Chapter 7
The effects of the chemo drug wore off with nasty side-effects three days after her weekly treatment. Sharon was addressing Boswell about a case, and all of the sudden she felt bile rise to her mouth. Her tongue had been dry all morning and she'd downed water, but nothing had helped. Now, she had to race to the bathroom to expel what little she had been consuming. Her appetite had dwindled considerably. Her clothes no longer fit. She was losing weight. She felt like death.
She vomited in to the precinct toilet, vomited until she was dry heaving. She felt like her throat was on fire. She wanted drugs, she wanted anything to keep the pain at bay, but it seemed as if nothing she was taking helped. She reached for a bottle of pills she kept in her pocket and took one out.
Staggering to the bathroom sink, she cupped her hands and swallowed the pill down with the sink water. She hoped it would stay down. She went through the process of washing out her mouth, wiping off some disgusting vomit that had found its way in to her hair.
She wanted to puke again. She had to steady herself against the sink. She needed to get her body under-control.
But it was no longer under her control. It was taking over. It was going to kill her.
...
Brenda sat at her kitchen island, swirling wine around in a glass. She heard Fritz packing things in their bedroom. His shirts, his pants, socks, the books he kept in his bedside table, his alarm clock, his shoes. They would soon all be gone. The house would be empty, save for Brenda's items.
She was a horrible wife. She was convinced she was not cut out for marriage. She was selfish. Fritz had made her thoroughly aware of this fact.
Brenda sipped her wine and thought of Sharon Raydor. She had no idea what possessed her to think of the woman at a time like this, but something about their previous conversation several weeks ago had left Brenda feeling a huge sense of calm.
Had it been merely years before, she would have never considered Sharon a source for anything other than anger and frustration, but now…now the woman served as a beacon for Brenda's slowly sinking ship. She had the urge to sneak out the door and drive to the woman's house, but she quickly realized she'd almost drank an entire bottle of wine, and she had no idea where the other woman lived.
What if she lived with someone? From Brenda's constant replaying of their evening together she had begun to dwell on the end of their conversation. Sharon had left after receiving a text message. Was the woman otherwise involved with someone? Did she have a boyfriend, perhaps? Was she married?
Brenda realized she knew very little about her subordinate officer.
"Brenda?"
She quickly snapped out of her thoughts, flushing bright red, wondering if Fritz could read her mind. Did he know that she was thinking about Sharon Raydor? Honestly, of all the people she could think about.
"What?" Brenda turned to face her husband…or was he about to become her ex-husband? She wasn't entirely certain where their relationship was headed.
"Do you want me to take Joel?" He was holding the cat. He looked so sad, so dejected just standing there in the kitchen with his sweats and an old t-shirt.
Joel. Their cat. Brenda didn't want Joel to leave, but she knew she did not possess a propensity towards raising the animal. She'd probably forget to feed him and kill the poor helpless thing. "Yes, Fritzy." She sipped her wine and hung her head.
She could feel his eyes on her. They no longer burned in to her in the focused way they once had. Now he seemed just as distracted as her, but he was still standing there, staring at her.
"What?" She asked, giving him a quick glance.
Instead of responding, Fritz produced a manila envelope and placed it on the island.
Brenda bit her lower lip and nodded.
...
"You need to eat." Lucas sighed as he took his mother's untouched plate of grilled chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes from before her. She had no appetite. He knew her medications would do that, but he also knew she needed to eat.
His mother was distracted and had been since she'd arrived home. She looked miserable. He wished she did not have to deal with this stupid cancer and her demanding job. But she would work herself to an early grave before she gave it up, of that Lucas was certain.
"Are you my mother?" Sharon eyed him.
"I feel like it." Lucas placed her food in a Tupperware container before putting their dirty dishes in the sink.
His mother remained deep in thought at the kitchen table.
He watched her for a moment, frightened for her. She wasn't herself. She seemed depressed, resigned, lifeless. Her body was withering away and Lucas knew he could not persuade her to eat, nor could he make her happy. Of course he knew she was happy with him, she loved him. But a son could not bring his mother out of a depression.
He would give anything to go back to the night before she found out. He wanted their lives to be normal again. He worried that her decline in health would result in Lucas returning to his father. He didn't want that. His father was an awful man. A man his mother had become too reliant on and too forgiving of. Their marriage had been one argument after another.
Lucas disliked the hostile environment his father succeeded in creating. He could live with one of his siblings, but Katherine was newly married and Jonathan's job left him traveling. There was no room for Lucas in either of their lives.
"What are you looking at?" Sharon didn't have to look at Lucas to know his gaze was on her.
Lucas cleared his throat and looked away, suddenly embarrassed…and sad.
"Come here," Sharon held out her hand for her youngest child.
Lucas bit his lip and stepped forward, in to his mother's arm. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close to her.
"I'm going to get better." She stated, distantly.
Lucas let his fingers graze through his mother's hair. It was soft, but not as full as it had once been. The chemo treatments, while not leaving his mother completely bald, had left her with half the volume she'd started with. It frightened him when he pulled a few strands away in his fingers.
"I know," he responded, just as distractedly.
"I think I'm going to head up to bed."
Lucas nodded, leaning down to kiss his mother's forehead.
...
Brenda found herself standing in line at the café, craving French vanilla coffee. Her eyes darted, almost ashamedly, to the table where she had met Sharon Raydor. She half expected the woman to be seated there, looking as casual and laid back as she had been the other night, but instead a young man with a Mac occupied Sharon's seat. Yes, it had become Sharon's seat.
Brenda had no idea when these nearly obsessive thoughts about the Captain had begun, but she found solace in them. To her Sharon was an uncomplicated distraction from her life.
"Excuse me, ma'am," a young man was trying to get her attention.
Brenda glanced up and realized she was at the counter. "Oh…sorry." Brenda blinked, snapping back to reality. She nearly blushed as she asked, "Can I get a venti French vanilla, please." She pulled out her wallet, still in a daze. She wondered if she would run in to the Captain on her way out of the café. The thought sent her heart fluttering, her stomach lurching.
The boy took her card and in seconds she had a coffee cup – sans Sharon Raydor's lipstick on the rim – of French vanilla coffee and she took a sip. It didn't taste the same. It wasn't how she remembered it. Something was missing; the Captain had added something to her coffee.
Brenda poured some milk and two packets of sugar in to the drink. It was sweeter than she remembered, but the Captain had definitely added some sugar.
She moved her hand to put her wallet away; her fingers brushed the manila envelope. Reality sat in. She was throwing away her marriage for this job. Or perhaps their marriage had been over years ago. She remembered the first time Fritz had brought up – or actually had not brought up – a promotion. He had been afraid of her answer, and though she had assuaged him with kisses and sex, they both had known that when the time actually came she wouldn't have gone with him.
Major Crimes needed her, and Fritz…Fritz was no longer the adorable man she had married. He was more of a woman than she was. Yes he was gorgeous and perfect and wonderful in bed, but there was just something missing. They'd grown apart. Or perhaps she had let work interfere and that had created a crack in their relationship.
Either way, Brenda felt guilty for hurting Fritz, but the glimmer of freedom their divorce gave her ignited within her happiness, a sense of relief, of a burden lifting from her shoulders.
She realized, as she made her way down the road to the LAPD, that this was her chance to start over.
...
A donut was thrust in to Sharon Raydor's eyesight as she made her way across FID, desperately trying to make it to her office without throwing up again. But the sight of the offending food made her gag reflexes flair and she put a hand to her mouth. She had just come from the bathroom and she was sick of being in that horribly smelling room and especially sick of throwing up.
"Captain, we just got a call from the Gibson family." Lieutenant Miles informed her and she put up her hand.
"Not right now, please put the number on my desk," she squeaked out with uncharacteristically fast speed.
She turned on her heels and went right back down the hall to the bathroom. This would not do. She had not been in her office for nearly thirty minutes. She was exhausted from vomiting, light-headed, and sickly feeling.
As she emptied the contents of her stomach in to the toilet – trying her hardest not to put her perfectly tailored pant leg on the ground, or get vomit in her hair – she heard the door to the bathroom open.
She could hardly care that someone else now occupied the bathroom with her because the vomit just kept coming. She began to dry heave and hoped that soon it would be over. She thought of the bottles of newly acquired drugs tucked away in her desk. Anything sounded good about right now. This was like having a hangover but she hadn't even gotten to enjoy the drinking to warrant it.
"Capt'n?" Sugar sweet Southern drawled her title.
Oh fuck, she thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Yes?" Her voice was hoarse, raspy as if she'd been chain-smoking for the last twenty-four days, which she would much prefer right now over vomiting in a toilet.
"Are you all right?" Brenda had the nerve to ask.
"Just fine." Sharon, finally finished dry heaving, flushed the toilet and leaned up against the cool metal of the wall.
"I need to talk about this case with you, but if this is a bad time…" Brenda knew it was a bad time, why did she even need to say it? "Are you sure you're all right? You know if you have the flu you should go on home. I'm sure that Boswell could handle things, but Lord only knows I might have to strangle him if he did. You know he's not my favorite."
"Brenda!" Sharon found her voice and called out. "Please, stop talking." The woman drove her insane when she went off on her tangents, constantly talking. It was giving her a headache.
"Sorry, Capt'n." Brenda was right next to the stall now. Christ, couldn't she leave her alone?
"I'm fine," Sharon lied, taking a deep, calming breath. "Please, can I discuss this with you later, Chief?" She paused for a moment before adding, "Preferably not in the bathroom."
"Um, certainly, Capt'n." Brenda sounded worried now. Great, just great. "Are you sure you're…"
"I'm fine. Please…go." Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose.
She could hear Brenda open her mouth to protest, but no words came out. Instead the younger woman stamped her foot lightly in anger on the ground before parading out of the bathroom.
Knowing that she was finally alone, Sharon sneaked out of the stall and moved to the sink to wash out her mouth.
How in the world had Brenda Leigh known that she was in here? She would kill Boswell for saying anything, if he had.
God damn it, now she was going to have to come up with some excuse for the Chief as to why she'd found her throwing up in the bathroom. And if she saw another donut or morsel of food she would see to it that all food was removed from her department or so help her God she'd strangle someone.
