Lone Palm
By Roberta Giarrettiere
Disclaimer: While my name maybe more masculine than feminine it is still not Jerry Bruckheimer. Not my players, just my playground.
Summary: She wasn't crazy no she wasn't mad. She just wanted the father that she never had. I wrote the story listening to Jimmy Buffett, although this story has nothing to do with the song Lone Palm I liked the lines that I used above and thought that they fit. Grissom's point of view.
He hit her again, that's twice this month that he's laid a hand on her. She showed up on my doorstep with case and daughter in hand. The brilliant plum of a fresh burse was erupting around her left eye and the kiss of cherry was across her right, it was a double whammy. I didn't have to ask and she didn't have to say, we both knew the answers to the questions. Last time he had caused angry looking finger marks all along her wrists and shoulders; those were just starting to go away. I take a dozing Lindsey from her and she follows me carting their overnight bag. I tuck my little butterfly into the guest bed and muzzle her lovingly. I had been there when she was born; I was the first man to hold her, the first man in her life. I often times wish that I had been the first man in her mother's life, but I know that wishes rarely come true. The Monkey's Paw and such. My little butterfly is out like a light and I follow her mother out of the room. She heads towards the living room and I retrieve the first aid kit. The garish burse is now her in all its glory; however the hand print is fading. I also notice dried blood on her lip. This was a severe beating. Unusual, his beating style was normally marks on non -obvious body features that faded in a few days. A black eye was rare. She shies away from my hands as I try to touch the angry mark so I just hand her an ice pack and analyze what I know. Butterfly looks okay, thank God, if she ever got hurt then the last thread of restraint would be broken and so would the scum-bag's neck. She wipes her eyes and looks at me, the strife in her baby blues is enough to make me cry too. I offer up my arms in a hug and she scoots into my embrace, laying her non – injured side on my chest. I hold her for a while stroking her soft strawberry – blonde locks and massaging her back. After about fifteen minutes she sits up and looks at me.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I say, although I know the answer, No, she never tells me the particulars.
"Yes." She says, in a voice not her own. She begins, "Eddie was drunk, again. Lindsey was in her room finishing a picture she had been working on at school Eddie wanted to see it. But he didn't like what he saw." She paused and I again processed what I knew, was Lindsey hurt? Did she see Eddie hit Catherine?
"Eddie grabbed the picture and tore it, ripped it right in two. Lindsey started to cry, she worked so hard on it, Gil, so hard. I picked it up and Eddie grabbed me and drug me into our room. He was so angry he was acting like a madman." She paused again. "He accused me of having an affair and of poisoning Lind's mind. I tried to deny it, I even showed him his father's day gift early, we bought him some records. But he was still mad at me. That's when he…" She trailed off, she never liked hearing or using the phrase "he hit me", or "he hit you." But I knew. And she knew that I knew. We sat for another time before she yawned, I watched her lovely eyes flutter closed, her night had been long. I stand and return the first aid kit. When I return to the living room she had fallen asleep while still sitting, her head was thrown back and there was a deep snoring coming from her open mouth. I pick her up and maneuver my way into the guestroom and lay my Ladybug beside my Butterfly.
The next morn I find her in my kitchen cooking like the lady of the house.
"Good Morning." She whishes me offering a large plate of eggs to me, the ketchup was already on the breakfast bar. A bad habit she had taught me.
"Pancakes will be read in a few. Lindsey still as her ridiculous metal block against eggs." She tells me not turning from her cooking. Off to the side of the bar is a taped sheet of paper. Her back is still to me as I look at the picture. It was a drawing of a butterfly with a Popsicle stick body, fluff ball head, and Lindsey's own handprints as wings. She had worked hard to make sure that the wings were symmetrical. Across the top it reads in Lindsey's sloppy, misspelled, youthful hand.
HaPpy FatHers Day Uncel Grissom.