A Moment's Respite

By Glistening Sun

I don't know her new office yet. It's certainly larger than the old one in Parker Centre, but it's unmistakably hers. No photographs, she never had those for fear of retribution against her children, but I remember the paintings on the walls, her love for decorations. The thought that I would have loved to see this office at Christmas time fleetingly crosses my mind. Does she still have the stars Emily cut out in second grade?

"Fritz, have a seat," she greets me and I sit, her green chair enveloping and overwhelming in its familiarity.

"Thank you," I mumble and loose myself in her presence and proximity. Sharon. After all these years that still happens so easily. How long has it been? Ten years now, almost eleven since that last look, the last time I felt the touch of her lips. "Not just for giving me a moment to breathe among the chaos of the Murderroom, but for everything you're doing for Brenda."

"Of course, Fritz. You're welcome. On both counts." She doesn't say that she's just doing her job, because she's doing so much more and going far beyond the call of duty.

She has changed, and then again she hasn't. She fills her captain's rank with grace and a commanding presence now and I can still recall the day we celebrated that promotion together, just the two of us before all the official parties and receptions. The first woman ever to be promoted to the rank of Captain in the LAPD. I called her Captain for weeks and she indulged me. For all the talking that goes on in the department, I'm surprised nobody seems to have connected the dots. We didn't flaunt our relationship to the public then, but we didn't exactly hide it either and we did spent the better part of five years together, first as friends, then as lovers. Good and happy years all of them, years that made me who I am today. I very likely wouldn't be sober without her today, I probably wouldn't even be here anymore. I wonder what memories she keeps of me, the young man who loved her.

"Gavin was rather positive when I spoke to him earlier."

After all these years she is once again caring for me, by extension this time making sure my wife gets proper legal representation. She has always liked saving people and she still does it with the same quiet passion. Then I sigh. After all this time, she is still my one safe place. My calm, my rock in stormy seas. I smile and she smiles back and I'm tempted to reach out. Would she still feel the same? Ten years, and my heart still beats a little faster.

"Fritz," her voice full of concern misinterpreting the reason for my sigh, "Brenda is in good hands with Gavin."

If only she knew where my thoughts have gone. Does she ever think about us, I wonder. Did she regret her choice as much I did and … still do? I look at her and here in the privacy of her office, I can really look. Her make-up is his stronger, the dark glasses giving her a more severe look. I seem to recall that her hair was more reddish back then and when we first met, she kept it in a bob that grew out over our years together. She is Captain Raydor through and through, even if she is no longer the highest ranking woman in the LAPD. Brenda took that spot from her. But she is the one who got to where she is through work and commitment alone, her reputation squeaky clean. It surprised me and then again it didn't when I heard about her setting Brenda up for Chief of Police. She herself would certainly have made the better Chief, I've always thought that she would be the right person for the job. I'm not sure I would have been so generous with Brenda if I had been in her shoes.

But then, she was the one to break up with me. With tears in her eyes and a look so full of love, but breaking up no less. After three years during which Ricky and Emily had started calling me Uncle Fritz. Years during which I became sober. Years we shared, never officially living together but content and happy. Initially the age difference didn't seem to matter. We didn't know when we started that our relationship was going to become as serious as it did. I was Ricky's baseball coach and we started talking, bonded about working in law enforcement. She fascinated me from the start and it wasn't even that she was beautiful, because she was – still is – with her bright smile and those sparkling green eyes. She was strong, committed in the way she raised her children, gracious to those around her. How much did I envy her husband in those early days to have a wife like her. What a lucky bastard! She started coming to pick up Ricky from practice instead of sending Emily and she would come to games on weekends. It was around that time that I began to notice that Mr Raydor wasn't really around. She was late sometimes because she had an engagement at her church or had been called out to a case. I fell in love with her long before we became a couple

We've never needed words to understand each other. She is looking at me now reading me as I know she still can and a fleeting smile graces her features. "The past is best left in the past." I watch her lips as she speaks. The last time I kissed those lips we were both crying. She was the one who sent me away out of love and respect because she wanted me to still have what we could no longer have together, what she couldn't give me, she said, and what I craved so much.

Our history, as joyful as it was for its duration, ended on a painful difficult note - and yet here in her office I feel at peace for the first time in days. The urge to drink that has been so strong these past weeks is gone. I am calm, relaxed simply because I am in her presence. It has been ten years and I no longer have the desire to touch her. Well, no, that's not quite true. It is still there but buried more deeply now.

I loved her with everything that I had. I thought I could never love another woman after her. The one I could love, it turned out, was as different from her as possible. I turned to Brenda's blond curls instead of Sharon's straight brunette look, to wildness and unpredictability instead of calm and stability, traded self-centeredness for Sharon's caring and nurturing side. There are similarities though: both are incredibly strong and powerful, I'm drawn to strong women like a moth to the flame.

Brenda doesn't know about Sharon and me. She has never been interested in my past relationships, probably because she didn't want me asking too many questions about Will Pope. I would have told her if she had ever asked, but by the time she came home complaining about 'that woman' it was too late to reveal that I had loved 'that woman' with all my heart and soul.

Sharon and I were lovers for three years, friends for longer and while we were never overly public in our affections, we didn't hide our relationship either. It never bothered me that she was older and in the beginning … well, we were friends and both lonely and holding each other in front of her fireplace felt good, grounding in the way only she can ground me. She wouldn't let me kiss her before I'd been sober for thirty days and I know that by that point the waiting was as difficult for her as it was for me. She wanted me to have something special to remember that day by. Her house became my home and her children if not like mine at least like the niece and nephew I never had. We were committed and it worked. Our personalities fit easily and then, one night that I'll regret for the rest of my life, I asked her the one question I never should have.

"Why don't we try to have a baby together?"

I've never seen her look so sad despite the smile she bravely plastered on before kissing me. "You would be a wonderful father, Fritz, a wonderful, wonderful father … but .. it's too late for me."

Too late? She was older than me, but she wasn't too old to have another child. Sure, there were no guarantees, but she was in her early forties, we could certainly still try. She cupped my face with her hand blinking to keep the tears away and my heart ached seeing her like that. It still does when I remember. "I would have loved to have children with you, Fritz. Gosh, how much I would have loved that!" She swallowed and took a deep breath, "When I had Ricky there were complications and … I won't be able to carry another child."

I held her and kissed her until she stopped crying. It was a horrible night, one of my worst. How I wish I'd have known, how I wish I'd never said anything. We could have been happy the way we were. I would have been happy the way we were, without children of my own. But for Sharon something changed after that night. She was as loving and attentive as ever, she was still my delightful companion and fierce police captain, she slept in my arms and kissed me, but her soul had withdrawn from me and the essence of Sharon was slipping through my grasp.

Of course we talked about it afterwards. That was our strength, we were honest and we liked to talk things through. She said that for her it had never been an issue. She would have loved having a big family, but she also knew that Jack wasn't the right man for that, and she loved Emily and Ricky. So not being able to have more children, at least not without putting her own life at considerable risk, had not affected her the way it otherwise might have.

"Believe me, Fritz, if I still could, there is nothing I would like more than to have children with you. But I can't and that just isn't right. It isn't right that a man like you should never have his own children. You are such a wonderful friend to Emily and Ricky." A friend. She had always been guarded about me stepping into the role of their father and I had never tried to. I started off being Coach Fritz and later became Uncle Fritz. Jack, although absent, had remained their father. "You need to find a woman who does not only share your dream, but with whom you can also live it."

I couldn't believe my ears. I pleaded with her, telling her how much I loved her and that I wanted to be with her, and nobody else. We didn't need to have our own children to be happy.

"You are still young, Fritz, so much younger than me. It isn't fair of me to keep you for myself. I can't be that selfish. I can't! Look at me: I'm a separated mother of two teenagers with a demanding career – I'm not exactly a catch for a young man like you. We were happy and I'll forever cherish those years with you, but it's time for you to move on. I should have done this a long time ago – and I couldn't, but our conversations about a family … Fritz, I'm sorry I've been so selfish, trying to keep you to myself. Go, go with my blessing, with my love and keep some of the memories of the old woman who loved you."

I protested, I argued, I used reason and persuasion, I told her how much I loved her … and I did that for a year until that final goodbye early in the morning in the entrance hall of her house. The sun had only just come up so it was still too dark to make out all of her features. My beloved Sharon was sending me away after a night spent arguing, and crying and making love during which I catalogued every freckle and every mark, every curve of her beautiful body and memorised the feel of her hair, the touch of her hands, the sound of her hums, the taste of her kisses. She denied herself happiness so I could have a chance at my dream of being a father.

Her eyes are harder to read behind those glasses and I would like to believe that I can see some regret there now. Sharon. My generous, wonderful Sharon who has gone out of her way to help an increasingly ungrateful Brenda. She never told me whether she approved of my choice. After the break-up we lost contact. I couldn't be near her and not be with her so I stayed away. It hurt too much. Ricky left to go to college and with him my last link to the Raydor family was severed. I heard that she moved into a condo in Los Feliz and I drove past her old house where we'd shared so many happy moments and that last sad one. The one where she took my face into her hands and kissed me one last time. "Go, my love, go and find the mother of your children."

And I went out and found Brenda. Brenda who is the opposite of Sharon in every way. Brenda who to this day insists that the very last thing she wants is children.

Sharon has always been good at reading my thoughts and at this moment I'm sure she knows exactly what I'm thinking about.

"You love her, Fritz, and she loves you. That is all that matters."

If only she had thought so ten years ago.