Expectations

Chapter 3

"You can go now," Karen told Maria Ramirez, the girlfriend of a man who had been found murdered in an alley that morning. "We need you to be available in case we have any more questions for you in the course of our investigation."

Jim stood at the sound of the door closing behind the woman they had just interviewed, wondering vaguely what she looked like. Based on her name, he imagined her to be Hispanic and something in her voice gave him the impression she was overweight. Her speech pattern and poor grammar caused him to see her as young and dressed in tacky and possibly tight clothing. He couldn't be certain of any of this, but he had started to trust the images of people his mind produced as he interviewed them. Sometimes he wondered if his subconscious was able to pick up on subtle details about people and throw hints of them into his mental images to give him a different—and often more accurate—picture of them than what the others saw with their eyes. Was he seeing the real thing while the others were given only the façade? He couldn't know for sure, but he liked the concept.

He followed Karen back to their desks and took his seat beside Hank, who was waiting patiently on the floor, as always.

"Okay," Karen said, sitting at her desk and moving some papers around. "Tomorrow we need to track down the roommate and see if…"

Her words started to go by him, growing more difficult for him to follow as the thought of the argument he had had with Christie that morning resurfaced. Why had she been so angry? As far as he could tell, she had flown into a temper because he had forgotten to put the orange juice back in the refrigerator the night before. Maybe she was being hormonal again. That had been her excuse the last couple of times her anger had reached an unreasonable level. She had apologized both times, citing her pregnancy as the reason for her extreme moods. Very possible, although Jim wondered what had caused some of the moods prior to the pregnancy.

"…so I'll give that a try and you can…hey! Jim!"

Jim's head jerked up and he faced Karen. "The roommate," he said, nodding. "Yeah."

"You're not listing to a word I'm saying, are you?"

The corners of his mouth went down and he shrugged. "I thought I was. Sorry, Karen. What were you saying about the roommate?"

"Is something up with you lately?" she asked. "Is it still the gun? You get real quiet sometimes and you just aren't all there. If something is wrong, I need for you to tell me."

"Nothing is wrong," he said. "I'm sorry if I haven't been pulling my weight lately."

"No, Jim. It isn't that. You pull your weight just fine, but I can see you're preoccupied."

He had always appreciated Karen's straight talk and the way she never let anything slide, even if such scrutiny was uncomfortable from time to time.

It often amused Jim to think of those shaky first few days after he had joined the 8th Precinct. Of course, he had thought at the time, they partnered him with the woman. And quite a young one at that. He hadn't been in a position to complain, knowing that the lowest one on the squad's totem pole was even less happy with the pairing than he had been. But he and Karen had underestimated each other. He soon came to see that Karen was sharp, intuitive, tough. But there was a soft side there. A kindness. A kind of instinct that showed her how to give Jim a non-intrusive form of help that made him feel like more than an equal in their partnership. She had made it obvious early on that she was the still the junior partner, even if she was lending Jim her eyes and even though she was the main thing that had enabled him to succeed on the job. She looked up to him. Admired him. He could feel it. Her trust in him had made things bearable even during the time before Marty had accepted that Jim was going to be staying at the 8th Precinct. It could have been a whole lot worse, he had often thought. Fisk could have partnered him with Marty, just to get rid of him.

"So what is it, Jim? And don't tell me it's nothing because I know that's not true."

Jim cocked his head to one side, listening. He could hear some activity at the far side of the room, but the area around his desk seemed quiet. He reached down and scratched Hank between the ears, thinking of what to tell Karen.

"We're alone, aren't we?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

Karen rolled her chair close. "Yeah," she said after a pause that told Jim she had checked before answering. "No one too nearby."

"This needs to stay between us, okay? It's not something we're telling people yet."

"No problem."

"Christie is pregnant," he said, smiling.

The smile came naturally as he said the words, surprising him with how good it felt to be telling someone this news—apart from Dr. Galloway, whom he had told because the thought had scared the shit out of him at the time. The idea of the life growing within his wife—the life he had planted there—had become a source of excitement in recent weeks. The biggest surprise now was how difficult it was becoming not to tell people, but Christie was adamant about holding off until at least her second trimester. She didn't want to jinx it. But Karen was his partner and, as she often reminded him, if something was bothering him, she needed to know about it so they could work better together. Surely Christie wouldn't mind Karen knowing, since he depended on her for so much on the job.

"Congratulations, Jim!" Karen said, filling Jim with a softer image of the brown-eyed half-Puerto Rican woman than the one her voice often gave him. He had a better description of Karen than of anyone else in the squad, but he still couldn't see her face clearly in his mind. Her toughness on the job and the streetwise sound of her voice gave him one image while the almost-shy vulnerability she let peek through at times gave him quite a different one.

"Thanks," he said, his smile still going strong.

"How far along is she?" Karen asked.

"Eight weeks," he said. "She's due in February."

"Wow, this is really great news. Be sure to tell Christie how happy I am for the two of you."

Jim bit his lip. "Well, I'll tell her later. You're not supposed to know, so…"

"Right," she said, her voice full of understanding. "Man, I didn't know you were even trying."

Jim's smile grew sheepish. "We weren't."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But it's still a good thing."

"And you guys aren't getting any younger," Karen pointed out.

Jim grimaced at her. "Thanks for that."

"Well it's true, and with a baby—"

"Dunbar procreated?"

Jim stiffened, the smile on his face fading. Marty. The absolute last person he had planned on letting into this particular loop.

"I'm sorry, Jim," Karen said quietly. "I didn't see him come in."

Jim shrugged. "It's not your fault."

"So," Marty said, footsteps stopping across from Jim's desk. "You're going to be a father?"

"Marty," Karen said, her voice quiet but firm. "This isn't supposed to get out yet. It's still very early, so please don't go blabbing. Seriously."

"Okay," he said, sitting at his own desk. The slightly mocking tone had left his voice.

This wasn't supposed to have happened, but the thought of having proof to throw in the face of someone like Marty that blind people could still make love to their wives was oddly gratifying. Something told Jim that Marty might not have known this; that he might have assumed blind people to be asexual and rendered celibate for life. Jim no longer had a gun, but the image of beautiful pregnant Christie was in Marty's head now. That seemed to make something right.

"So, what are you going to name it?" Karen asked.

Jim puffed out his cheeks, thinking. "That's going to be a problem," he admitted. "I don't know if we're on the same page about that at all. Christie likes to be creative and I like names everyone knows how to spell."

"Just name it after yourselves or the grandparents," Marty suggested. "Easier that way."

Jim shook his head. "Nah, that won't work. Christie already has a niece and nephew named after her parents and my parents are named Howard and Ruth, so that isn't really the way we want to go. Christie only wants our names to turn up as middle names, if at all, so we still have a lot to discuss. Right now I tell her we're going to name it 'Warren' whether it's a boy or a girl. That shuts her up."

Marty's laugh had a note of appreciation in it while Karen's sounded merely tolerant.

Jim stood, reaching for Hank's harness. "I'll see you both tomorrow," he said. "Christie has her first ultrasound tonight so I gotta go meet her there now."

"Jim," Marty said. "I got tons of advice if you ever need it. I've been there."

"Thanks, Marty."

He really did appreciate the offer and the sincere manner in which it was presented, but he couldn't imagine the circumstance that would drive him to ask Marty for parenting advice.

Jim followed the complicated directions he had memorized and met Christie outside her doctor's office.

"Perfect timing," she said as he approached. "I'm glad you were able to get off on time today."

She kissed him and held his hand as they walked to the door together.

"Before we go in," Jim said, keeping his voice low. "Does this mean you're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"The orange juice?"

She laughed. "Oh, that. I had already forgotten about it. Sorry, Jim. I wasn't feeling well and you know…hormones."

"That's what I thought," he said, sighing. Did he have seven more months of hormonal outbursts ahead of him?

Jim knew he wouldn't be able to get much out of the ultrasound experience. From what he remembered, even sighted people couldn't make much sense out of them, but as he sat in a chair beside where Christie was lying on a table, it struck him that other people were going to be seeing his baby for the first time and he was going to have to put up with hearing them talk about it, with catching their initial reactions and then having to wait patiently for someone to remember to describe the image for him.

He was right.

The initial reactions were stronger than he had expected, the surprise in the voices causing a knot of fear to tighten in Jim's chest.

"…you see that?…is that what I think it is?…no way!…"

Surely they couldn't know a gender yet and Jim couldn't think of what else could be causing this kind of a reaction.

"What is it?" he asked, annoyed that no one had immediately let him in on it.

The next afternoon Jim entered Dr. Galloway's office, moving faster than usual.

Before going through the any of the usual routines or even sitting down, Jim sighed and faced the sound of rustling papers coming from Dr. Galloway's desk.

"Twins," he said, feeling that he had already just explained himself completely.