Along Came December

by Jay Allisan

Carl.

  Max.

  I snapped awake, straining upright and going nowhere. “Max!”

  A hand fell on my shoulder. “Easy,” said Paddy. “Just relax. You’re safe now.”

  “Max—”

  “He’s fine. He’s gonna meet us at the hospital.”

  I tried again to sit up, tears rushing to my eyes. “I can’t move—”

  “You’re strapped down is all. Take a look. We’re in an ambulance. Say hi to the nice paramedic.”

  I didn’t look, didn’t say hi. I closed my eyes and breathed. Paddy’s hand stayed on my shoulder.

  “Carl,” I whispered. “It’s him. He’s the kidnapper.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Paddy spat. “The whole goddamn force is out looking for him.”

  Terror crested in my chest and my eyes flew open. “He’s going after Max! Where’s Max?”

  “He’s safe, Shirley, I promise you. Dixon called him right away. He’s dropping Maria at a safe house and then he’s gonna meet us at the hospital, remember?”

  He gave my shoulder a squeeze. Tears slipped down my cheeks as I whispered, “He shot me.”

  “Yeah, I know that too.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “I don’t know. You were bandaged up by the time I got there. It’s a head wound, but you’re awake and you’re talking, so it might’ve just grazed you. And it looks like you gave as good as you got. The office door is shot to shit.”

  “I don’t think I hit him.”

  “You scared him off and you got the word out. You did good, Shirley.”

  My voice shook. “No, I didn’t do good, I did bad, that’s why he came after me, because I’m bad—”

  “Hey.” Paddy leaned over me, his expression fierce. “This wasn’t your fault, got it? You did nothing wrong. If you wanna blame someone blame Carl, or hell, blame me for getting you left behind. If you’d been with us—”

  “We’re here,” the paramedic interrupted, and Paddy sat back, grinding his teeth.

  “Max’ll be inside,” he said. “Just keep thinking about Max.”

  MAX WASN’T inside.

  He wasn’t in the x-ray room where they told me I was concussed. He wasn’t in the small room where they put thirty stitches in my scalp, or in the big room where a nice nurse shampooed the blood from my hair before bandaging me back up. And he wasn’t in the cold, curtained chamber where they left me on a crummy gurney with a big IV and told me to wait.

  Paddy pulled a blanket off a shelf and settled it over me. I was trying really hard not to cry.

  “He’s coming,” Paddy said. “He’s on his way.”

  “But Carl—”

  “Carl’s dead meat, Shirley. He’s as good as on death row for what he did.”

  “He’s taking too long.”

  “It’s traffic is all. It’s rush hour. He had to pack up Maria, hand her off, then get all the way uptown. You know how long that takes.”

  “What if Carl—”

  “I’ll call him, okay? But I gotta go outside. They block reception down here. You okay to wait alone?”

  I bit my lip. Paddy’s expression softened. “He’ll be here, you know he will. He’s probably—”

  The curtain ripped open and I sat straight up. It was Max, red-faced and gasping. I burst into tears at the sight of him. He ran to me and crushed me to his chest. I dug my fingers into his back and sobbed.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered hoarsely. “Oh my God.”

  “Max—”

  “Shhh, it’s okay, sweetheart, I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re all right.”

  “Max, he—he—”

  “You’re safe now. It’s okay. It’s over.”

  “No, it’s not over, he’s coming back—”

  “They’ll find him, he’s not coming back—”

  “He’s coming and it’s my fault it’s my fault—”

  Max took my face in his hands. “Shirley, look at me, sweetheart. Deep breaths. He’s not getting anywhere near you.”

  “He knows,” I whispered. “He’s going to kill me and he’s—he’s going to kill you, oh God, he’s going to kill you—”

  “Shirley—”

  I shoved at his chest. “You have to leave, leave now, you have to go—”

  “Shirley, I’m not going anywhere—”

  “GO!” I screamed. “Before he kills you! Please, Max, go, just go—”

  “Sweetheart—”

  “He knows, he knows what I did and he kills the bad moms and I… I…”

  “Shirley, listen—”

  “I killed him.”

  “What?”

  “I killed him. I killed him.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, no, you didn’t, he got away—”

  “I KILLED HIM!”

  I scrambled for the far side of the cot, tearing at the IV, clawing at the bandages. Max lunged after me and caught me around the waist.

  “Shirley—no, leave that, sweetheart, that’s—Shirley, just look at me. Just breathe. You didn’t kill anyone, it’s—”

  “MY BABY! I KILLED MY BABY!”

  Max froze. I spilled to the floor, gasping and shaking and trying to remember which way was out. Paddy grabbed my arms.

  “Shirley, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Let’s get you back in bed—”

  Max seized me by the shoulders, his eyes frantic. “Shirley? Shirley, what baby? What baby?!”

  He shook me. I screamed.

  “Shirley! Did we have a baby?”

  “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!”

  “Let her go,” Paddy warned.

  Max’s grip tightened painfully, tears streaming down his face. “Shirley, please. Did we have a baby? Did you kill our baby?”

  “Jesus, Max!”

  Paddy wrestled me up and onto the cot, his hands pressed immovably to my shoulders. “Stay back,” he said, then, “Go ahead, I got her.”

  There was a sharp stab in my arm, and my breath hitched once, twice, before leveling out. Paddy let me go but I had no energy to move. He smiled tiredly as my eyelids shuttered him from view.

  “It’s okay, Shirley, it’ll be okay. You just sleep now. Things’ll be better when you wake up.”

  29

  I WAS somewhere else when I opened my eyes. Out of the emergency room but still in the hospital, the room gray with twilight. I could see shadows beneath the door, stationary, standing guard. My brothers in blue keeping Carl Winters at bay. I was fine. I was safe.

  Max sat hunched next to the bed.

  And I was terrified.

  My breath caught as panic reared violently, and it was all I could do not to run. Then Max stifled a sob, his shoulders trembling, and the panic softened just a little. Max shuddered again. I forced in a deep breath. Max put his head in his hands and I found my voice.

  “Max?”

  He slumped lower, shaking his head. “I know, I know I got it wrong, but I need to hear you say it. Please.” His voice broke. “Did we have a baby?”

  “No.”

  He shivered with sobs, deflating until his head laid against his knees, his palms buried deep in his eyes. “I don’t know where it came from,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. You were hurt and scared and I—I attacked you. Oh God, I’m so sorry…”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Max.”

  “It was my fault! How could I think that?” He staggered to his feet, shaking all over. “I know you would never do that to me. Why would I think that?”

  “You were scared too,” I said softly. “Believe me, I know what kinds of things go through your mind when you’re scared. And what were you supposed to think, the way I…”

  I swallowed against the sudden lump in my throat, but it went nowhere. I looked down at my hands, tangled together in the blankets. The mattress shifted as Max sat. I looked up. His eyes were pleading. “Will you tell me?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I should have told you a long time ago.”

  I stared at the ceiling, my palms flat against my sto
mach. Empty now. Hollow. The tears came well in advance of my courage and I could barely get the words out.

  “It was five years after my dad came home from Somalia. About two years after my mom moved me and Frances to Seattle. That was when I started playing guitar, after the move. I was too late for the riot grrl scene but I wanted to be one anyway. I was fifteen.

  “We met at a gig. He was a guitar player too, older than me and sexy as hell. He offered to give me guitar lessons. You can guess where that led. I thought I loved him. He said he loved me.”

  I blew out a shuddering breath, wiping hastily at my eyes. “I got pregnant. It took me a long time to realize. By then I’d figured out he was seeing other girls, so I knew he didn’t really love… when I told him he was angry. He said I was a stupid bitch and that it was my fault, and then he left. He left me, and I was alone and I didn’t know what to do, so I went to a clinic and I killed him. He was just a baby and I killed him.”

  “Oh, Shirley,” Max murmured.

  “He was only about thirteen weeks so I didn’t know if he was a he, but I did, I knew, and he had fingers by then, and his brain was growing, and he had a heartbeat and bones and a face and they just cut him out of me like a disease and if I’d just been braver—”

  Max took my hands and I cried, like a dam had come loose and the flood was drowning me, suffocating me. “I’m sorry, I should have told you, I’m sorry…”

  “That was it, wasn’t it?” he said quietly. “That’s when you had your first panic attack, and… and everything that came after. The overdose and the drugs and the running away.”

  I nodded, so ashamed of my life. All the stupid stuff I’d done must have seemed so foreign to Max. He was a good person, better than good, the best man I’d ever known. I realized now how foolish I’d been, trying to pretend I was good too. I pulled my hands free and tugged the blankets to my chin.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You deserved better. I should have told you sooner, before…”

  Before he married me.

  I closed my eyes. “I understand if you want to go.”

  “No,” he said, quiet. “No, I don’t want to go.”

  The room was silent. I waited for him to change his mind, for footsteps on the floor and the rattle of blinds as he shut the door behind him. Instead his voice came softly. “What did you deserve, Shirley? You think I deserved better, but what did you deserve?”

  I flinched at the touch on my cheek, but his fingers were gentle, tracing the rim of the bandages, brushing tenderly beneath my eyes and over my lips.

  “Did you deserve to be lied to and taken advantage of? Did you deserve the panic attacks or the overdose or your mother’s reaction?” He cupped his hand to my face so I’d look at him. “Do you think you deserved to be punished?”

  I stared at him, tears burning in my eyes. Max smiled sadly. “You deserved better. You deserved to be loved. You deserved to be happy. And you deserve to be forgiven.”

  “How could you forgive me?” I whispered.

  “No, sweetheart. Not me. You need to forgive yourself.”

  “I can’t. I killed my baby.”

  “I know, Shirley. You were in an impossible position and you made an impossible choice, and you’ve paid so dearly for it. Aren’t you tired of carrying all that pain? Don’t you think you’ve suffered enough?”

  I crumpled forward and he reached for me, gathering me to him. I buried my face in his neck and cried.

  “I’m so tired, Max. It hurts so much and I’m so tired and I just wish I could take it back. I can never take it back.”

  “No, you can’t,” he murmured. “You have to find a way to live with it. You have to find a way to put him to rest.” He skimmed his thumb along my spine. “Can you tell me about him? What was his name?”

  “Stephen. I named him Stephen.”

  “For your dad.”

  I nodded. “I always thought he’d be blonde.”

  “He’d have your eyes, too,” Max said. “And your height.”

  “He’d be eleven now. But instead he’s dead because I was scared.”

  Max rubbed my back slowly and I closed my eyes. I pictured him, eleven-year-old Stephen, tall and blonde with brown eyes like me but with a smile like Max. He looked happy.

  “Shirley?”

  “I didn’t know I loved him until it was too late. I never told him I was sorry.”

  “Tell him now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You deserved better too. I’m sorry.”

  Stephen smiled like Max, broadly, warmly, and then I sent him away. Someplace better. If there was a someplace better that’s where he would be.

  I did my therapy breathing until I felt like I wouldn’t tear into pieces. I put my hand on Max’s chest, over his heart. He was so warm. Warm and safe. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Do you think I could have been a good mother?”

  His heart thumped steadily beneath my palm. “You’d have been great, Shirley. You’d be really great.”

  I tucked my head beneath his chin. “Max…”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I understand.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He tightened his arms around me, just breathing. Grieving a future that came and went so quickly. Convincing himself he was okay with it. That I was enough.

  “No,” I said suddenly. “I’m not. I’m not sorry. I’m not going to be sorry about this again.”

  “Shirley—”

  “Just listen, Max. Please.” I pushed away so he could see me, believe me. “I wasn’t honest with you about this, and for that I am sorry. But I wasn’t lying when I said I want kids, and you know I’m not lying when I say I’m scared shitless at the idea of having them. It’s terrifying. But I don’t want to make another decision I’ll regret, especially when it’s not just about me anymore. It’s about us.”

  “Shirley, it’s okay—”

  “This is going to be really hard for me, Max, but I can do it. I’ll do therapy, find religion, whatever I have to in order to be ready.” I smiled. “And I’ll have you.”

  Max bit his lip, his eyes filled with tears. I took his hands. “Max Mordecai, will you have a baby with me?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Oh my God, sweetheart, yes.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me dizzy. He laughed. “Oh Shirley, you’ll be an amazing mother, and that’s exactly why. You are so brave, and so strong, and you work so hard at the things that are difficult for you. You’ll teach our kids how to be brave and strong too.”

  “And you’ll teach them how to always see the best in people.” I laid my head against his shoulder. “And I’ll teach them that peanut butter doesn’t go in the fridge, and you’ll teach them how to floss properly, and we can teach them together how to read, but you’d… you’d better teach them how to drive…”

  I yawned, blinking dopily. Max guided me down to the pillows, a fond look on his face. “They’ll want to drive your car, you know.”

  “Maybe when they’re older,” I mumbled. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet,” he agreed, kissing me gently. “When you’re ready.”

  He drew the blankets up to my shoulders but I pushed them down. I slid over to the edge of the bed. Max smiled, taking off his shoes before climbing in next to me. The bed was too narrow for two people but neither of us cared. We couldn’t get close enough.

  I pillowed my head on his chest and his arm wrapped around me. His fingertips traced absent doodles on my shoulder. My hand rested over his heart. My eyes slipped shut.

  Warm and safe.

  “SHIRLEY.”

  “Mm.”

  Max stroked my cheek. “It’s time to wake up.”

  I kept my eyes shut and nestled closer to him instead. My fingers curled in his shirt, pulled taut against his chest. I liked his chest. I traced my thumb along the muscle appreciatively.

  “Sweetheart…”

  His hand closed ove
r mine to draw it away. I twined our fingers and brought them to my lips instead, pressing kisses to his knuckles. I liked his hands, too. I really liked that my ring was on his finger.

  Warm laughter rumbled beneath my head. “Shirley, we’ve got company.”

  Reluctantly I opened my eyes to find my team gathered in the small room. Whale’s gaze was averted modestly but everyone else was just watching the show. Josie winked at me and I smiled.

  Dixon took the room’s lone chair, settling himself at eye level with me. “How are you feeling?”

  I placed one last kiss on the back of Max’s hand. “Happy.”

  “I mean your head.”

  “It’s happy too.”

  “Shirley…” Dixon leaned forward, pinching his nose above his glasses. “We need to talk about what’s happening. Can you handle that?”

  “Do you have good news?”

  Paddy and Whale exchanged a glance. Josie grimaced.

  “We lost him,” Dixon said.

  I felt Max tense, pushing up onto his elbows. “What do you mean you lost him? How could you lose him?”

  “Carl came to your apartment, as expected, but he spotted the surveillance. He took off in a hurry and our units lost him downtown. We recovered his car early this morning but there’s no sign of him.”

  “What about his house?” Max demanded. “What about his bank statements, phone bills? What about a storage locker? He didn’t just disappear!”

  “We’re pursuing every lead, but we don’t yet have his location.” Dixon’s gaze fixed on me. “I’m hoping Shirley can provide some insight.”

  “Oh sure, he gave her directions to his secret bunker right before he shot her in the head!”

  “We’re all concerned—”

  “No, you don’t know what concern is until you get a phone call saying your wife—oh, God…”

  I sat up. Max laid motionless, the heels of his palms pressed into his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “That’s just not what I wanted to hear.”

  Max let out a long breath and sat up too. Dixon put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at me.

  “Carl came looking for Maria,” I said. I smiled wryly. “The sting worked perfectly, except he went to the wrong place.”