"Pavel, don't make such a mess there, honey. John where's your laundry? I'll take this stuff and get it done," Casey said picking up Pavel's dirty clothes from the floor.
"Uh, it's in the basement, but don't bother with that. Just give it to me, I'll put it in the laundry hamper and I'll do it with my stuff this weekend," he said holding his arms out to take the dirty clothes.
"Are you sure he can wait that long for laundry to be done?" Casey asked, not surrendering the laundry yet.
"No, he can't, I'm going to have to get him a jacket for the funeral and he could stand a coat and a hat and gloves too. Look, would you give me that stuff so I can put it in the hamper?"
"Just tell me where the hamper is, that will be easier," Casey said with a grin.
"The bathroom, where else?" he answered giving in.
Casey emerged from the bathroom with a pillow and sheets and a blanket.
"I thought I'd help you make up the couch for Pavel," she said.
"Oh thanks," John said, and began automatically removing the pillows from the couch and helping unfold the sheets to make up the couch as a bed for Pavel. Soon they'd made an adequate bed for the boy, and just in time, as they both noticed the little boy's eyes getting heavy with sleep.
"Pavel it's time for you to brush your teeth and change into your pajamas," John told the boy.
"Do I have to?" Pavel whined like every child the world over.
"Yes, you do. Do you need any help?" John asked
"Yes, please, just with putting toothpaste on my toothbrush and undoing my belt."
John went in and helped him get the toothpaste on his brush and unbuckled his belt, then left him alone to change into his pajamas.
"You take care of him like you've had practice," Casey observed.
"My kid brother is almost six years younger than me. I used to help him put toothpaste on his toothbrush and tye shoes, all those sorts of things," John explained.
"You must have been a good big brother," she surmised.
"I tried, especially after our father's death." John said, a wave of sadness crossing his face. Just then Pavel emerged from the bathroom in his pajamas.
"There's our boy," Casey said. John liked the sound of that phrase.
"Ivan, will you read to me?" Pavel asked, as he got between the covers of the makeshift bed on the couch.
"OK, which story?" John asked, fanning out the books he'd brought from Pavel's family's apartment on the table, and hoping the boy would pick one in English. He didn't, but to John's relief it was a story he knew by heart in Russian, so it didn't matter if he had a little trouble reading the Russian.
John sat down next to Pavel on the couch, and Casey perched on one of the couch's arms, so she could see the book too. It was a wonderfully illustrated edition of the Old Russian folk tale Peter and the Wolf.
John told the story mostly by looking at the pictures and remembering his father's voice telling the story to him and Bernie. By the time he got to the end of the book, Pavel's eyes were shut.
"He looks so sweet. I hope he can sleep without any nightmares," she said.
"I hope so too, but I don't expect it," John responded.
"What time is the funeral in the morning?" she asked
"It's at 10:30," John answered.
"Should I meet you here before then?" she asked
"If you don't mind, I really need to get him a jacket. The stores will open at 9, that doesn't give much time though," John said.
"Then you better have me along, I'm a shopping pro," she claimed.
John smiled at her, too tired to laugh.
"Well I better get going, if I'm to get back here in the morning," Casey said.
"Yeah, let me call a cab for you," John offered and reached for his cell phone.
"Oh don't bother, I'll just take the subway, it's not far from here," she countered.
"Are you crazy, you're not taking the subway, let alone walking to it at this time of night," John said his voice rising.
"Keep your voice down, you'll wake Pavel," Casey said.
"Well I wouldn't be raising my voice, if you weren't being so unreasonable. Let me just call you a cab to take you home," John said.
"No John, I'm just going to,–" Casey opened the door but before she could finish her sentence, John grabbed her by the wrist pulling her back into the apartment and slammed the door shut.
"No," he said, "you're not going, you're waiting for a taxi."
"Don't you try bullying me," she looked down where he still had a hold of her wrist, and he quickly let go. "I'm leaving right this second."
"Don't go, Casey! Please don't go!" Pavel wailed. John and Casey both jumped, startled by Pavel's outburst.
"See, I told you to keep your voice down, now you've woke him up," Casey scolded John.
"Pavel, I have to go home now, it's getting late" she tried to explain.
"Please stay Casey, please! Please Ivan, make her she stay, please!" the little boy pleaded. John looked at Pavel and then at Casey. Casey returned his gaze and it was clear neither knew what to say or do.
"It's really up to Casey," John finally said. Casey gave John a look that was nearly lethal.
"All right, for tonight I'll stay, if John can find a place for me to sleep that is," she gave in, sort of.
"Ivan has a big bed, I saw it. He could share it with you," Pavel suggested.
"Uh, well Pavel, uh," John looked flummoxed. "You want to take this one, Casey?"
"Not really," Casey said, putting the ball back in John's court.
"Pavel, a man and a woman don't usually share a bed"–
"But Mama and Papa"–
"Your Mama and Papa were married," John pointed out.
"Oh, that makes a difference?" the boy asked all innocence
"Yes, Pavel that makes a difference," Casey said with a bit of a chuckle.
Pavel sat back, obviously disappointed.
"Look, I think, for one night, John and I could share his bed." Casey said and looked at John cautiously.
"Uhm, sure, like you said it's a big bed. Now how about you go back to sleep?" John suggested to Pavel.
"OK, Ivan," Pavel agreed and within moments the boy was back to sleep.
"Would you look at that, as soon as he was sure you were staying, he went right back to sleep," John said bemused.
"I guess he feels safe with the two of us," Casey suggested.
"Yeah I think he's sort of latched onto you as a substitute mother figure," John proposed.
"And you as a father," Casey said.
John shrugged.
"It's a little early for my bedtime, but I don't want to risk waking Pavel up again, so if you have something I could wear for pajamas I'll get changed." Casey suggested.
"Sure, let me look," John said nervously.
He handed her a pair of black silk pajamas.
"These are nice, but what are you going to wear," she asked.
"I'll just sleep in my boxers and undershirt," John suggested.
Casey thought about how scrawny John's legs probably were and made a counter offer. "How about we compromise, lend me a pair of boxers and I'll sleep in the pajama tops and you can have the bottoms."
"OK," John agreed, fishing through his dresser drawers he found a pair of black boxers and gave them to Casey. She handed back the pajama bottoms to him and he dug around in his dresser drawers for a black t-shirt, his sense of aesthetics just not allowing him to wear his white A-shirt with the black pajama bottoms.
"Please, ladies first, besides I like a morning shower," he said as he motioned for her to use the bathroom first. While she was showering, he quickly changed and then turned down the covers of the bed. She found him in bed watching the early news.
As he looked over the long beautiful legs exposed beneath his boxers that she was wearing, he wondered if he'd made a good choice swapping her the pajama bottoms. He swallowed hard, and then got out of the bed.
"Almost forgot to brush my teeth," he said nervously.
Casey smiled to herself, liking that she made John so nervous.
After the news and the monologue of one of the late night talk shows, John turned off the TV, leaned over and turned out the lights, as he settled back in bed, he chuckled.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"Oh, I was just thinking, this is just like the tail end of every one of my marriages. I mean, getting into bed with a beautiful woman, knowing darn well there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'm going to be getting any," he explained. She laughed too.
"Why is it, do you think, that you're so successful in getting women to say yes to marriage proposals, but so unsuccessful in staying married?" she asked.
"If I answer the first part honestly, I'm going to sound like an arrogant prick, and if I answer the second part honestly, I'll get very depressed," he answered evasively.
"If you won't answer, I'll have to guess," she threatened.
"Guess away," he said.
"I'd say you're good at getting women to say yes, because your funny and sweet," she paused for a moment, "and you're probably pretty good in bed," she paused again, waiting for him to say something, but he didn't so she continued, "and you're bad at staying married because you tend to forget that a woman needs you to be there with her, and to feel that she's at least as important as the most important thing in your life and most of all to feel that she's your life partner. How did I do?" she asked.
"You missed you're calling, you should have become a psychiatrist," John said with a note of bitterness in his voice, and then rolled onto his side so his back was toward Casey.
"I'm sorry John, I didn't mean to hurt you," Casey said, reaching out a hand to touch John, but then not daring too. She let the silence stretch for a while.
"You know, when I was little I used to think this was what being married was all about," Casey said.
"What, saying insightful but hurtful things to someone," John said, obviously still smarting from what Casey had said.
"No," she said sadly and got quiet.
"Hey, I'm sorry," John said, and rolled back toward Casey. "I guess I'm a bit more sensitive about my failed marriages than I let on. Go on and tell me what you were going to, before I acted like a bear with a sore paw," he said apologetically.
"OK, if your sure," Casey rearranged herself to be a bit closer to John, and he nodded to her to go ahead. "I used to think being married was all about having someone to talk to at night after the lights went out," she said. John could tell by the tone of her voice that, if he could see her face more clearly, he'd see that she was blushing.
"You see, my bedroom was near my parents' bedroom, and I could hear them talking softly. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but just the thought that they weren't alone after the lights went out, and they could talk to each other and have secrets; well that made me think being married had to be really special."
"I take it you didn't share a room with a sibling," John said.
"No, did you?" she asked.
"No, but Bernie used to come into my room a lot, whenever he had nightmares. I'd let him sleep with me after he had a bad dream."
"He'd go to you instead of your parents?" she asked somewhat surprised.
"Well, this was after my father's death. Bernie knew that I understood better what his nightmares were about than Mom did," John explained.
"Why would you understand better than your mother?" she asked.
John hesitated. He almost never discussed his father's suicide with anyone, but somehow tonight felt different, somehow he felt like telling Casey everything that he normally kept hidden away.
"My brother and I found my father's body after he committed suicide by shooting himself," John explained simply.
"Oh my God, how old were you?"
"I was eleven, Bernie had just turned five," John answered, he sighed then continued. "It was one of my mom's days to do volunteer work. I'd walk over from the middle school I attended to Bernie's elementary school, he was in kindergarten, in the afternoon session. I'd walk him home. That day when we got home I noticed that the house was unusually still. I could smell gunpowder in the air. I wandered into the dining room and there Dad was, dead at the dining room table, his blood and brains spattered all over the dining room wall. I didn't react fast enough to keep Bernie from coming in and seeing it too," The circumstances of John and his little brother finding his father's body after his suicide disturbed Casey, and she wanted to reach out and comfort John but she wasn't sure if he would accept that from her. A silence filled the room for a time.
"I never understood why he did it, and I never understood my mother's reaction either," he said.
"What did your mother do?" Casey asked.
"After Dad was buried in the city cemetery," he said the last two words with a special bitterness that Casey filed away to ask about later, "she moved us up here to Manhattan where she had family, and she changed our names," he answered.
"You told Pavel your name was Ivan," Casey said with the excitement of dawning understanding.
"Yes, when he asked me in Russian, what my name was, I just automatically told him the name I was born with, Ivan Borshevsky. My mother changed our last names to her maiden name and my first name to John," he explained.
"But why would she do that?" Casey asked.
"To erase the memory of my father, I guess," John said uncomfortably.
"Oh John, I can't believe she'd want to do that, I mean she must have loved your father, and known that you and your brother loved him too," Casey argued.
"I used to think my parents were very much in love, of course that was just a kid's interpretation, and what did I know? I didn't even know my Dad was thinking of committing suicide, and I never knew why he did it, not really" John said.
"Didn't he leave a note or something?" Casey asked.
"If he did, I never saw it. I suppose he may have left a letter with Mom or with his business partner, but neither of them ever told me about it," he told Casey, and then he decided to tell her his secret.
"Sometimes I think maybe I was to blame," he said, so softly she almost didn't hear it.
"Why would you think that?" she asked, glad she had caught what he'd said.
"The night before he committed suicide, he'd punished because of something I'd done at school," John began explaining.
"What did you do?" she asked, trying to imagine what John must have been like as a boy.
"I had mouthed off to one of my teachers, and he called home that night to let my parents know what I did. Actually, I was just clowning around, like my Dad always did. He was great at making people laugh, and lots of times he'd do that by teasing someone. That's all I was doing really, just trying to be like my Dad. But he yelled at me, told me I should never be disrespectful of my teachers, and when I tried to explain that I was just trying to be like him, he said that that was no excuse, and he went off on a tirade that I didn't really follow very well, and then he did something he hardly every did. He hit me. I remember running up to my room, screaming at him that I hated his guts. I locked my bedroom door, he tried to get me to come out so he could talk to me. I heard him say he was sorry, but I was so mad at him I wouldn't come out, and I wouldn't unlock the door and let him come in either. The next day I didn't see him at breakfast, and when I came home from school, he was dead."
In the dim light she couldn't see well, but she knew John was crying. She could hear it in his voice and sense it in his body language.
"What if hearing those words from his own son were the last straw?" he asked forlornly.
"John, he was your father, he knew you didn't mean what you said," she assured him. Casey decided she didn't care what the consequences might be later on down the road, right now John needed to be held, and so she moved close enough to reach out and touch his face, and then offer to pull him into her arms. His face was wet with tears as she expected. He was embarrassed to have her know he'd been crying.
"Casey," he said reluctantly, but she shushed him, gathering him in and rocking him gently. He held on to her and let more tears flow for a few minutes, and then he released her and moved back from her a bit.
"Thanks, I've only told one other person about my feeling guilty about my Dad's suicide," he said, his voice still a little shaky.
Suddenly Casey thought she knew whom he had told, and for some reason it made her angry. "Not Amy Solwey? Not that self-centered know-it-all?"
"Yes, Amy Solwey. I had to tell her to make her stop trying to commit suicide because she was feeling guilty." John answered, a bit stunned by Casey's vehemence.
"I'll never understand why you go out of your way for that woman, you tell her your innermost secrets, and you nearly throw your career away for her. What's she got that"– Casey stopped herself before she said something that made her sound jealous, but in truth she realized she was.
John decided it was time to lighten things up a bit, "Well, like a certain someone I know, I don't always think before I act. Besides, I never took a bullet for her," he said, referring to the time not long ago when a neo Nazi had shot up a courtroom. At one point holding a gun to Casey's head. The gunman's accomplice had shot John, when John ordered the gunman to drop his weapon.
"Hey, that gave you the opportunity of a lifetime, you get wounded in the line of duty so you're a hero, and you get to tell people you got shot in the ass. I must admit that shooter must have been one hell of a marksman to find your skinny butt," she laughed.
"Is that anyway to talk about a hero?" he asked, his good humor restored.
They lay beside each other in the dark quietly for a while.
"John, are you asleep?" Casey asked.
"Yes," he answered, and then laughed. "God, this is something I remember about every wife and every live-in girlfriend I ever had. I want to sleep, she wants to talk, maybe being single these last few years hasn't been as bad as I thought," he commented.
"Oh yeah, well from the girlfriend's side of it, I can tell you it's always, I want to talk, he want to sleep. I want to talk, he wants to have sex. I want to talk, he wants to watch football," she retorted.
"See you just illustrated my point, all women want to do is yak, yak, yak," he said.
"I could say something really pithy right now, but I won't, if you'll just let me ask you something, OK?"
"Do I have to answer?" he asked
"Yes," she replied sounding exasperated.
"If I let you ask me a question and I answer it, will you let me go to sleep?" he pleaded.
"Yes, I promise."
"OK, what's the question?"
"Well, you said you moved to Manhattan when you were eleven, but I thought you grew up in Baltimore and that that's where you were for most of your police career. So when did you move back there?" she asked.
"We moved back to Pikesville after I finished middle school," John answered sleepily.
"Why?" Casey asked.
"Nyah, one question, then you promised to let me sleep. Now, good night," he yawned.
"Good night, sweet dreams," she added.
John had probably been asleep for all of 15 minutes when screams from the front room awakened him. He ran out to find Pavel sitting up in the makeshift bed screaming.
"It's all right Bernie, I'm here. It's all right. Everything will be OK. I'll take care of you, don't worry. I won't let anything bad happen to you, not ever." John crooned to the boy, the words coming unbidden.
Casey watched as John consoled the boy, she'd heard the slip as John called Pavel by his younger brother's name, but the boy didn't seem to notice.
"Casey," the boy called her name as he became aware of her and wanted her to comfort him too.
"Let's take him to our bed," John suggested.
They put the boy in the middle of the bed and soon he was snuggled between them and sound asleep.
Casey brushed back Pavel's hair and gave him a kiss. She and John each rolled toward the boy, She put a hand on the boy's back and John placed one of his hands over hers. They fell asleep that way, the little orphan boy, the young lady lawyer and the old cynical cop, a new family in the making.