry I shut you out. I was so torn up about Carl and blamed myself, because it had been my idea to climb in the backseat. I just needed space. I was so angry, and I was afraid you would end up hurt. I wasn’t angry at you, and I would never intentionally hurt you, but I wanted to protect you. But in the end, I ended up hurting you more than I could have ever imagined. When I finally came home, I hadn’t realized I had been gone for two and a half weeks, and you weren’t there. I was so torn up. I drank myself sick when I couldn’t find you.”

  “You mean if I had stayed just a few more days…” She started to cry again. “Jared, I sat at the table waiting for you to come home from the gym for five hours. I was finally going to tell you I was pregnant. Then I waited two weeks. Oh, if only I had waited longer.” She couldn’t control the sobs any longer; they took over. Jared pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her.

  “If only I had called and told you I would come home. If only I hadn’t been such an idiot and hadn’t left without talking to you in the first place.” She wrapped her arms around him, and they both cried for a long time. Five and a half years, gone. All because they hadn’t communicated. The irony in it was that they had always been known for their great ability to communicate with one another; it was the thing that made them such great partners.

  Finally getting her sobs under control Becca put her hand on Jared’s chest and lifting her head looked him in the eye. “Enough ‘if onlys.’ As you said, what’s done is done. We are here now, and we have to move forward from here.”

  “Exactly. Do you forgive me?”

  “Yes, I do. Do you forgive me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Want me to warm your tea back up?” he said with a sweet smile.

  “That’s a good place to start.” She watched him as he walked across the room to the microwave. His shirt was indeed untucked and unbuttoned revealing a plain white cotton v-neck. He began searching through her cabinets as if he was in his own home, but she knew exactly what he was looking for. “Jared,” she called out to him. “Cookies are in the cabinet above the microwave so that Callie can’t reach them. That girl’s got your sweet tooth.”

  “Ah ha!” he said retrieving the package of chocolate chip cookies. Bringing her tea and the cookies back over he said, “Hope you don’t mind that I made myself at home.”

  “Not at all.” She couldn’t help but laugh at his boyish grin. Some things never change.

  “So, tell me, how did you decide on the name Callie?”

  “I just liked it. And I remember you saying a long time ago that you thought it was a cute name. But her middle name is Alexandra.” Becca pressed her lips together while she watched Jared’s reaction, and it didn’t disappoint. His eyes lit up with joy.

  “Really?” With Jared’s middle name being Alexander, it seemed appropriate.

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  Again, she nodded. They spent the next hour or so talking about Callie. Becca told him story upon story about the little girl and all her antics, and Jared soaked up every word. The man was clearly falling in love with the little girl.

  Before they knew it, Becca’s phone rang. “Is it really already eleven o’clock?”

  Looking at his watch, Jared replied, “Sure is, on the dot. Is that Amy wondering why you haven’t called her yet?”

  “Yep.” Becca answered her phone before it went to voice mail. “Hello?”

  “Why haven’t you called me?”

  “Because he’s still here.”

  “Well. Time to go to bed, little sis. You are behaving, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was just telling Jared about Callie’s birthday party.”

  “Awesome, but he should leave, and you need to go to sleep.” Jared was sitting close enough that he could hear every word and was trying not to laugh out loud.

  “Ok. Ok. Got it. Goodnig
ht, Mother, I mean, Amy.”

  “Goodnight, Becca. Can I just call you Becca now that Jared is here, please?”

  “That’s fine. Goodnight.” They hung up, and Becca and Jared got to their feet.

  “Guess I should go now, huh? And what’s with the Rebecca/Becca thing anyway? I thought you hated being called Rebecca.”

  “I needed a change, so I tried it. And yeah, you should go.” They walked to the door.

  “Goodnight, Becca. This was good.”

  “It was. Goodnight, Jared.” She fought the urge to say I love you and to kiss him. But they embraced and gave each other a long tight hug that confirmed their feelings for the other. They still had a lot of reacquainting to do, and it would take time. But now they had all the time in the world, hopefully.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning Jared sat at his desk organizing it the way he wanted it to be. He had brought a few personal touches with him that he added to the desk. Becca hadn’t arrived yet, and he hoped she had gotten a good night’s sleep. Yesterday had been exhausting on every level for both of them. But today was a new day, and they had a killer to catch. Once again Jared opened the case files and looked them over.

  A few minutes later Becca walked into the squad room. She was tall and slender, graceful and sophisticated. He loved how her long light-brown hair flowed over her shoulders in a slight curling iron induced wave. She was holding a very large cup of Starbucks coffee in her hand, and people were stepping clear out of her way as she made her way to her desk. Detective Jamison rolled his desk chair over to Jared, “Hey, New Guy, just so you know that Starbucks cup means don’t mess with her, and don’t bother talking to her until it is gone, too.”

  “Thanks.” This was not news to him. As she set her things down on her desk, she glanced up at him and gave him a quick smile that would have been missed by all others as it barely went past her eyes. It was meant just for him, and it warmed his heart. “So, I see some things never change,” he said nodding his head toward her coffee. “People around here seem to be afraid of you before coffee.”