Chapter Eleven

Time. It can be both a blessing and a curse. You can swear at it or swear by it. Either way, it's there. Days. Months. Years. Its passing is as inevitable as most people's next breath.

And that's exactly what Jordan found out. No matter how her arms ached to hold her baby…no matter how much her heart ached for Woody, time still passed. One minute bled into another until a whole hour had passed. Then the hours merged into a day…then the days to weeks and the weeks to months. Soon a whole year had passed.

It hadn't been easy. She did crawl into a bottle until her daughter's due day…July 11. She tried to drink away the pain and emptiness in her life…until Garret could no longer overlook it and called her on the carpet about it. She had moved in with him until she got her emotions in check and her health back. She went back to her own apartment shortly before her own birthday.

One day at a time…that's how she lived…giving herself permission to grieve her daughter on her own terms. And grieve the loss of the child's father, too. She missed Woody so much she didn't know how she could possibly face the years ahead of her without him.

But time worked with her. "You know, Jordan, it has been said that time heals all wounds," Garret told her one day after staff meeting. "Maybe you just need to give yourself more time."

Time. The panacea for what ailed her. But there was nothing else she could really do. That first year, she filled her days with work and her nights with friends, work at the Pogue, or the child bereavement support group she belonged to. Then she would mark that day off her calendar, celebrating that she had coped for another 24-hours. She was learning to deal with the loss of her daughter.

The loss of her daughter's father was another matter. That first year, Jordan swung between being incredibly furious with Woody and missing him so much she physically ached. Time was not working with her on the issue of Woody Hoyt.

The second year was better. When she went to the police station, she no longer instinctively looked in his old office to see if he was still there. She no longer held her breath when she answered a homicide call to see if the detective on sight was Woody. She deleted his cell phone number and his apartment number from the speed dials of her cell phone. She stopped searching the Springfield Police Department's website to see if there was any news of him. She packed away all the mementoes she had of their times together….pictures…ticket stubs…the key to his apartment…his old Boston PD sweatshirt….She put them in a box and went to throw them in the dumpster at her apartment, but found at the last minute, her feet wouldn't take her there. So she hid them on the top back shelf of her closet, assuming that one day she would move from her Pearle Street apartment…by then, they would mean less than nothing to her and she could throw them out then, along with last year's fashions and yesterday's newspapers.

The sonogram picture of her daughter she kept in a frame, hidden in her desk drawer. On occasion, especially around July 11, she would pull it out and look at it. Initially, she'd cry…then run her finger around the small figure and wonder why. Now she would pull it out and wonder what if….what if she had carried to term? What if the child had lived? What would she look like? Who would she look like? What would she have been named? Would she have been a good mother?

Would she and Woody be married?

Then she would swallow hard and carefully place the picture back in the drawer. Sometimes, the what if's were better not even thought about.

By the third year, Jordan was pretty much back to normal. She felt better physically. She still sometimes struggled with the issue of her miscarriage…especially when some of her friends were pregnant. However, to Garret and the others, it seemed that Jordan had reached some sort of peace about it. She even seemed to reconcile herself the probability that she wouldn't see Woody again. Whether or not she was at peace with this issue was anybody's guess. She didn't mention him at all anymore. She was even seeing other men. But no detectives. "I won't date anyone I work with again," she told Lily. "Ever. If you see me heading that way, you have my permission to slap me."

"I promise," Lily had agreed. The last two years for Jordan had not been pretty. She didn't want her friend going through anything like that remotely again.

She had moved her office. Garret had been initially surprised at her request. Jordan had one of the nicest offices, but granted her demand. She took a smaller one down the hall, nearly across from Nigel's. It didn't have room for a couch – just a couple of chairs. If she worked late and needed to rest, she borrowed the couch in Garret's office.

Time had been her friend, her allied companion, her physician for her deep emotional wounds. She had healed, but she was still scarred.

But scar tissue is known for its toughness and resiliency.

And Jordan found herself both tougher and yet more sensitive because of what she had been through. She had pulled through a tough period in her life. Survived and flourished. Came out of it a better person.

Yet she still wondered about Woody. Now that her anger had subsided, she wondered how he was doing….was he coping?

Did he like Springfield or did he want to come back to Boston now? Did he know she was better and could deal with it?

Or had he found someone else and settled down?

She wasn't sure exactly how to get in touch with him. She wanted to talk to him, and debated for weeks whether to call the Springfield Massachusetts Police Department or write a letter.

In the end, she decided she wanted to see him…face to face. She needed to observe for herself what was going on in his life. Without giving herself time to think twice, she went on line and booked herself a flight to Springfield. Then she filled out a request for two weeks vacation time and e-mailed it to Garret. He sent it back with approved on it in less than ten minutes.