The first message she left on Bobby's cell phone was at six fifty eight a.m...
"Bobby? It's Alex. Lewis just called and told me about Meg. I am so sorry. Please call me and let me know what I can do to help."
But at six thirty two a.m., she was still trying to fathom what Lewis had told her...
"Oh, no."
"Yeah. In her sleep. At least it was peaceful. Bobby put me on the Emergency Call List at Carmel Ridge after Rick moved to Seattle. They just called and told me."
"Have you talked to him?"
"Not yet. He's not answering his cell."
"Has the nursing home spoken to him at least?"
"From what they said, yes. So, he knows."
"His brother?"
"I don't know. I'm going to call him next to make sure."
"Lewis.."
"Yeah?"
"Did... did he get home okay the other night?"
Lewis paused a moment, hearing what was meant in her voice.
"Yes, Alex, he did. I took him home myself."
She sighed her relief. "You're a good friend."
"So are you. Better than he deserves."
"Will you call me if you find anything out?"
"Sure. As soon as I know."
"You have all my numbers?'
"Yes, and don't worry."
"Thank you, Lewis."
"Take care, Alex."
Her second call to Bobby's cell phone was at eight thirty a.m...
"Bobby? I know this has to be hard for you. Please let me help. Call me."
By mid-morning, she'd done all her laundry, organized her files on WordPerfect, and had spoken with Deakins, who knew even less than she.
On impulse then, she pulled on her boots, slipped into a down jacket, and walked to his apartment. They'd long ago exchanged keys. Pretty standard practice between partners, but they'd as yet had no occasion to use them.
First time for everything.
She stepped in and could still smell the scotch in the stale air.
She walked curiously into his living room and saw right away the opened box and ribbon from her gift. That froze her for a moment. Wondering if he'd liked it, or thought it funny, or just unsophisticated and silly.
His finely made casual shoes were next to the coffee table, she noted.
Next, she moved into the bedroom. The bed clothes had been thrown back. It looked as if he'd been in bed when they called from Carmel Ridge. He'd left in a hurry. A former military man like Goren would have made the bed on any ordinary morning.
She walked around the bed, sat down, and star sixty-nined the phone on the bedside table.
He'd called her number at six fifteen a.m. that morning.
He'd called her. She closed her eyes.
Right after he'd found out, he'd called her. But had hung up before the ring.
She lay back on his pillow then and stared up at the ceiling thinking about that a moment.
He must have been feeling bloody when Lewis brought him home from the bar on Christmas eve, and all Christmas day too, if she knew him at all. Like the jerk he'd been. He'd first tried to justify himself to himself (and her answering machine) with psychobabble, but when it came down to it, he would have known how his words had wounded, and he would have been full of regret.
But he'd called her anyway.
First thing.
She sighed.
Oh, Bobby...
She rolled onto her side then, the rich smell of him in her nose from the bed. The sheets were fine and soft. The highest of thread counts if she knew Goren... and they were... wonderful...
She stroked the silky fabric up through her fingers, a comfort gesture of old...
And felt herself drift...
...a Squad Christmas party... last year? The year before? She doesn't know. At that bar with the tall waiter... Bobby'd bought her a drink... and they'd laughed knowingly at one another when Lampley and Cruz left early together... He'd leaned down and whispered in her ear, 'Don't ask, don' tell, Eames'...
And she'd looked up into his shining eyes and whispered back, 'Tell what?'
And they'd laughed again. A roomful of detectives and Cruz and Lampley were leaving early together...
And that drink, that green Christmas thing... had been good, she remembered...
She slid down a little then... and toed off her boots, and eased her feet under the covers...
Just for a minute... that's all...
Poor Bobby... Poor Meg... She hoped she'd found peace... finally...
And she slid a bit further then because it's cozy... until her feet bumped into something...
She reached down and retrieved the new hot water bottle from within his sheets...
The flannel cover had been worth the extra cost, she decided...
It was still warm.
Which made her sigh a little...
She wrapped her arms around it and fell asleep...
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Paula had just put the baby down on their parent's big bed, and had conked out next to the little guy, when Alex slipped into the room to see the new family on Christmas Day.
Carl had smiled at her and put his finger to his lips. She nodded and sat in her mother's chair near the bed. She looked then at her brother-in-law's face as he stared down at his wife and baby, and then had to look instantly away...
It was too much.
Carl went to seek coffee a moment later and she idly wondered how much sleep they'd all had in the past seven weeks.
Not much by the look of it.
She looked at her older sister. Only two years older but today she looked haggard. Her clothes clearly chosen for comfort. But the way the baby snuggled against her as they slept... The way their breathing, and probably heartbeats too, moved in synchronicity... Well, this was the miracle... the very animal bonding between mother and child happening right before her very eyes.
And her breasts ached for it.
Just as she knew it could not be hers.
Where were her tears? Where were they? Shouldn't she have cried?
She looked closer at them then. At this sacred intimacy. If Bobby were there he would be able to tell her about their brains, about the hormones... her sister's endorphins, positive and full of love would seal her emotions to this baby for life. And the baby? He was learning his mother's scent, her breathing patterns, and he was growing.
Bobby would say, 'That's why they sleep so much, Eames, they secrete growth hormone then. They need that sleep, to forge those neural pathways! To get strong!'
She almost laughed out loud then at the Bobby lecture in her head.
But she knew if she made a sound, she'd wake them. And they needed their sleep. And if she made any noise at all it wouldn't be laughter, but quite its opposite.
So she got up and sneaked out of the room.
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She woke slowly in Bobby's bed and looked at the cool shade of gray on the wall.
And felt a bit sheepish as she slowly came to and glanced at the clock. Only an hour.
She reached for the phone.
The third call to Bobby's cell phone at twelve thirteen p.m. logged her brain silently...
"Hey. I'm at your apartment. I don't know why. I guess I was worried about you... Am worried about you... Please call me... this is Alex."
She got up.
He'll call when he's ready. He's a grown man. And if he doesn't, then Lewis will.
She's made her mind up.
She's going to go about her life. She has things that need doing. She'll have her cell with her, she can always be reached. She walked purposefully toward the door then and stopped at the sight of her hospital id bracelet on his bureau.
The fourth call to Bobby's cell phone at twelve fourteen p.m...
"What happened the other night just doesn't matter, Bobby."
As soon as she clicked her phone off, it rang, causing her to jump.
"Eames."
"Alex?"
"Lewis, thank God! What do you know?"
"There's going to be a memorial service at eleven tomorrow at Carmel Ridge. Rick and his wife are flying in tonight. Meg's... Well, she's left her body to science, Alex. To the specific research of schizophrenia at Harvard—they have an endowment."
"Really? Wow."
"Yeah... she was a great old broad. I could tell you stories..."
"I'm sure you could. Did you talk to Bobby?"
Lewis was silent for moment.
"Lewis?"
"Yeah, briefly. He's fine."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, Alex, I'm sure."
"Okay... Well, good."
"Would you like me to pick you up in the morning and take you up there?"
She sighed.
They made their arrangements then and she clicked off.
Her fifth and final call to Bobby's cell phone that day was at twelve twenty one p.m...
"I'm coming tomorrow... Just... just take care of yourself, Bobby."
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She'd had the notion that she'd be riding to Meg Goren's memorial service in a red muscle car. But Lewis had brought a navy blue Mercedes. In flawless condition, of course.
So she found herself on the way to Carmel Ridge that next morning in her navy blue suit, worn under a navy blue coat, in a navy blue car, looking up at a very bleak sky.
She turned to look at Lewis.
"Thank you again."
"I'm glad to do it," he responded and she believed him.
"You knew Meg when you and Bobby were in high school?"
"Junior high first. She single handedly hoisted my ass through senior English, though, I can tell you that."
"She was well enough to do that?"
Lewis shrugged, "Meg was always well enough for books. Could go weird on other stuff now and then, but I didn't care. When there's... violence... in your own home... Well, she was never violent. I practically lived at their house."
And here was the connection between these two men.
"What about Richard?"
"He's older. Somehow that made it harder, I guess. Rick was always sort of a shy guy. Big like Bobby, and more athletic, but not a talker. Straight as an arrow. He audits banks now. Got a scholarship for college, and then got as far away from Meg as he could."
Alex didn't miss the distaste in his last statement. She thought then about this odd home. This family comprised of three boys, and this brilliant but ill woman.
"And Bobby's father?"
"Bobby never told you any of this?"
"Not really. Some, but not all. I'm just being nosey, it's an occupational hazard."
"You care about him. And are the best thing that's happened to him since he's been on the force," stated Lewis unequivocally.
Alex was a little taken aback by the strength behind this statement.
"You seem pretty sure about that."
He glanced sideways at her briefly.
"I am." He went on then, "Richard Goren Senior was a drinker. Fill in your own blanks about that. He taught school mostly and spent as many hours away from home as he could. Things weren't easy with Meg, but let's just say that man did not do his duty by her and leave it there. They all deserved better."
"It's a terrible disease."
"It's been a time bomb for the family. And once it explodes, it just resets to go again. Bobby's been putting out fires his whole life. She always responded best to him."
"Do you think she has peace now?"
She watched him swallow and well a bit before answering, "I sure as hell hope so."
She nodded. "What about Bobby?"
He considered that, "I think that it could potentially be a very difficult thing for a forty-six year old man to achieve that, when he's only known it's opposite. Then again, do any of us ever get there?"
"To peace?" checked Alex, "I suppose not."
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They signed in and walked past Julie the receptionist, who didn't deign to greet them, then through the double doors, down the long hall, and past the closed door that had been Meg's.
Finally they reached the non-denominational chapel.
They slipped in the back and nodded to the hushed assembly. A recording... Mozart? she never knew, played softly in the background.
And then, up front, she saw him.
He stood in one of his well-cut dark suit, his arms crossed before him, talking to what looked to be a priest. Another, and if possible, even taller man made a third. Rick. His brother Richard, she assessed. Thinner, more gray, but clearly the brother.
There were maybe a dozen flower arrangements about the room.
The priest stepped to the podium then and lifted his hands.
"Please be seated. May I have the family and their supporters come to the front?"
She watched as Rick joined a tall dark haired woman on one side of the aisle, and felt her heart skip then as Bobby hesitated, momentarily unsure of his place.
No. No way. This is not how it's going to be. Not at his mother's funeral.
She could not bear the thought of him sitting across the aisle from his brother alone.
She shot Lewis a pointed look then and, without thinking, yet on some deeper level also understanding significance of her act to all present, walked directly up to him through the parting of the pews, and took his hand.
Bobby looked down at their clasped hands, then up into her eyes. Her throat constricted at the uncertainty she saw there.
She led him to claim their own space in the opposite family pew, sat down beside him, Lewis on the other side, and fixed her eyes on the priest before them.
And did not release his hand.
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Her father had put in thirty five years on the force.
Thirty five.
He'd bought a home, loved his wife, and raised five kids. And she believed he'd been honorable through all this. Perhaps that was naive, and she'd pretty much given up naivete years ago, it having died with her husband. But she still believed that Johnny Eames' corruption had not come until the end.
Throughout her childhood, though, in the most hackneyed of ways, he had been her hero.
She had not considered before what it might mean to have parental illusion like this shattered while still in childhood...
"I am Father Christopher and come here today as a friend of many years to Margaret Drummond Goren. Not that she had much patience for religion," the white-haired man smiled fondly for a moment. "She was a remarkable woman. And, in my many years of visiting the ill, I can honestly say that I've never seen a braver front put up to what can only be described as a pretty raw deal. I was proud to have known her. In accordance with her wishes, I am keeping my statements brief this morning. 'Ted,' she used to say to me, 'you talk too much."
Father Christopher paused here as the tension broke away from the gathering and into small chuckles.
"Her sons have issued a request for mass to be said in her name at St. Anne's in Hopeville on Sunday. I hope some of you will join us. And now I will ask her elder son Richard to come forward."
Alex turned and saw Rick's wife give him a small smile of support before he stood up and walked to the podium.
"Our mother was born Margaret Anne Drummond in Amherst, Massachusetts on January twenty-seventh, nineteen thirty, though she often lied and said it was nineteen thirty-five..."
Alex felt the room warm to Richard's words over. And listened as he detailed his mother's love of books, her writing, and her proud accomplishment of being published in The New Yorker.
But what she felt was the deep stillness of the man beside her. She wondered where he was in the layers and layers that comprised his mind, and selfishly squeezed his hand then to try and bring him back to the present. To her. He did not squeeze back, but he did not let go either.
She was aware then that Rick was finished and seated again and that Father Christopher had announced Robert Goren.
Bobby released her hand and, without looking at her, took his place at the podium.
She watched then as he took in the sizeable crowd for the first time, his eyes wide and unbelieving.
Nursing home staff, several patients, Deakins and his wife Sylvia, and the Eames family.
All of her brothers, their wives, and her parents.
He pivoted his head and met her gaze then. She sat up straighter and nodded for him.
He looked down at the paper he'd withdrawn from his breast pocket, cleared his throat, and began.
"I... I'd like to share a poem with you. Mom loved poetry. It is a new piece. Some of you may have seen it recently in the newspaper. Mom and I... we read it together on Christmas Day.
It's called... Elegy...
To've lain down, lain down that gild of innocence,
---To've stood unbending in the darkest place,
Having questioned God's will and Eminence,
---Still resolve each day anew, with brave face.
To've done this with anger, with grace, with wit,
---That those walking thus gilded might sleep safe.
And to've gambled life in this fright'ning skit,
---That you may hurry home, well-lit with faith.
Quietly, quietly, I shall protect you,
---And stand by your gate the long howling night.
Peace of mind offered, its price coming due,
---Paid by my fellows, who've fallen from sight.
So stand there hale, breathing free, breathing free,
---I'll hold you high, where you might catch your breath.
Steadfast in shadows behind you is me,
---Guarding you, keeping you, true until death."
Bobby paused and looked up.
"Mom thought it pretty damn good, even if a cop did write it..."
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He'd left.
As soon as it was over. Just walked right out. He knew he should stand and shake hands as his brother was surely doing even now. He should thank them all for the extraordinary act of coming to say goodbye to a woman who'd been shut away for twenty years.
He should stand and listen as they said those appropriate things they needed to say and be glad for them. For the flowers, the gestures.
But he'd left instead...
He turned a page then in the worn volume he'd been perusing for the last half hour.
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
---Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
---And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,
---Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
---To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea--
---Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,
---The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.
He smiled a little. He'd always loved that one...
Then felt the light change on his face before she spoke.
"I just overheard Julie telling one of the cafeteria ladies that she thinks I look like a mouse."
He looked up to see her standing in the ajar door. The light from the hall window behind burning about her hair.
She stepped in, shut the door behind her, and leaned against it.
"I don't think she likes me very much. Did you break her heart, Goren?"
"Not intentionally."
She nodded and walked over to look out the window.
"Meg had a beautiful view here. It must have been nice for her to watch the seasons change. You did well by her, Bobby. The best that you could."
"Eames, look at this," he said then, as if it were any ordinary day, and the beloved book in his hands a report or photo of a crime scene.
She crossed to him, took the book and read the poem there.
"I don't remember that one..." she mused.
He nodded and looked up at her from the little wooden chair he'd perched on beside his mother's bookshelves. She was close enough that he caught the caught the scent of her perfume. It overwhelmed him a bit, this familiarity. It seemed a very long time since he'd been with her.
She closed the book then and looked down at him.
"It was... good of your family to come. I... should go thank them."
"No need. They understand. They're old school. A cop's partner is family too."
He nodded, "Still, it was good of them."
She cracked a small wry grin then and it washed right through him, this gesture so of her.
"Try to hold onto that outlook when all those freezable casseroles start showing up tomorrow," she advised.
They paused a moment over this.
"She had a good last day, Eames."
"I'm glad, Bobby."
"She wanted me to apologize to you for that time I brought you..."
She nodded, "That was good of her."
He nodded and looked down a moment.
"I... I should apologize to you too, for the other night, for Christmas eve... I..."
But the words dissolved as his body convulsed. His hand reached blindly for her hip...
And she stepped between his knees, drew his head to her breast, lay her cheek on his head, and held him as he cried.
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Pirate Story by Robert Louis Stevenson, found in A Child's Garden of Verses.