When you worked a case, any kind of case that required your complete devotion, it took that out of you, your complete and total time. Especially when you were under the wire, when you knew if more than a few days had passed you lost. And somehow you were expected to pick yourself up and move on.
Oh well, you didn't find that little boy, that working mother, that affectionate father. That happened, you didn't win them all. So you get back in there, you find another one, and that one right erases the one you didn't find and you start all over again. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad or vice versa and so, it's this twisted tug-of-war.
After a case ended, no matter the outcome, it wasn't as simple as waving that person off to their family or moving that arm around a shoulder in comfort the way you'd become so used to, the muscles had grown a centimeter bigger in that arm; you had to close all the details of that case as well.
Write up the report, sign off the forms, organize the witness statements, search warrants, notes you took, and on and on and on until it was a process so familiar you could do it in your sleep. The process remained the same, the details, however, always changed. This case, Julia Lisardi, had been closed in an average amount of time and he shuffled through the last minutae of details.
He looked at the clock, though he didn't have to. The darkness outside told him it was at least six p.m. But he looked at it anyway. He was close. Six twenty. Fifteen minutes from now, he could be on his way home, imagining the smells of a home-cooked meal.
Jack wondered what they would be having tonight. Pot roast, meatloaf, pork chops? Maybe steak or something simple like chicken nuggets. Then again, maybe they would have something Italian like lasagna, ravioli, spagh -- no.
His mind stopped that line of thought.
No Italian tonight.
He smelled the aroma of garlic and tomatoes and parmesan, all merged in a symphony of heavenly taste.
He couldn't eat that tonight.
Ten minutes and he would be out of here.
Jack imagined what his daughters would be showing him when he got home. Kate would wrap her arms around his leg and he would walk to the table with her like that, being careful not to give her rug burn as they slid across the carpet together. Then Hanna would come from her room, an exceptional essay or perfect Math paper dangling from her fingers. He loved those moments most.
Then he imagined Maria when he got home. She would be pouring drinks or reading a magazine, glance up from her tasks to give him a half-smile as he entered. She used to do that when she was pregnant with Kate, many years ago, had stopped doing that six months ago, and then, somehow, had started again. He didn't like those moments when he came home.
He didn't like the perfunctory conversations they'd trade together on the couch after the girls went to bed, talking about their day. She argued a case, he worked a case, she won a case for her client, he lost his case. There would be a ten minute span where they could be interested in the other's day simply because they were two people who happened to do things during the day that filled that span of time. They happened to do things during the day people wrote books about.
So those little things would fill up time, but when those stories were over, they had nothing left, save for a few kisses on the cheek here and there. The bed was cold when he would roll over, though she was still there. Only, she was so close to the edge on her side, he couldn't feel her against him.
Samantha had been warm, she always stayed close to him when they were together.
He stopped his pen.
Why had he thought of her that way so suddenly?
He knew why.
Because she had started leaving with Martin. They had built a friendship over the last few months, more so since last Christmas, and he hadn't thought much of it. She had a close bond with Danny and he'd never questioned if it went beyond friendship.
Something about this felt different.
He capped his pen. He was done with his report. Not hungry, he decided where he would be going tonight.
He didn't feel like going home.
*
"You having a good time?" Martin asked over a plate of chips.
She nodded. "Where'd you find it?"
"Stopped here for a sandwich about a week ago, and I thought you might like it. Plus, they've got the cheesecake you like."
"Thanks for bringing me here, Martin."
"Sure."
They lapsed into a silence she couldn't yet deem comfortable or awkward. She had found a friendship in him she hadn't known possible. When she'd first met Martin Fitzgerald, he'd been a rich boy with a pretty face used to petty crimes in Seattle and she wasn't sure whether he could handle their work, this city, or her.
She didn't want the attention he gave her at first until she felt the chilly absence of companionship from a man she'd shared her bed with enough times to call him more than just a casual sex thrill. You don't think you want some things until the thing you want doesn't want you anymore.
Then you still don't know what you want, but you're a step away from love and a step closer to loneliness. When you're lonely, you cling to pretty faces, and Martin...well, he'd always had a pretty face.
Today, she reflected, was no ordinary day. They had closed a case, yes, but that wasn't what distinguished it from every other day. Today, in fact, was the same day that her mother had died ten years ago. She shared that secret with only her brother, and that sadness crept to her throat as she drank the warm coffee, leaving a bitter taste on her tongue.
She would go to the grave after this, lay some flowers, and it would hurt and she'd need a release, an escape. Matthew, once, had fallen into the bottle for release. Samantha Spade, currently Jack Malone-less, was ready to fall against Martin for release, that temporary physical release. It wouldn't take the pain away, but, for a few hours, it would keep her mother from her thoughts.
"I hate to cut it short, Martin, but there's some things I need to do. Do you think -- could you come over later tonight?"
He seemed surprised for a moment, then stood with her, laying a few bills on the table.
"Uh, sure. You want --"
"Thanks again for dinner. Oh, and, bring some cheesecake with you, " she said, patting his arm.
*
Her mother had been like a monument once, tall and dignified, standing defiantly as if to say, 'Nothing can knock me down.' And maybe she really had been that way once. Maybe all people were like that once. Some stayed that way for a long time, others lasted merely a few years.
Her mother had made it to nineteen, but then she'd met Frank and had Matthew and Samantha and the torches she'd held like beacons of light above her head started to lower, year by year until they vanished completely. Then the other things would crumble. The arms would fall away, and she'd forget the warm touch of love; the legs would disappear, and she'd forget the sensation of walking along the beach in a lover's embrace; then the eyes and nose and smile, and lastly...lastly, the heart.
And then her mother died.
But maybe, like little Julia Lisardi, Andy Deaver, Siobahn Arintero, Josh Corbin, Francis Pace, and countless others, her mother had died long before her body.
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
She placed the rose against her mother's name, rubbed her numb nose in the cold air, and touched the ground of the ones lost and gone forever.
A prayer.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners."
A prayer for them.
"Now, and at the hour of our death. Amen, " she whispered the length of it, standing reverently.
"Samantha?"
She jumped minutely, relaxed at the warm hand on her shoulder as her brother's voice rustled her hair.
"You miss her?"
She could see his shrug, though her face still read the silver letters of identification on the stone that her mother had become.
"Yeah."
"It got bad, Matt, " she said. They didn't do this often, bring up their childhood. But sometimes she felt an unconscious hurt towards him, a hurt that he had left her, left her in that house with the man who liked to drink whiskey and chew tobacco.
He knelt beside her, placing an identical rose across from hers, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Let's get out of here, kid, I'll buy you a hot chocolate."
They stood, and she brushed some dirt from her coat.
"No, thanks, I'm full, I just ate dinner."
"Date?"
She rolled her eyes. What was with that word today?
"Deli sandwich with Martin."
Something flickered in her brother's eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No, seriously, what?"
"You dating the guy, Sammy?"
She flinched. "Don't call me that, Matt, please."
Don't slam that door, Sammy
"And, no, I'm not dating him. We're just --"
"Spare me the rehearsed lines, okay? It's me. Are you going to get serious with Martin?"
"I don't know. I don't know anymore."
"How do you feel with Martin?"
"Good."
"How did you feel with Jack?"
"Good."
He rubbed a hand over his chin.
"All right, you're at home, it's late at night, it's cold, you can't get warm. You're just freezing your ass off and you're all alone, there's no one next to you, who are you missing, Sam? Who are needing to keep you warm?"
"Jack."
"Then what are you doing with Martin?"
She shrugged, feeling tears prick at her eyes. It hurt to speak of Jack, he was an old love she could never get back.
"Trying not to feel so cold and lonely, Matt."
The tears came freely now, and Matt pulled her to his chest, and they stood there, atop the burial site of the woman who had brought them to this very spot today, one crying for the life she wanted, the other bleeding for the life he'd lost.
She thought of her prayer for them again.
Prayers for the dead.