by Sandra Brown
"Hello, Burke. Come in." Nancy Stuart motioned him inside her suburban
house.
After hearing about Hahn and Sachel, it was masochistic to come here
today. But after driving around for hours, stewing and cursing, Burke
didn't know what else to do with himself. He was supposed to be taking
the week off anyway, so why not piss away the whole day?
The Stuarts' house was a brick structure with painted wood trim.
The lawn wasn't as well kept as it had been when Kev was alive. He had
enjoyed yard work and boasted that his Saint Augustine was the greenest
grass on the block. Burke noticed that a shutter on one of the front
windows was sagging. The entry-hall rug needed shampooing, and one of
the lightbulbs in the vaulted ceiling had burned out. One day soon, he
needed to spend a day off helping Nancy with some maintenance and
repairs.
"Come on back into the kitchen," she said over her shoulder as she led
him down the central hall."I've started supper. We're eating early.
It's open house at school tonight. Would you like something to drink?"
"Coffee, if you've got it."
"Do you mind instant?"
He did, but he shook his head. The kitchen was cluttered and homey.
Hanging in a prominent spot was a calendar marking carpool days, dental
appointments, and the open house at school tonight. Reminder notes and
class pictures of the two boys were stuck to the refrigerator with
magnets shaped like ketchup bottles and mustard jars. A cookie jar in
the shape of a teddy bear smiled at him from the countertop.
Following his gaze to it, Nancy offered him some."They're store bought.
I don't bake much anymore." "No thanks," he said."The coffee's fine."
She returned to her mixing bowl where she was crumbling saltine crackers
into ground beef. Chopped green peppers and onion were waiting to be
added along with a can of tomato sauce."Meat loaf?" he asked.
"How'd you know?"
"My mom made it often enough."
"Your mom?" She looked at him with puzzlement."You know, Burke, I think
that's the first time I've ever heard you mention your family.
In all the years I've known you."
He shrugged."I worried about reprisals, you know, that sort of thing.
So I purposefully don't talk much about them. Anyway, it's not much of a
family anymore. My dad worked for the railroad. When I was in third
grade, he got crushed between an engine and a freight car. So my mom was
a working single parent before it came into vogue. She was a telephone
company employee until she died of cancer a few years ago.
"Now it's just me and my kid brother. He lives in Shreveport. Has a
wife, a couple of kids." He smiled wryly."Mom must've known three dozen
ways to stretch a pound of ground meat."
"I can identify."
"How are the boys?"
"Fine."
He sipped the coffee, which tasted worse than expected."Are they doing
okay at school?"
"The last report cards were good."
"Besides grades."
Knowing that he was referring to their psychological well-being, she
hesitated."They're okay. Considering."
"Well. That's good." He toyed with the salt and pepper shakers on the
table, placing them side by side, separating them, pushing them back
together."It's been warm lately."
"I'd like to think that means the end of winter. But we still might get
a freeze."
"Yeah. As late as March."
Lately, this lame attempt at conversation seemed the best they could do.
They avoided talking about anything substantive or important.
Which was strange since the roughest times were behind them.
He'd been the one to bring her the news of Kev's death. Doug Pat had
volunteered to carry out the unpleasant task, but Burke had insisted
that the responsibility fell to him. He'd been there to support Nancy
when she collapsed after hearing the news, and he'd remained a fixture
at her side throughout the funeral procedure.
In the ensuing weeks and months, he had helped her sort through
insurance papers, file for the inadequate pension she received from the
N.O.P.D, set up her own credit and bank accounts, and make other
necessary budgetary adjustments.
Responding to a phone call from her, he'd come over the day she cleared
out Kev's closet. She offered Burke some of his better clothes, and he'd
accepted them. Then he'd dropped them into a Goodwill receptacle on his
way home. He couldn't have worn them.
In the fall, he'd checked the furnace and changed the filters for her.
At Christmas, he'd set up the tree and helped her decorate it. Kev had
been dead almost a year, but Burke still felt compelled to come by every
couple of weeks to lend his widow whatever assistance she might need.
Trouble was, it was becoming harder to find things to talk about.
With the passage of time, their conversations had become more strained,
not less so. Burke avoided talking about anything relating to the police
department and the personnel Nancy knew. Since his work was the most
vital component of his life, he found himself searching for something
besides the weather and the boys' health to fill the increasing
stretches of silence.
She always received him graciously, but she had changed, subtly but
undeniably. She was more reserved now than she'd been when Kev was
alive. They'd shared some rollicking laughs. She could tease and put you
down as well as one of the guys. Burke supposed it was easy for a woman
to joke with her husband's friend when her husband was there, laughing
along with her. It wasn't so easy when he was dead.
They had spent a lot of time speculating on the outcome of Bardo's
trial. Now that it was over, now that the final chapter on that dark
episode in their lives had been written, what was there for them to talk
about?
"Uh ..."
"Burke ... " She must have been as uncomfortably aware of the lagging
conversation as he, because they began speaking at the same time. He
indicated for her to go ahead."No, you," she said.
They were saved further awkwardness by the boys' arrival. Having seen
Burke's car parked out front, they raced into the house, filling it with
welcome racket and the unique smell of sweaty little boys. They dropped
their jackets and backpacks and crowded Burke, jostling each other to
get near him.
After a quick snack, he took them into the backyard. This was their
routine. Following his visit with Nancy, he did something with David and
Peter alone. The boys got to choose the activity. Today they decided on
batting practice.
"Like this, Burke?" the younger, Peter, asked.
His stance was atrocious, but Burke replied, "Just like that.
You're getting the hang of it, slugger. Choke up on your bat just a
little. Now let's see what you can do."
He pitched a ball that hit the bat, not the other way around.
Peter whooped and ran their makeshift bases. At home plate, Burke gave
him a high five and a swat on the butt.
"We're going out for Little League. Maybe you could come to one
of our
games, Burke," David ventured hopefully.
"Just one? I planned on getting a season ticket." The hair he teasingly
ruffled was the same coppery red their father's had been.
And because the smiles they beamed up at him were replicas of Kev's, a
lump formed in his throat. He might have made a fool of himself if Nancy
hadn't come to the back door just then and called the boys in to wash
up.
"Dinner in fifteen minutes," she told them.
"See ya, Burke." "See ya, Burke," Peter said, parrotting his older
brother as they traipsed toward the rear of the house.
"You're great with them," Nancy observed.
"It's easy to be great with somebody else's kids. I understand it's
tougher with your own."
"Why didn't you and Barbara have children?"
"I don't know. Just never got around to it. There always seemed to be a
good reason to postpone them. First, a shortage of money."
"And then?"
"A shortage of money." He meant it as a joke, but it fell flat.
"I don't know what I would have done without my sons. Kevin is still
alive in them."
Solemnly, he nodded with understanding. Then, realizing that his right
hand was flexing, he stilled it and said quickly, "I'd better shove off.
I wouldn't want to make the Future of Baseball late for open house."
"You're welcome to stay for supper."
It was an obligatory invitation. She always offered, and he always
declined."No thanks. Barbara will be looking for me." "Tell her I said
hi."
"Will do."
"Burke." She glanced down the hallway toward the bathroom, where the
boys could be heard arguing. Then, abruptly bringing her focus back to
him, she said, "I don't want you to come back."
He didn't think he'd heard her right."What?" Even after she repeated it,
he was dumbfounded.
She drew a deep breath and pulled herself up straighter. Obviously she
had given whatever she was about to say a great deal of thought. As much
as she had dreaded saying it, she had made up her mind to do so now and
was bracing herself for it.
"I can't be around you, can't even look at you, without thinking of Kev.
Every time I see you, it's like going through the whole ordeal again.
Each time you call or visit, I cry for days afterward. I get angry, feel
sorry for myself. It's a setback that I barely recover from before I
hear from you and have to go through it again."
She rolled her lips inward and paused to regroup emotionally."I'm trying
to build a life without Kev. I tell myself that he's lost to me.
Forever. And that I can live with knowing that. Just when I'm almost
convinced, you show up and ..." Tears overflowed her eyes. She dug into
her pocket for a tissue."See what I mean?"
"Yeah, I see what you mean." He didn't even try to disguise the
bitterness in his voice."It hurts you to serve coffee to the man who
made you a widow."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." He brushed past her and went through the door.
"Burke, please understand," she called after him."Please."
He stopped on the walk and turned back. But when he saw her tortured
expression, his anger evaporated. How could he be mad? She hadn't made
this decision to hurt him. This wasn't about him, it was about her.
It was for her self-preservation that she'd asked him not to return.
"Hell of it is, Nancy, I do understand. In your situation, I'd feel
exactly the same way."
"You know what you've meant to me and to the boys. We know what you
meant to Kev. But I "
He held up both hands."Don't lay a guilt trip on yourself over this.
Okay? You're right. It'll be best this way."
She sniffed and blotted her nose with the tissue."Thanks for
understanding, Burke."
"Tell the boys ..." He tried to think of something she could tell them to
explain why he, like their father, was abruptly disappearing from their
lives.
A sob shuddered up through her chest."I'll handle it. They're amazingly
resilient." She gave him a watery smile."After all you've done for us, I
hate the thought of hurting you. If it makes you feel any better, this
is very difficult for me. I feel like I'm severing my own right arm in
order to save my life. You've been a good friend."
"I still am. Always." Softly she said, "I can't move away from it until
I let it go, Burke."
"I understand."
"The same should go for you. When are you going to let it go?" Several
seconds ticked by. Then he said, "If you ever need anything, you know
where to find me."
barbara's car was in the driveway when he reached home. She would be
pleased that, for once, he was home on time, even early. Guiltily, he
had hoped that the volleyball tournament or some other activity would
have kept her at school for a while. He needed some down time, some
solitude.
The day had begun with Pat's double-barreled bad news. Then Nancy Stuart
told him, essentially, to get lost and stay that way. Today, even a mild
argument with Barbara would be too much to handle. A minor disagreement,
one cross word, might upset some delicate balance within him. He feared
that on his present emotional yardstick, there would be only a hair's
breadth between irritation and outrage.
He entered through the back door, calling her name. She wasn't in the
kitchen or in the forward rooms of the house, so he went upstairs.
When he reached the landing, he heard the TV set in the bedroom. Water
was running in the shower.
But when he went into the bedroom, he saw that he was only half correct
The shower was running. But the voices he'd heard weren't coming from
the television set.
Crossing the bedroom, he went through the connecting door into the
bathroom. It was foggy with steam. Burke yanked open the glass door of
the shower.
Barbara was against the tile wall, eyes closed, mouth open, legs wrapped
around the furiously pumping hips of the short, stocky boys' football
coach from the middle school.
With a surge of feral fury, Burke grabbed the guy with both hands and
jerked him from the shower stall. The coach lost his footing on the
slippery, soapy tile and would have fallen had Burke not been holding
him by the neck.
Barbara uttered a sharp scream, then clamped her hands over her mouth as
she watched her husband slam her lover against the bathroom wall several
times before starting to pummel him with his fists. Working like
pistons, they hammered into the man's flesh, making slapping sounds
against his wet skin.
He was younger than Burke by fifteen years, well muscled and perfectly
conditioned, but Burke had the element of surprise on his side.
Even so, he didn't fight with any particular stratagem. He was maddened
by a need to cause pain, to spread some of the suffering around, to make
this rutting son of a bitch hurt as much as he was hurting. There was
satisfaction in the crunch of cartilage and the splitting of skin and
the giving of soft tissue against his ramming fists
.
He had reduced the guy to a quivering, blubbering, begging mass before
delivering the coup de grace. He kneed him in the balls with the impetus
of a locomotive, which caused the coach to scream in agony and slide
down the wall to the floor, where he lay cradling his injured manhood
between his hands and weeping. His battered face streamed mucus and
blood and tears.
Breathing hard, Burke bent over the sink. After washing his hands and
sluicing his face with cold water, he came upright and saw Barbara's
reflection in the foggy mirror over the basin. She had put on a robe,
exhibiting some semblance of shame, but she hadn't shown any concern for
her wounded lover, which surprised Burke. Didn't she care for him at
all? Maybe not. Maybe she'd taken a lover just to get his attention. And
maybe he was flattering himself.
"Feel better now?" she asked, heavy on the sarcasm.
"No," Burke replied honestly as he dried his face with a hand towel.
"Not much."
"Are you going to work me over, too?"