“So…” said Tristan. “Much. Love you so much.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was a cold damned night as Michael got back into his cruiser after a routine traffic stop. The winds were high and icy as the southland was gripped by some of the coldest temperatures on record for LA. Arctic air whipped his exposed skin and chapped his cheeks. He’d already seen several downed trees, one of which had caught power lines, shutting off the electricity to Jeff Clayton’s upscale hilltop neighborhood. Jeff had already called him twice on his cell, worried about his tropical fish. Well, shit, can’t have fish in danger.
Fortunately, even though Christmas was only two weeks away, there were few people on the road this weekday night at four a.m. Bars had seemed more deserted than usual, and he hadn’t gotten many calls that didn’t have to do with the wind and the weather. Maybe people were smart enough and cold enough to stay inside. Which didn’t reassure him at all, considering that if his guys from the park weren’t in the shelter, somebody could die tonight. He circled around on Brea Boulevard, making the left on Harbor to run by the park. Hopefully, he wouldn’t find anyone there, and he could finish up his shift by chasing down more tree branches and frightened homeowners. Maybe he’d even go home and get his generator for Jeff, to keep the fish alive.
Making a careful drive by Hillcrest Park, he couldn’t tell if anyone was there, but the wind was wreaking havoc, kicking up dirt and debris and some rather large branches. He parked in the lot on the bottom terrace of the multi-level park, noting that the lights appeared to still be on in the surrounding areas. He got out his flashlight and took the path to the area behind the bathrooms, where he knew he would most likely find anyone who was squatting there.
At first he saw what he thought was a trash bag, slumped against the side of the building, in the small area that provided privacy on the way in and out of the women’s restroom. Thinking it was trash somebody dumped, he almost walked past the dark shape, but realizing the small protected entryway was an adequate windbreak, he checked closer to see if the strange shadow was more than the bundle of rags it looked like.
Michael shone his flashlight into the confined space. The pile of rags scuttled sideways and backward, like a startled spider. Something about the dirty silver hair captured Michael’s attention.
“Mary?” he asked. “Mary…it’s me, Michael.”
“Don’t know you,” muttered Mary. She cringed back from him in fear. “Mary don’t know you.”
“Mary,” Michael tried again gently, not making any sudden movements. “Mary, it’s me. Michael. Officer Truax. We talk sometimes. Do you remember?”
“Mary don’t know you.”
Michael trained the flashlight over her body, wondering where her coat was, her blankets. She didn’t have her usual things with her, and he was worried. Then he caught sight of a dark stain on the ground near her leg and saw that her sweatpants were torn and possibly bloodied.
“Mary, are you hurt?” he asked. “Did something happen?”
“Mary don’t,” she said. “Mary don’t know you, and you’ve gotta back off.” She barked this last. She didn’t look at him directly; her eyes moved in wild patterns over the concrete at his feet. This wasn’t normal, and it alarmed Michael as much as the wound she’d apparently sustained.
“Mary,” he said quietly. “Where are your things?”
This appeared to be the wrong thing to say, because all of a sudden Mary drew herself up to her full height and screeched at him. “They was taken!” she shouted. “They took my shit!”
“Mary,” Michael said again in the voice he used on charging dogs and frightened children, but before he could say anything further, she seemed to explode into action.
“Don’t!” she screamed. “Don’t you hurt me! Don’t you touch me!” She was tearing at her hair, and silver ribbons of it were floating around her, caught by the wind.
Michael backed away immediately. He touched the radio on his shoulder to ask for immediate assistance and requested paramedics. He saw, now that Mary had stepped into the pool of light cast by a street lamp, that she was bruised all over her face and arms, and that the leg of her sweatpants wasn’t the only thing torn and bloody. She’d been attacked, he surmised grimly. He racked his brain for something to say that would calm her.
“Mary,” he said. “Please. It’s Officer Truax. Some of the kids call me Officer Helmet. Remember we talked about what to do when it’s cold?”
He waited, but she just stood staring at him wildly, frozen, having stopped tugging her hair.
“I’m here to help you, Mary. I’m going to find you a nice, warm place where you’ll be safe. Okay?”
“Not going to be safe,” Mary wailed, heartbroken. It hurt Michael somewhere deep inside to hear it. “Not ever going to be safe anymore.”
“Mary,” he tried again. “It’s okay. We can go someplace safe.” He took a cautious step forward, then another. “Remember me? You always tease me that I get too cold?”
“No…Mary don’t know you.” It was more like a whimper.
“Come on,” said Michael. “It’s okay. It’s going to be all right.”
“Can’t be all right no more. I lost all my stuff,” said Mary. “Can’t live without my stuff. Gonna die without my stuff, sure as shit.”
“No, Mary, we’ll get your stuff,” said Michael, taking another cautious step. “Hey, you know what? Maybe we can shop for new stuff. I could get you some new stuff, Mary.” He didn’t like the way her dark eyes looked like they were swallowed by the whites. It reminded him of spooked horses. Michael was two feet from her when a second patrol car and the paramedics, with their lights flashing, pulled up, and all hell broke loose.
“No!” screamed Mary wildly. “No! Not going. Mary don’t know you!”
“Mary,” said Michael, putting his hands out where she could see them, holding his flashlight in the least threatening way possible.
“No,” she said, lunging for him. “Don’t touch me, can’t touch! Don’t hurt!” She was on him in a second, close enough to for him to see the fresh bruises and lacerations on her face, her split lip. “No! Can’t again. Not again!” Her hand lashed out at him and he thought she pushed him back, but when he looked down he saw he had some sort of shiny metal thing sticking out of him above his utility belt on the right side.
“Mary?” he asked stupidly, as she put her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Mary, it’s me, Officer Truax. Michael.” He put his hand up and felt the warmth and wetness on his uniform, vaguely wondering what could make his hand warm on such a cold night.
“Can’t go,” she said sadly, so quietly he wondered if he’d really heard it. Her eyes widened in sudden recognition. “Michael?”
The young officer from the other patrol car heard Mary ranting and quickened his pace, coming around the building fast. “Shit,” he muttered, drawing his weapon. “Freeze!” He crouched into position, his gun trained on Mary, who stood in the pool of light, hysterical again and ranting. Her ragged clothing swirled around her, her arms raised to gather them.
“No!” shouted Michael, wondering why his voice seemed so far away. “Don’t hurt her!” But she had launched herself at the other police officer, and it was too late. By the time Michael slumped to the ground, Mary was dead.
* * * * *
As always on windy days, Tristan’s chemistry professor was talking in an excited, somewhat agitated cadence that burst and sputtered like she was experiencing occasional power surges. Tristan expected that at any minute she would arc and spark like a transformer blowing. He was taking notes off and on and spinning his pencil in his hand like a rotor when a noise alerted him to an incoming text message. It was his mother. Call me 911 Emergency immediately 911. He grabbed up his things and bumbled them out the door of the classroom where he dropped his pack on the ground and called his mother. He listened numbly as she told him what she knew, then jerked his bag over his shoulder and ran the distance to the parking lot. Hi
s heart raced, his mind a blank, and all he could think of was the first few words of the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
To be fair, Tristan thought on the excruciatingly slow drive to Fullerton, he had always known two words could change the world. I’m pregnant. You’re fired. It’s war. When his mother said, “It’s Michael,” Tristan felt his whole world crumble beneath his feet like the overpriced real estate under the Laguna Canyon homes that slid down the muddy hills each year. “It’s Michael” meant everything and nothing. It meant the difference between what he wanted and never wanting again; it meant his life. Michael was his life.
The thought couldn’t come to Tristan straight on that Michael had been injured on the job. It seemed he had to come to it obliquely, from odd angles. St. Jude Medical Center is a good hospital and Michael is strong. Journalists exaggerate, hyping stories for effect. Christmas is only two weeks away and Tristan still hadn’t had the time to decide what would be an appropriate gift. He could barely perceive the inevitable truth: Michael was in the hospital, in surgery, in serious condition, prognosis unknown.
Tristan tried Emma’s cell phone time and again, but it went straight through to voicemail. By the time Tristan got off the 91 Freeway going north on Harbor, his teeth were chattering. He went through all the motions at the hospital, parking in the appropriate lot, finding his way in, going to the registration desk, finding the right place to ask about Michael. He gathered his courage.
“I’m here…” he began, swallowing hard. “I’m here for Michael Truax. I…is Officer Truax all right?” He looked around the waiting room and saw a uniformed police officer pacing and two others talking quietly.
“I’m sorry, are you a relative of the patient?” asked the woman behind the desk kindly.
“No, I…uh…I’m a friend. I’m Tristan Phillips. Officer Truax and I… He’s my ‑‑” He broke off. Did Michael’s cop coworkers know he was gay? He bit his lip. “We’re friends.”
“I’m sorry,” said the woman. “I can only give patient information to immediate family.
“I…is Emma here?” he asked, growing alarmed. “Emma Truax? Michael’s mother? Is she here?”
“No, she’s been notified, but she is not here.” The woman seemed to have nothing further to say.
“But,” said Tristan, his throat doing a stinging, burning kind of thing that left his voice scratchy and fading. “He’s my best friend. He needs to know I’m here. I promised I’d be there for him if anything happened.” He raised his voice. “I promised him.”
“I’m sorry, son,” she said again kindly, but now a little stonier. “It’s hospital policy and against the law for me to divulge information about a patient.”
“Can’t you…can’t you tell him I’m here?” he asked. “Tristan.”
“Son, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to go sit down. You can wait if you like till a family member gets here.” She had other things to do, he could tell.
“But…no!” he cried, starting to get a little desperate, raising his voice, breathing hard. Tears stung his eyes. “I can’t. I promised. Can’t you just tell him something for me? Can’t you just tell him…”
“Something I can do for you?” asked a man, coming up behind Tristan. He didn’t need to turn to know it was one of the police officers he’d seen in the waiting room.
“Officer,” said Tristan turning to find a man about thirty-five wearing the familiar FPD uniform. “I’m a friend of Michael’s, but they won’t…” He looked into hard and wary eyes. Implacable eyes.
“Son, this is a hospital. There’s no need to raise your voice,” he said. “Officer Truax’s condition is unknown at this time.”
“But I…” said Tristan.
“His mother is on her way from Las Vegas,” said the man, whose badge read “Villardo.” “We’re all worried. Come and have a seat.” He eyed Tristan carefully as though he were going to erupt, but led him to an area where Tristan could sit down amidst a group of bored-looking strangers, who all looked like one family, also tiredly waiting.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“No, I’m sorry,” said Officer Villardo.
“The report on the news said he was stabbed,” said Tristan, a little quieter, but no less angry. “I should think if they can report it to the press, they can tell his best damn friend.”
Officer Villardo appeared to think for a moment. It was clear he didn’t care what Tristan said. He wasn’t family, and he wasn’t in uniform, so he just didn’t count. “Stabbed? That’s accurate,” he said grimly.
Tristan sagged in his seat. “Do you know how bad it was?” he asked in a whisper.
Officer Villardo sat opposite Tristan, his elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth. It took him a long time to answer. He seemed to give the question a great deal of conscious thought. He sighed. “Bad,” was all he said.
Tristan nodded, getting up. He left all his personal belongings on the chair to mark his place and then found the men’s room and threw up until he had nothing left in his body to purge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After the first hour of waiting, Tristan stopped hearing the Jeopardy theme in his head. It was eleven in the morning by that time, and the hospital was bustling with activity. Different uniformed officers came and went, conferring with each other quietly, the thin blue line stretched thinner with the injury of one of their own. Tristan saw the strain of confronting in real time the danger that they probably didn’t allow themselves to contemplate normally on their faces. The danger he hadn’t allowed himself to consider at all.
Tristan’s head had been throbbing since he’d puked. He’d felt his vertebrae snap with the intensity of his retching, so it didn’t surprise him that his head ached. He wondered briefly if he was like his dad, and he had a flaw somewhere that would just give way someday, like maybe when he puked, only to burst like a dam to drown his brain and end his life. His father had been dead before he’d hit the ground. Express lane, no stops, no waiting. For his shocked family, it had been hard, but not like this. Not like sitting in this crowded room waiting for word. Not like for Tristan, who was no one to these people; they passed him by and looked beyond him like he didn’t exist. He wondered bitterly if he’d been a pretty nineteen-year-old girl with an engagement ring on her finger, if they would have treated him differently. He knew they would have.
The challenge had been to close his eyes briefly and to find solace in a kind of quiet contemplation and prayer, except Tristan couldn’t remember how to do that. His eyes were closed against the harsh fluorescent lighting, and he was trying, when he felt a body drop into the seat next to him. The vinyl cushion exhaled a sigh, and he opened his eyes to find his mother by his side.
“This blows,” she said, in that way she had of expressing herself in an endearingly inarticulate manner when it counted the most. Tristan couldn’t help it; the eyes he thought dry swam with tears, and he sobbed a greeting to his mother, who took him in her arms as if he were still four.
“They won’t tell me anything,” he said, pulling back. “I’m no one. I’ve been trying to call Emma.”
“Shh, baby,” Julia crooned to him. “Shh. Emma called my cell; she’s on her way. She’s flying back from Vegas, honey, and she can’t take calls. She’ll be here soon, as soon as she can.”
“Mom,” he said, but he couldn’t go further. Here was a woman who’d lost her life partner in the time it took to choose a drive-through, and he couldn’t ask her what he wanted to ask. He couldn’t bear to ask her how she survived.
“Has there been any change?” she asked.
“They won’t tell me anything,” he said bitterly. “I don’t count. Hospital policy. He could be dead; no one will even talk to me. He could just be lying there waiting for Emma to come so they can turn off…”
“I saw on the local news he was out of surgery and in serious but stable condition, and they’re cautiously optimistic.”
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Tristan stared at her. “Am I going crazy? They wouldn’t tell me, but they announce it on the damned news?” He slumped farther and rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, something he was really too tall for now. “That’s good news anyway,” he sighed, feeling the first blush of hope in his heart. “How could I even…”
“You could. You just would,” she said. “It’s not a multiple choice questionnaire where you get to check the best answer box.”
“You ought to know.”
“Yep,” said his mother, her face like a marble madonna. “I ought to know.”
“Mom?”
“Hm?”
“I don’t know if I can lose someone again. I don’t know if I can stay sane if it happens.”
Julia looked at Tristan and interlaced her freckled hand with his. “You shouldn’t have to, but you’ll cope. I believe you’ll cope,” she said.
“I don’t know if I can put myself through this,” he said, for the first time admitting what was creeping into his heart. “Maybe I can’t be with someone who’s on the job.”
“It’s something to consider,” said Julia carefully.
“I feel like crap even thinking it.”
“Why?”
“What kind of shit would I be to give up on love like that?”
“You wouldn’t stop loving him, Tris. But it is fair to ask if you can live like this. It’s fair to say you’ve been through enough loss and pain and can’t lose someone again. You wouldn’t even be asking if he were a drug addict or an alcoholic.”
“Mom, he’s a damned hero; it doesn’t compare!”
She gestured around her at the sterile hospital waiting room. “Doesn’t it? From where I sit, his choices place his life at risk. Sure, he’s a hero. No one is saying anything to the contrary. I happen to think he’s a really, really good man. But only you know whether you can live with the pain of knowing every day that this is one possible scenario.”
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