by Susan Wiggs
“Joe—”
“I’ll see you later,” he said, and then he was gone.
Rourke scowled at the phone receiver as he hung up. The exchange left him unsettled. He entertained a brief impulse to drop by Jenny’s house to give her a heads-up, but decided against it. Joey wanted to surprise her, and there was no way Rourke was going to ruin that. Okay, he thought. He’d see about getting away to find Joey and bring him home.
Within seconds, however, a call came in and he was ordered to do a knock-and-talk at the Round Table Arms apartments. A neighbor had complained of loud noises from a family fight, a depressingly common occurrence. However, when he checked the dispatch and saw that it was the Taylor household, he shifted into gear. Grady Taylor was a mean son of a bitch when he drank, and there were kids in the house. Rourke hated guys who beat their wives and kids, hated them with a fury that made him far more dangerous than any drunk swinging his fists.
He sped through the driving rain, the cruiser fishtailing on the wet, oily pavement. He reported to dispatch and headed up a flight of iron-frame stairs. Sure enough, the argument was still going on—a man’s gruff voice and a teenage boy’s whiny, belligerent tones. He rapped on the door with his nightstick. The door jerked open.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” Grady Taylor didn’t look the part of a violent man. He was overweight, but his business suit fit well, his tie undone and casually draped around his shoulders. He didn’t fool Rourke, though. Rourke spotted the violence in his glittering eyes and in the way his hair was slightly mussed and the raw spots on the knuckles of his right hand.
“I guess I need to be asking you that,” Rourke said, looking past Taylor. In the background stood a lanky teenage boy in hip-hop garb—oversize sweatshirt, sagging pants, chains draped from his pockets. The kid was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. When he saw Rourke checking him out, he turned away as though ashamed.
“No problem here, Officer,” Taylor said amicably. “My boy and I were just having a little disagreement. Teenagers, you know...”
Shit. Did he actually expect Rourke to nod in agreement? Yeah, teenagers. “Looks like the disagreement was with your fist,” he said.
“It’s none of your damn business,” Taylor spat. “Jesus, what are you, twelve years old? You got no idea what it takes to raise a kid, to keep him safe—”
“He’s not safe here,” Rourke said, then motioned to the boy. “Tell you what. You come with me, and we’ll take a little ride, give you both a chance to cool off.”
The kid didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He grabbed a big coat and walked toward the door, stuffing his hands in the sleeves.
“Don’t you dare set foot outside this house.” Taylor’s voice lashed like a bullwhip. “I swear to God, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” In a blaze of white-hot fury, Rourke brought the nightstick up and across the big man’s throat, pinning him back against the door. “You’ll what, you lousy son of a bitch?”
Taylor’s eyes snapped with rage and his fists came up. Rourke felt himself pushed to the very edge of his control. He pressed harder, the nightstick against the guy’s throat. Just try me, you fat fuck, he thought. Just push me a little harder....
Taylor’s face turned dark red as he struggled for breath.
“Dad,” said the kid. “Hey, Dad.”
The voice cut through Rourke’s fury and he stepped back, releasing the pressure. Damn, he’d almost... Taylor sagged against the door frame. Rourke turned to the kid, who seemed to have forgotten his bleeding lip. A bright ribbon of blood trickled down his chin and he shook with fright—not at his father, but at Rourke.
“Let’s go,” Rourke said to him. “I’ll give you a lift to a friend or relative’s house, okay? It’ll be all right.”
The kid was quiet as they went outside into the battering rain and got into the cruiser. Rourke reported in, then handed the kid a wad of Kleenex for his mouth. He kept glancing up at the apartment, a worried expression on his face. Kids were incredibly loyal to their monster fathers. The boy offered the address of a friend, said he could stay there for the night. Then he rode in sullen silence.
He’s scared of me, Rourke thought.
After dropping the boy off, he’d meant to go pick up Joey, but just as he was pulling away, the radio monitor sounded. Late-model Mustang versus freight train, at the railroad crossing outside of town, just a few blocks from Rourke’s location. Emergency vehicles en route.
Rourke had a premonition before he reached the scene. He felt it like a ball of ice in his gut. Somehow he knew even before he saw the hectic, unnatural glare of emergency lights, the mangled car, the smoke and sparks flying into the night air as rescue workers extracted the victim. Even before he fought his way through the tangle of EMTs and equipment and looked at the victim, into eyes that were glazed with confusion, beyond pain. Joey was being strapped to a narrow backboard, his face chalk white.
Rourke’s heart sank like a rock. Joey. He was in such a hurry, he’d borrowed or rented a car and raced home to Jenny. Rourke was a fool for thinking Joey would wait for the train. That was the stupid thing. He should have known and, job or not, should have dropped everything and driven to pick up his friend.
“Joey,” he said, stepping in beside two frantic EMTs. “Hey, buddy, it’s me. Can you hear me?”
Joey’s eyes fluttered. There was blood everywhere, more blood than Rourke had ever seen, dark as an oil slick, mingling with the rain.
“You know him?” one of the EMTs asked. The look on the guy’s face told Rourke to brace himself for the worst.
“Yeah,” Rourke said, reaching for...there was no place to touch. There were tubes and blood everywhere. “Damn, Joey, look at you.”
His mouth twitched. “Rourke. Man, I...sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry.” Rourke spoke over the swarming EMTs. He felt sick, but somehow managed to smile. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You’re doing good, Joe. These guys are going to help you.”
There was some ineffable quality to Joey’s smile, a glow, almost; clearly Joey knew he wasn’t doing good at all.
“Tell her...” His eyes rolled back.
“Joey—”
He focused again. Moved his mouth but no sound came out. His eyes rolled back again.
“She knows, buddy. I swear, I...” Something changed. A shudder went through Joey. “Dammit,” Rourke yelled. “Do something. Can’t you fucking do something?”
* * *
Jenny was startled by a knock at the door a little before 9:00 p.m. Gram had just settled in front of the TV, and Jenny was wearing her soft but ugly pajamas. She grabbed a sweater, feeling a bit sheepish. It was only nine o’clock at night and here she was in her pajamas, like an old maid. Other people her age went down to the Whistle Stop Tavern for drinks on a night like this, or they were tucking in their kids. She suspected she was the only one in Avalon who was in her pj’s, sipping a mug of chamomile tea and getting ready to watch a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with her grandmother.
Hugging the sweater around her, she opened the door. There stood Rourke, his cap tucked under his arm, standing with shoulders squared and face forward in a formal military stance. Her heart stumbled.
“Rourke?”
He stepped inside, and she saw something she had never seen before—he was about to break down. His face was drawn and pale, his eyes red-rimmed. His hands were shaking. He was shaking all over. “It’s Joey,” he said.
“Joey? But he’s in Washington, D.C. At Walter Reed. I was going to visit him next weekend—”
“He was discharged.” Rourke cleared his throat. “He was on his way back to see you and there was an accident.”
Her mind leaped to a place of hope—this was another false alarm. It had happened once and could happen again. Somebody had pa
ssed on wrong information. If she could just shut her eyes and believe that, everything would be all right. But her eyes, traitors to hope, stayed open and saw the truth spattered in blood on Rourke’s uniform, even on his skin, under his fingernails. He’d clearly made an attempt to clean up; she could see the comb furrows, smell the fresh soap, but it didn’t matter. This time, Joey was gone.
She started to sink, her knees suddenly liquid. Rourke grabbed her arms, propping her up. He was talking to her, and he looked like a different person, someone who had been damaged almost as badly as Joey. She could see his lips moving as he explained what had happened. She could even hear his words: Joey had jumped on the first train to New York and then out of the city, the express to Kingston. The ink was still wet on his discharge papers. At Kingston, he’d rented a car to drive the rest of the way to Avalon. He wanted to surprise her.
Surprise.
Food for Thought
BY JENNY MAJESKY
Mourning Meal
Whenever a cherished friend passed away, the family would call my grandmother because she was a genius at putting together a menu for a crowd on short notice. The centerpiece of the meal was, of course, the funeral hot dish—a savory mixture baked in a roasting pan that resembled a small bathtub. Here is a version for a smaller crowd. It doesn’t cure sadness, but it’s said to comfort an aching heart.
AMERICAN LEGION FUNERAL HOT DISH
1 pound ground beef
½ onion, chopped
1 cup frozen sliced carrots
1 cup frozen cauliflower
1 cup frozen chopped broccoli
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
3-4 stalks celery, chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon white pepper
1 12-ounce bag chow mein noodles
Preheat oven to 325°F. Fry hamburger and onion in large cast-iron pan, breaking hamburger up into small pieces. Drain and place in large baking pan. Mix vegetables, soups, celery, soy sauce and pepper, then combine with meat in pan. Fold in ⅔ of chow mein noodles (8 ounces), cover and bake for about an hour. Sprinkle remaining chow mein noodles on top. Put cover back on and bake another 15 minutes.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The wind had stopped and the snow drifted straight down in big flakes, wrapping the lodge in a cushion of silence. Jenny pulled the cuffs of her sweater down over her hands to warm them. “I do want to know, Rourke,” she said. “I do want to know what you’re thinking.”
He shook his head. “Not important. Are you all right, Jen?”
She nodded. “Is it strange that I’m not crying hysterically?”
“No. She was gone for a long time.”
“I feel...relieved in a way. At least I know. When you first told me about her, it was like something cold and tight unraveled. Now I know why—it’s because I don’t have to be angry anymore. I spent years being angry at her, thinking she simply didn’t love me enough to come back. When in reality she was trying to save the family business, and she was desperately unhappy but doing the best she could, and something terrible happened to her. I should have loved her all along instead of being angry and resentful. It makes me wish...” She didn’t quite know how to finish the thought. “It makes me wish I’d spent my emotions differently.”
“Or not at all,” he muttered.
And that, of course, was the way Rourke saw a situation like this. Don’t get involved and you won’t get hurt. She shifted uncomfortably as he kept staring at her with haunted eyes. She felt a squeeze of regret because she understood him all too well; he looked as lonely as she felt. After Joey was killed, they could have—should have—turned to each other for comfort. Instead, they turned their backs on each other. They’d both been so damaged by the past—afraid to love, afraid to lose themselves, to be hurt, to entrust their hearts to another’s keeping. “It’s because of Joey, isn’t it?” she whispered. “That’s why you never let yourself get close to anyone.”
“That’s why I never let myself get close to you.”
“Rourke, that makes no sense—”
“He knew about us.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“No. He knew, though.”
“And that’s what you’ve lived with all these years.”
“It’s not the sort of thing you forget. He loved us and we betrayed him and he knew, and the second he died, we were frozen there, with no chance to... We can never fix it.” Something in his face reminded her of the boy she’d once known—anger and vulnerability and a stark yearning that had touched her heart. Even then, he’d been both damaged and overprotective. It came through now in his refusal to forgive himself for something he couldn’t change.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I talk to Joey all the time. I’m not going to torture myself over whether or not he knew about us. I refuse to do that, and I wish you would, too.”
“It’s not a choice for me,” he said. “I could have prevented his accident the night he died. I could have dropped everything, driven down and given him a lift.”
“God, Rourke, will you listen to yourself? You can’t save the world. It’s not your job.”
“Oh, sorry, I thought it went with being a cop.”
The ideal role for him. Save people and then walk away. Not this time, she decided. This time, she wouldn’t let him. “You do the best you can,” she said. “We all do, and yes, sometimes it’s not good enough but that’s the way things go. You say we shouldn’t be together, we’ve never been good together, and I say you’re wrong.”
“Bullshit. It should have been you and Joey. You and he were perfect together. It was the way things should have been.”
She glared at him. “That’s something you decided. You didn’t even give me a vote. For your information, Joey and I weren’t ‘perfect.’ Nobody is. I loved him, but never in the way I loved you.” The admission rushed from her before she could stop it. She took a deep breath, mortified yet curiously relieved. Finally, she’d told him the truth, and so far, the world hadn’t come to an end.
His reaction was less than encouraging. He swore and glared at her, got up and went to the window, standing with his back to her. Darkness gathered over the lake, and outside there was not a single glimmer of light. “Bad idea,” he commented at last. “You didn’t want to be with me. I got word my best friend died and all I could think about was the fact that now I could fuck you.”
She knew he was being deliberately crude. His temper had never fazed her. “That’s not what you were thinking and you know it. That’s a story you’ve been telling yourself to make sure you spend your life feeling guilty about what happened. What you really felt, what we both felt, was the loss of someone we loved with all our hearts. Someone we loved so much that we didn’t let ourselves love each other because of him. The problem is that you and I are good together, and we tied ourselves in knots trying to ignore that. And every time we pretended, every time we denied our feelings, we made things worse. Are you seeing a pattern here?”
Rourke turned from the window to face Jenny. Her words took hold of his heart, squeezing until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Crossing the room in two strides, he put his arms around her and pulled her close, and she fit perfectly in his arms. Her soft, flowery smell enveloped him and in the midst of what was probably one of the worst moments of her life, he felt a terrible surge of affection for her.
When she tilted her face up to his, he kissed her delicately, the taste of her impossibly warm and sweet. She kissed him back with an ardor he’d dreamed about for years, and they didn’t speak anymore but strained together, pressing close until Rourke nearly shuddered with need, but at the same time, he had to wonder if this was a replay of the other time, when they thought they’d lost Joey. With an effort he pu
lled back and asked her with his eyes. She said nothing but took his hand and led him into the bedroom, where a light burned low beside the bed. And there, finally, he showed her his heart in the only way he knew how.
* * *
The snow came down in slanting sheets, piling against the side of the lodge until it nearly reached the windowsill. In the middle of the night, Jenny lay on her side next to Rourke, watching him.
This night had been so long in coming. When they finally let themselves go, it had been an explosion of emotion and it was better than dreams and left her feeling a contentment so deep it made her eyes tear up. The intimacy they’d shared was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, and the piercing sweetness of it caught her unawares. Her feelings for him eclipsed the pain and grief that had surrounded and insulated her.
A weak glimmer of light struggled through the gray dawn. She’d lost count of the number of times they’d made love, learning the landscape of each other’s bodies in a slow series of discoveries. At some point he had phoned the station to tell someone they were all right; they’d return after the storm had passed.
And for some reason, as she lay listening to his breathing and the beating of her own heart, the tears wouldn’t stop. His eyes fluttered open and he touched her cheek with his thumb. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to sift through the emotions spilling out of her. “That’s not... I’m not sad. Just...relieved, in a way. Not just about my mother, but...about us.” All right, she thought. Might as well go for broke. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Didn’t you know?”
He offered a half smile, his expression soft in the dim light from the stove in the other room. “That’s why I tried so damn hard to stay away. What we did—what happened with Joey—how could we ever be happy together after that?”
“How? Like this.” She gently touched his face, the faint beard stubble and the wave of blond hair on his brow. She kissed the crescent-shaped scar on his cheekbone. “Remember the day this happened?”