Pity for the Pathetic
by Glistening Sun
Author's Note: 'Fritzy & someone's greatest fear' – The prompt ProfTweety gave me wasn't so much a prompt as a challenge and I'm pretty far outside my comfort zone with this one.
My greatest fear. When people ask me that they expect me to say to be killed on the job and some might say loosing Brenda. These days I hold the more dangerous job of the both of us while she is safe behind a desk in DC. Safe from bullets at least. That old weak heart of mine could well be a source of fear. It isn't though, not for me. If that's the way I'm going to go so be it. Brenda knows about my heart attack now, but it didn't stop her from moving to DC, too enticing and exciting were the opportunities this new job offered her. So she moved and that same week I went into hospital to have a pacemaker fitted. I'm doing much better with that, back to my old self I'd say although without her I'm not quite myself anymore.
I realise what people think about Brenda, and about our relationship. I try and avoid these discussions because I've heard it all before. Brenda does love me, in her own way, and I love her despite or maybe even for her faults. It isn't like I'm not aware of them and there are many. I think the hardest for me is that there are moments when she drives me to such despair that I crave a drink just to numb the pain. I haven't given in yet – but I've come close and that's certainly become easier with her being away in DC. The house is less cluttered, too, and I don't wake up to chaos anymore. We skype and we facetime and really, we seem to talk more now with the distance than we ever did sharing a house and a bed. It did get better for a little while after she moved to the DA's office with the memory of that missed last conversation with her mother still fresh. More regular hours, time spent together, even a few weekends away. But Brenda is still Brenda and she quickly submerged herself in work.
She claimed to go over and see her old squad on a regular basis, but I never got that impression from them. Not so long ago, just after Brenda had left for DC, I asked Captain Raydor whether she had minded those regular visits in the early days. She had seemed perplexed, as much as one could ever call her perplexed. If Brenda had visited, she had carefully phrased, then she would have visited with the team. That was enough to tell me that my wife had found it necessary to lie to me. My wife, because Brenda still is my wife even if it doesn't feel like it much of the time. I had such high hopes for us when we got married, and at the back of my mind there had always been a family, children with blond ringlets and a southern accent.
I love her like I've never loved another woman – and I still do. An old pal once called me pathetic, but apologised later claiming he had been drunk. He was echoing a familiar sentiment I have seen reflected in the eyes of many a friend when I made excuses for Brenda's repeated absences. Pity. Pity for the pathetic husband.
I was never one to fall in love easily and by the time Brenda came to LA, I had resigned myself to the life of a bachelor. There really is only one other woman I could have loved, and I could have loved her move than my wife. But when I met her I was already with Brenda and she was still married, even if by the looks of it somewhat unhappily. She has since gotten divorced but with the gossip I'm hearing around the halls of the LAPD I think I've waited too long to make my move. And she does look particularly happy and content these days. When our paths cross at work as they sometimes do, we clash more and more. There used to be mutual respect, and hers for me hasn't changed, at least not yet. I do react differently though, pulling rank to hide my own hurt.
Perhaps that is my greatest fear – to have made the wrong choice, to have waited too long, to never know what could have been, to have missed love.