by Roger Bray
“She does, doesn’t she and I’m so grateful for that. Alice suffered with me and I often wanted to tell her to leave it and not bother with me anymore. To get on with her life and forget me.”
“But she wouldn’t.”
Alex shook her head.
“There you go. She never gave up on you and here you are. Now the trick is that you mustn’t give up on yourself either.”
They stood up as Jim said he needed to get on with more of his chores that seemed to keep him busy, but he made the promise again that any help Alex needed he would provide. Alex was surprised when the older man hugged him. It was the most emotional he had ever seen him, and he realized how much of himself Jim had allowed him to see.
“Thanks, Jim,” he said, as they broke apart.
“Anytime, I mean it. Anytime you need to talk I’m there.”
With that and a smile, Jim turned and walked back through the garden to his own home. An empty shell now, Alex realized, without Linda in it.
Alex shook his head and considered his plans for the day now the mess from the evening before had already been done. He could sit around or go out, or jump straight in and do the one job he knew he should but had been putting off even before Hazel went missing. Cleaning out the garage. He made a decision and went inside and got his cell phone and quickly rang the number on the side of his domestic roll cart. He ordered a twenty-yard drop box to be delivered the next day, and he felt a sudden moment of happiness that he had made the decision.
Anything of Hazel’s he would repack and keep but there was a whole load of junk that he would get rid of. Finally, he could do the clean-up that he always promised Hazel he would.
The thought of Hazel’s belongings all boxed up and packed away depressed him a little again. The boxes would probably be left stacked along one wall in the garage until the day, in the far future, when he would finally feel strong enough to take them to a thrift store. Until then, they would be kept safe. Thinking about what he would keep or not made him think of the one thing that he had wanted to do since he had got home but hadn’t had the nerve to do. Now, after the talk with Jim, he felt a lot better, and he knew that he was delaying and it would get harder the longer he waited.
He stood staring at the screen of his new smart phone. He logged into his account and all of his old contacts were downloaded into the new phone. He scrolled the list with his thumb until the one he was looking for appeared. Taking a breath, he dialed and waited while it was answered by the frail sounding voice.
“Hi, Isabel. It’s Alex.”
*****
Alice came into the kitchen as Alex was finishing the call. She could see that he was upset, and she smiled, and nodded as he ended the call. He gave her a hug and she could see the tears in his eyes.
“Isabel,” he explained putting the phone down on the worktop.
“How was she?”
“Crying, she was sorry that she had doubted me.”
“She’s bound to be, Alex, don’t beat yourself up.”
“We’re all still going through it aren’t we?”
“I guess,” Alice said actually thinking how great her life had become in the last few months. The last evening had been the best time she had had for years. Alex was home, and she now had Steve as well who always made her feel good. In or out of bed he was quickly becoming everything she had ever wanted.
“Maybe we should have invited her yesterday?”
“Or maybe not,” Alice thought before saying, “I don’t think that she would have been ready for that yet, Alex.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, I don’t want to depress everyone. I needed to ring her to let her know that even though I’m out, I haven’t forgotten her or Hazel. I wanted her to know that she’s not alone.”
“What brought that on? Did you get up and suddenly need to ring Isabel?”
“Jim.”
“Jim?”
“I got up, and he had already cleaned up. He must have taken all the plates and glasses back to his house and washed them all because when I went outside he was finishing off and the patio looks like nothing happened.”
“He has been a rock while you were away. Keeping the place tidy, clearing up the yard. He’s been the best neighbor.”
“Yes, he has. And this morning, he had a heart to heart with me about Hazel.”
“Hazel?”
“Well, Linda and how her death affected him. He wanted me to know that he understood what I was going through.”
Alice seem bemused, “Why, what did he say?”
Alex thought for a moment before answering. He realized how much of himself Jim had shared, and he didn’t want to betray his confidence. It had taken him by surprise at how the older man had opened up, but it didn’t seem right to pass on the secrets and innermost thoughts he had told him.
“He … helped. I explained I was feeling a bit lost, and we talked. He helped me understand that how I’m feeling is a normal reaction to what’s happened.”
“That’s good, I’m glad you’ve talked to someone.”
“What’s good?” Steve came into the kitchen with a big smile on his face.
“Jim, my neighbor, cleaned up the patio and we had a bit of an early morning talk. It helped me get some perspective.”
“He lost his wife, right?”
Steve sensed that Alex didn’t want to say any more, so he dropped the subject and they started to get some breakfast ready. Steve had to leave by nine as he had a lecture to get to. His finals for the semester were approaching fast, and he needed to make up a lot of lost time.
Chapter Six
Christmas had been quiet. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to celebrate; it hadn’t seemed the right thing to do. At first, they considered a big dinner with Ron and Audrey and, of course, Jim. They had thought about inviting Isabel, but it was the thought of her that had put them off the idea of any real celebration and Christmas dinner had been the three of them.
An unusually heavy snowstorm had dumped three inches of snow over a couple of days and it gave them all a lift to look out of the windows at the white blanket spread around, deadening the sound and giving a surreal glow to the isolated cones of the street lights in the evenings and night.
Alice had spent days getting the dinner ready and had decided on a traditional turkey with all the trimmings like her mom used to make. Steve had been employed as her universal gofer being sent back to her house to get some utensil of her mom’s that she needed or off to the supermarket for something that she had forgotten. He didn’t mind, but after the third trip in one day where he spent longer looking for somewhere to park than actually shopping, he insisted that she sit and think for a moment to write a list. She was adamant there was no more. They got wine, beer and a couple of bottles of whiskey. The food was ready to go, and she was sure that the butternut squash to mix in with the mashed potatoes was absolutely the last thing. Until at three o’clock she remembered that she had forgotten the walnuts for the stuffing.
Steve pulled on his coat and gloves and grimaced at Alex who smiled as he went out into the cold Christmas Eve again to hunt down some nuts. It wasn’t the shopping he minded but the stalking people around the parking lot to see if they were leaving and grab their place as they did.
When they sat down to have the first family Christmas dinner for three years, Alice fretted that it wasn’t as good as her mom had made, even against the protestations of Alex who said that it was exactly how he remembered and Steve who proclaimed it even better than his mom’s.
The only thing that darkened their mood was the news that he had brought back with the walnuts. When he returned, Alice was wrist deep in stuffing mix and directed him how to shell and smash the walnuts and how to add them. He had almost forgotten until after everything that could be prepared for the next day had been and Alice had returned from a quick shower and had accepted the glass of wine from him.
“I ran into one of my lecturers down at the markets.”
&n
bsp; “Oh, did he tell you how you went with your finals?”
“Fine apparently. We don’t get the actual marks until the New Year, but he said I did fine. But that’s not the news he told me.”
She looked at him over the rim of her glass as she took a sip waiting for him to continue.
“Nicholas Rowe.”
“What about him?”
Alex walked into the kitchen and Steve waited while he found a glass and poured some wine.
“He was charged with perjury a few weeks ago.”
“They’ve kept that nice and quiet.”
“I haven’t heard anything either,” Alice said.
“And you won’t.” Steve continued. “It’s all over.”
“They dropped the charges?” Alex said, sounding shocked at the news. “They were happy to charge me on the flimsiest of evidence and yet Rowe actually admitted what he had done.”
Steve shook his head. “Sorry. Probably the wrong word. Not over but finished, resolved.”
“How?”
“It didn’t even make it into court, he and his tight pants lawyer did a plea deal with the DA. No jail time, not even suspended.”
“What did he get?” Alice wanted to know.
“A fine, ten thousand dollars.”
“That’s it?”
Steve nodded, “And through his connections with the media, I’m guessing that the only reference you might see is one column inch on page seven. Immediately below the dog catcher’s report.”
“How did he manage that? I thought that perjury was a felony.”
Steve nodded. “It is, but they dropped it back to false swearing, which is a misdemeanor. The DA was happy to do the deal but apparently Judge Prindle was not at all happy.”
“Why didn’t he stop it?”
“The deal was done. I think the DA’s office thought if it came to trial, Rowe could make life difficult for them.”
“When their incompetence and mishandling of Alex’s case came out they would look stupid?”
“Something like that.”
“Son of a bitch!” Alex exclaimed shaking his head.
Alice reached out and rubbed his arm, a little annoyed with Steve for raising this on Christmas Eve when they were trying to put the year behind them and move on, before Alex surprised her.
He shrugged his shoulders, “Stuff it!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t actually expect someone like Rowe to do time. I suppose at least it has finally drawn a line under the whole trial thing. I must admit I would have liked to have seen him in an orange jump suit if only for a little while.” He smiled and drew his own line under the episode. “I have to look forward and not back, so I’m going to forget that Rowe even exists. If he has even a small conscience, he knows what he did, and I hope he can live with himself.”
“He looked fairly beaten when I went out there and took his statement from him. When I left, he looked a bit gutted. Whether it was the realization of the shit storm he had caused or fear for himself, I have no idea. But at least he felt something.”
“And that will have to do for me. Short of going and punching him in the face and I don’t think that I would give him the satisfaction of being the injured party in all of this.”
“Fair enough,” he reached over and grabbed a glass for himself and poured the wine, topping up Alex and Alice’s glasses as well.
“That was one hell of a year,” he held up his glass. “But I found Alice so for me it was all good, though you might feel a bit differently, Alex.”
“Hell no,” Alex said holding up his glass as well. “I may not have found Alice, but it certainly reminded me of what a brilliant sister she is.”
The two men toasted Alice while she blushed and batted Steve on the arm before she stepped up and kissed him. She hugged Alex and mouthed thanks to him before she raised her own glass.
“Hazel, whatever happened.”
They all drank to that and Alex actually felt a moment of happiness rather than the sadness he had usually felt.
“Jim was right after all,” he thought, “it does get a bit easier.”
Chapter Seven
A few more snow showers and Eugene had had double its normal winter weather over a few weeks. A lot less rain and a lot more snow had brought them into January.
Alex and Alice had been working on their apps for the smart phones. Adjusting and rewriting the code to catch up with the latest version of the software and discussing ideas that they had to try to turn them into something.
True to his word Alex had cleared out the garage. Not quite as much as he had hoped, but enough that he could get a car in one side. The twenty-yard drop box had been picked up and replaced with another, which had been filled again and removed the week before Christmas. He surprised himself how many times he went in to the now half-empty garage to stand and admire the ruthless clean-up he had done.
Hazel’s boxes were lined up against the far wall. He had gone to a packaging supplier when he realized the tatty selection of boxes everything was originally in were not going to survive the process. He bought a good supply of moving boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, tape, and a tape gun so the result of his efforts was a uniform stack of boxes along the wall. Hazel’s to the right, his to the left and a mixture of things in the middle all marked with his neat writing in marker pen showing a manifest for each box.
The boxes he had left over he laid on top of the stack, waiting for the day when he would be able to make them up and fill them with Hazel’s clothes and other possessions from inside the house. When that might happen, he had no idea. He didn’t want to put a time-frame on that task and didn’t want to push himself into it; he knew that when he was ready, it would happen.
Alice hadn’t commented, knowing that the clean-up was a process that Alex had to go through. Outwardly it was a clean-up, but she knew that there was more to it than that and Alex had to come to terms with the guilt he didn’t deserve that somehow, he was at fault for Hazel going missing.
She had been happy to come around and he would take a break while they talked through mundane things, business decisions for their apps and web designs. Over the weeks she could see a change in him. He was less nervous and more assured, more like his old self and even joked with her the way he had in the past.
Steve had been busy as well and had spent a lot of time at the university and at his own house. At first, she had thought that he was slowly distancing himself from her. The investigation over he was trying to step back from her. She was grateful for the opportunity to have some time with Alex but was upset that her love life seemed to be circling the drain again.
When they were together, Steve seemed OK, but she had convinced herself that she was doing all the running to keep the relationship going. She decided she needed to know. They were going out for dinner and she brought the subject up. If it pushed the relationship over the edge, then so be it but she would rather know.
Walking from her house into Eugene, Steve had seemed preoccupied. True, his arm was wrapped protectively around her as they crunched through the new snow. But she still felt uneasy.
In the end, she decided to come out with it and ask, “Steve, I get the feeling we’re drifting apart a little. I need to know if we’re done.”
“What?”
“You seem distant, you hardly ring me, and I don’t see you as much as I did.”
He laughed and stopped, turning in front of her and looking at her face with the fur lined hood of her jacket round her head, and her scarf wrapped around the lower half of face.
“Done? Hell no! Unless that’s what you want?”
“No,” she answered.
“Look, I know that we have been apart a lot, but it’s only because I have been busy. I told you that I’d keep looking into Hazel’s disappearance and I have. Plus, I thought that you might need some time with Alex, or he with you to … readjust I suppose.”
“So, you still want to be with me?”
“Alice. Don’t you realize
that I love you?”
“No,” she answered quietly.
“Well I do.”
He pulled the scarf from her face and leaned forward to kiss her. She threw her arms around him and pressed herself against him. When they broke apart she was smiling, and she couldn’t help but go in for a repeat kiss. Eventually she broke off and pulled back looking at him.
They smiled at each other fumbling to hold hands with their heavy gloves on.
“So, are we eating or are we going to make out in the snow on the side of the road?”
“I’m game if you are,” she laughed.
He grinned and pulled her scarf up to cover her face up to her eyes. The only bare bit of skin was a small piece of forehead and he leaned forward and kissed it. She put her arm through the crook of his as he stepped to her side,
“Eat first, then make out, but probably not in the snow.”
“OK, deal.”
They ate at a little Italian place that specialized in seafood pasta and Alice could hardly keep her happiness down or her hands off Steve. A couple of bottles of red wine with the excellent meal and they sat in the dimly lit booth while they waited for their cognac Zabaione to arrive.
“Have you found anything out?” Alice asked.
“About Hazel?”
She nodded.
“About Hazel, no. Not specifically but I think I’ve started to build up a background picture which is interesting.”
“How?”
Steve thought for a moment, “If I tell you now before I have any more it might sound stupid. Give me a few weeks and I might have something more solid to tell you.”
She nodded and was about to say something when the dessert arrived and decided that the questioning could wait.
Chapter Eight
There was a knock on the door and Alice opened it. Standing on the step was a man a little older than her, maybe in his mid-forties. He was a little shorter than she was and was slim but in a sinewy, healthy way. His face had the taut look of someone with little fat on their frame.