A Widow's Awakening

by Maryanne Pope

  “I dunno.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yup. But I guess it is time to come up with a new ops plan.”

  The phone rings again. I glare at it.

  “Starting with a quiet place to write,” says Matt.

  “There’s a lot going on right now…”

  “There always will be, Adri. That’s life.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you set a deadline for completing your manuscript?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ve been working on a novel for years and trust me, there’s a real danger in not having a goal to aim for.”

  The twenty-ninth of June will be the nine-month anniversary of Sam’s death and since we didn’t have a have a child together, maybe this book is the next best thing?

  “June twenty-ninth,” I say.

  “That’s only two months away—are you sure that’s reasonable?”

  “No. But at least it’s something to work toward.”

  The phone rings again.

  Matt looks at me. “How do you stand it?”

  “Not very well.”

  Then the doorbell rings, sending Sasha and Sven into another tizzy.

  “Getting a novel written in this zoo,” Matt says, standing up, “would be nothing short of a miracle.”

  I open the door to let him out—and the detective in, who is here to discuss with me the final report from Occupational Health and Safety.

  In the kitchen, I pour a cup of coffee and hand it to him, nodding toward the document in his hand. “What’s the bottom line?”

  “That Sam’s death,” he replies, “sure is a case for fate.”

  “When you cops start saying stuff like that, it really freaks me out.”

  “It’s just that Sam’s case is very strange, Adri. I mean, the sequence of events that led up to his death are almost unbelievable.”

  Once we’re in the living room, I ask him what the report says about the railing.

  “As you know,” he replies, “according to legislation there should’ve been one. But as I found in the police investigation, the lack of railing was not a malicious act. It was an oversight. There was no intent to cause harm.”

  “Of course not. Safety simply wasn’t a priority.”

  He puts his cup on the coffee table. “I’m not in a position to advise you of where you should go from here…if anywhere.”

  “I realize that.”

  “I just wanted to tell you that the entire investigation is now complete. The police are satisfied it was an accident…”

  I shudder at the word.

  “…and Occupational Health and Safety are as well. The company where the accident took place…”

  I clench my teeth.

  “…immediately made the necessary structural changes and, as I told you before, they felt very bad about what happened. I guess I just wanted to remind you that there were several contributing factors that led to Sam’s death, not just one.”

  “You mean the funny sounding alarm, the confusion of the employee, the forklift which made the hole in the drywall the day before, the wind setting off the alarm, the two previous false alarms, the poor lighting, the chair that gave that extra tilt to Sam’s trajectory, the lack of safety railing, and the simple fact that Sam cared enough about catching the bad guy that he gave his life trying to do so?”

  “You’ve certainly been thinking a lot about this,” says the detective.

  “I should certainly hope so. And ya wanna know what I think the bottom line is?”

  “What?”

  “That when Sam got to the landing at the top of that ladder, he saw what he expected to see on the other side of the wires: a safe surface on which to step. If there was no safety railing, why would it even cross his mind that there might be a false ceiling?”

  “Adri…”

  I hold up my hand. “Which begs the question: why would a company blatantly put its own employees at risk?”

  “It wasn’t an area that employees went on a regular basis.”

  “That area has been deemed a permanent workplace by Occupational Health and Safety, has it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d say Sam’s death is a case of cause and effect: no railing, no husband—which tells me that workplace safety is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed.”

  But why do I have to do this on my own? After the detective leaves, I call Tom to debrief. He tells me he’s off to Mexico tomorrow with his girlfriend.

  “Oh,” I say snottily. “And are you looking forward to your trip?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, have fun.”

  “Thanks.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Are you OK?” he asks.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Adri…”

  “Have a great vacation,” I say, then hang up.

  Then I walk into the dining room and reread Emily Dickinson’s poem. My dad’s right: I’m hinging my hope for happiness on an expected outcome with a specific person. Not only do I want Tom to help me deal with the issue that led to Sam’s death, I want him to drop his girlfriend and rescue me from widowhood.

  “Come on guys,” I say to Sasha and Sven, “let’s go for our walk.”

  At the dog park, I sit down on a rock and look out over the river. “Well Sam, I promised you I’d stick it out for seven months. Now here we are.”

  I remove my wedding and engagement rings from my left hand and place them on my right. My marriage to Sam is over. As much as I don’t want to let go of the past until I know what the future holds, I’m learning life just doesn’t work that way.

  “They say if you really love something,” I sob to the water, “you must set it free. And only if it comes back to you, was it meant to be yours in the first place.”

  So, for the second time in two weeks, I let Sam’s spirit go. Now, however, I not only risk losing it, I have no backup in place.

  THE NEXT day, I return to the realm of business matters and tackle a long overdue task. Since October, I’ve been receiving Sam’s salary from the City through what’s called ‘supplemental compensation.’ The payments have seemed low, but I haven’t yet checked into the matter. I phone the police association, figuring they’ll be able to explain the discrepancy.

  “You’re right,” the union president says to me over the phone, “those numbers don’t sound correct. You better contact our lawyer.”

  I ring up their lawyer.

  “Bring in your documentation,” he says, “and I’ll look it over for you.”

  I gather up all the relevant papers, including Sam’s copy of the police contract with the City, where it’s still on the back of the toilet beneath his calculator.

  Two days later, I’m in the lawyer’s office, my papers strewn across his desk.

  “I see…all right,” he mumbles, shuffling through documents and punching numbers into his calculator. “Uh huh, hmmm…”

  While he’s working, I happen to glance down at the paperwork in front of me and, for the first time, notice my husband’s handwriting on the back of his police contract:

  August 9, 2000

  DEPOWUCDO

  UCDOC

  CUCDEO

  CPUCDEUOS

  Sammy Pucdeuos

  Clunk. This is the undercover name he’d been creating for himself last August.

  “Very interesting,” says the lawyer.

  I look up.

  He peers at me over his reading glasses. “Are you all right?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You’re a little pale.”

  “I’m OK.”

  He tells me that from a financial perspective, a few items may need adjusting but nothing is too terribly out of whack. The City is responsible for paying me the net equivalent of what Sam would be receiving, if he was still alive, which means that the WCB lump sum and pension payout I received last fall are being deducted and will continu
e to be until they’re paid off at the end of year five.

  I nod and start gathering up my papers.

  “Not so fast,” he says. “There’s a far bigger problem here that you need to be concerned with.”

  “What’s that?”

  He reaches over and picks up Sam’s contract. “According to this, you’re never allowed to remarry.”

  I let out a snort. “That doesn’t seem to be an issue at the moment.”

  “Maybe not today—but in the future, it could be a damn big issue. Although Sam’s salary seems low now, it will go up significantly in years four and five. Plus, you’re entitled to receive a pay increase whenever the officers themselves do.”

  “I know.”

  “All that ends if you marry again—which is a glaring violation of human rights. Your future marital status has no relevance as to whether or not you receive Sam’s supplemental compensation. What matters is that you were married to him when he passed away in the line of duty. This is archaic.”

  “Then why is it still in the contract?”

  “Because nobody else has been in your situation since 1977—that was the last time an officer died on the job and left behind a spouse.” He stands up. “This is something that seriously needs looking into.”

  OVER AFTERNOON tea and cookies with my dining room angel, I investigate another matter needing looking into. Based on what little I know of undercover terminology, I come up with this possible explanation for the U/C name on the back of the contract:

  Police UnderCover DEtective Under Operation Sting

  Corny, yes—but oh so him. As for his first name, I’m sure he chose Sam simply because it’s a common Greek name, although not quite as popular as say…John.

  I call Jodie to fill her in on the day’s events, finishing with, “And guess what the lawyer told me right after I found the undercover name?”

  “What?”

  “That if I ever remarried, I would no longer receive his…Oh shit!”

  “What?”

  “The police association—that’s who Sam was talking to on the police radio in my dream a few weeks ago.”

  “Huh?”

  “Right after I finished his scrapbooks, I had a dream that I saw Sam talking on the radio with someone from the police association. Sam called me a slacker and told me to get back to work—but maybe he was also telling me to contact the police association because of the remarriage clause?”

  “That,” says Jodie, “is unbelievable.”

  A FEW days later, I meet up for morning coffee with a tanned Tom, back from Mexico. I ask him how the trip went.

  “Not so good. I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”

  Hooray! “How come?”

  “Because she doesn’t love me the same way I love her.”

  “Oh.”

  “Despite what happened to Sam,” he says, “you’re very lucky to have had the relationship you did with him.”

  “Still have, actually.”

  Tom nods slowly. “Have you seen the movie, Gladiator?”

  “No.”

  “You might want to.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s some stuff in there about the afterlife that I think might interest you.”

  “The afterlife? You were the one who told me it takes a lot of energy to miss someone I know I’m never gonna see again.”

  Tom frowns. “I did?”

  IN THE afternoon, Amanda joins me and the pups at the off-leash park.

  “Did I ever tell you about the dream Sam had a few days before he died?” I ask, throwing the ball for Sasha. “The one where I cheated on him with another cop?”

  “No. Who was it?”

  “The officer with the sexy voice.”

  She nods. “Hollywood.”

  “Huh?”

  “His nickname is Hollywood because he’s so damn good looking. And what did Sam have to say about the alleged incident?”

  “He was pissed. When I actually saw the guy at Sam’s funeral the next week, it was pretty weird.”

  “I bet,” she says, throwing the ball for Sasha as Sven trots along between us.

  “It’s Tom I like, though.”

  She turns to me. “Really?”

  “Is that wrong?”

  “Of course not,” she says.

  “But he was Sam’s friend and boss.”

  “So? That wouldn’t make it wrong…just highly unlikely.”

  I throw a stick for Sven, but she ignores it and stays close. “I’ve been trying to figure out if Sam was mad at me because I slept with another guy, or because it was a police officer or…something else?”

  One eyebrow goes up. “Such as?”

  “Well, the dream was obviously about betrayal, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But maybe it wasn’t a guy Sam was worried about.”

  Up goes the other brow. “You’re gonna bat for the other team now?”

  “No.”

  “Then who else would it be?”

  “Me!” I say. “The only way I could betray Sam would be to betray my own self.”

  “And how would you do that?”

  “By not living up to my potential…not becoming a writer.”

  “You are a writer!” she says. “You write every day, for God’s sakes.”

  I roll my eyes. “A published writer who makes a living from her work.”

  “It’ll happen. Shit—you have the tenacity of a bulldog.” She sneaks a sideways glance at me. “Kinda like someone else I knew.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say, bending over to pick up Sasha’s poop.

  “What did you and Sam do that day?” she asks.

  I straighten up and tie a knot in the plastic bag. “What day?”

  “The day he had the dream about you and Hollywood.”

  “Oh. Well, that was Sunday so that’s the day…”

  “What?”

  “That’s the day we went to Universal Studios—the epitome of Hollywood. We were on the tram tour and I was bitching to Sam about not being able to see any movies being made—and Sam’s response was that Hollywood only shows you what they want you to see.”

  Amanda throws back her head and laughs. “That’s you, all right.”

  IN EARLY May, I’m on the perch watching TV when I see a close-up of a child’s bike helmet bouncing across the street. It’s a safety ad sponsored by a local injury prevention organization—and it gets me thinking. Most drivers don’t deliberately run over children in the street; people just don’t think about the consequences of speeding or not paying attention. Likewise, the people that ran the company where Sam fell obviously hadn’t considered the consequences of an unsafe area—not for their own employees nor for anyone else who might attend the premises after hours and in unfamiliar conditions.

  I bring Sam’s cross and medal to my lips, the dried blood long gone. What if I’d been given these pendants for more than just comfort, coincidence, or as a clue to what Sam is doing in the afterlife? St. Jude is the patron saint of police officers as well as lost and hopeless causes; maybe the work the memorial fund needs to be doing is connected to workplace safety for police officers? That’s a hopeless cause if ever there was one: cops have one of the riskiest jobs on the planet.

  WHEN I meet Charlie, Mark and a third officer—a cowboy—for lunch later in the week, I run the idea by them. The cowboy is another of Sam’s recruit classmates and was involved with setting up the fund. He handles the finances but hasn’t been able to attend any of our meetings yet. I tell the three of them about the bike safety ad and how maybe we could do something similar about workplace safety for police officers.

  “It’s called a PSA,” I finish.

  All three look at each other then back to me.

  “A what?” asks the cowboy.

  “A public service announcement,” I say. “It airs on TV.”

  “Like a commercial, right?” says Charlie.

  I nod. “Yeah but it airs
for free.”

  Mark smiles. “Well, TV would certainly be Sam’s medium of choice.”

  “And it might help get the public thinking differently about workplace safety for you guys,” I say, “or anyone working in emergency services for that matter. Maybe we need to start shattering the myth that death is an acceptable part of your job description.”

  Charlie thinks about this. “Kind of like…protecting the protectors?”

  I break into a grin. “Totally!”

  Mark asks me what the commercial would look like.

  I shrug. “I haven’t got that far…but maybe we could somehow use Sam’s death as an example of the importance of making one’s workplace safe for everyone.”

  “We’ll deal with this PSA thing,” says Charlie, “but first, you need a break.”

  Mark suggests I go traveling.

  “Yeah,” says the cowboy, “take ’er easy for a bit.”

  Tonight, I have dinner at a friend’s and during the meal I bring up the idea of traveling. Her husband, also a police officer, suggests Spain.

  “You’d love it,” says my friend. “Paella, sangria, sexy Spaniards…”

  “And it’s also a safe place for you to travel on your own,” her husband adds.

  I book my flight the next morning. It’s strange to be able to call up my travel agent and tell her where I want to go, without worrying about how I’m going to pay for it.

  Then I check my e-mail. Another friend, Tamara, also plans to be spending the month of June in Spain—and would I like to join her? What are the chances of her going to the same country that I’ve just spontaneously bought a plane ticket to visit?

  IN THE third week of May, I fly to BC to meet up with another friend who’s visiting her parents on Vancouver Island. On the plane, I’m thinking about Mark’s suggestion that we find a symbol to represent what Sam stood for. I recall the qualities we’d come up with and again jot down the words integrity, courage and commitment. And Nakoda, the wolf Sam and I sponsored, comes to mind. What about wolves had intrigued us? I write down the word wolf and circle it.

  “Why did you write that?” asks a voice beside me.