A screaming siren pierced through the cool Spring air under a San Francisco sky, interrupting what little sleep Adrian Monk had experienced in well over a week. His eyes snapped open and his fatigue-laden body seized up as the jolting sound reawakened the clamor of voices bombarding his mind, reminding him of everything that he had tried to forget, of the anguish he felt, of the hopelessness, of the loss.
Rising quickly from his mattress lest his mind continue its assault, he tugged on his familiar brown robe and slippers and shuffled across the floor of his bedroom, running one hand along the wall to steady himself and the other across his throbbing forehead before curling it up into a ball to wipe his stinging and bloodshot eyes.
Yawning, he made his way down the long-familiar hallway to the door to his apartment, opening it just long enough that he could walk outside to where his paper was delivered and return to start his day - as he knew he must. Yet, how could he continue? Everything for him had changed and it was all he could do just to breathe.
Shutting the front door behind him, Monk walked to his dining room, setting the paper down on the table while he went to pour a glass of juice. Adrian Monk was nothing if not a man of routine. Most mornings began exactly the same way – wake up, grab paper, get a glass of juice before taking a shower, brushing and flossing his teeth the requisite number of times, then get dressed and wait for his assistant to arrive. It had been that way for over a decade. It was his comfort - until recent days.
San Francisco had changed a lot a lot in these years but Monk had tried to stay the same. But, try as he might, he was not the same man he was back then. Life had changed him. Trudy's murder had changed him profoundly and his friends, especially Leland and his assistant Natalie, had spent many patient years bringing him back from the brink - but now, here he was again.
He watched the cycle of his life go from joy, to devastation, to living in a daze for over twelve years, back to a much-too-short period of happiness. And now, as he surveyed the wreckage of his shattered dreams, he watched it go back to being in a daze and now devastation. How could he have managed to have had it all, only to lose it all – twice.
Sitting down in his chair, he hadn't shaved or showered in two days and hadn't eaten in more days than that. This, of course was very unusual for the fastidious Mr. Monk. But he didn't care. He was tired of the dark cloud that hung over his life and wished it all would end.
Picking up the paper, he took a deep breath as he speed-readed through the pages, pages he used to peruse with her in happier times.
In his mind's eye, he could see her as she pointed out this article or that, potential cases, notes of interest, anything that struck her fancy. He could picture her mannerisms, the way she'd bite her lip when she concentrated or the cute little punch she would throw at his shoulder when trying to prop him up. She would read, and he would listen – at first impatiently, waiting for her to get to where he wanted her to go, but over the past three years with growing enjoyment.
Since Trudy's murder was solved, Monk had grown as a person; and, he had begun to recognize what the overarching obsession of solving his wife's murder had obscured from his view for all of those years. He had begun to see his assistant as more than just an employee and more than just a friend. He found himself spending more time with Natalie, whose personal loneliness became manifest when her daughter Julie went away to Berkeley for her first year as a Theater Arts major. And, while it was true that she had a boyfriend at the time, Monk also remembered that she had dated several men during the time that he had known her and none had worked out. As such, he tried not to let the attention away from himself bother him too much. Natalie was entitled to a life after all, at least off hours, and Steven Albright would soon go away. They all did. In addition, Albright was often away at sea which meant that Natalie was alone most days and evenings and, in a reversing of roles, frequently needed someone to cheer her up. In early months of 2010, Adrian became that man.
No longer laden down with his own self-absorbency, he made a conscious effort to be there for Natalie as he now realized she had been there for him. This seeing life through Natalie's eyes was a new experience for him and had been a pleasure – something that he had felt he would never know again. It was a beautiful thing -while it lasted. But, as with any joy he had ever felt in his life, it was fleeting. And now, it was over.
Outside of his relationship with Natalie, he had also developed a friendship with Trudy's daughter Molly, who had treated him as sort of an honorary step-father and their relationship grew over several months until things became more serious between her and her boyfriend Kyle, two years her junior. But now, that too was over. Everything was over. Natalie. Molly. He had nothing left.
He closed his eyes, fighting back the emotions he had done such a good job at suppressing for days, feeling so acutely the absence of the mask that he had worn.
Why had God done this to him? Allowing him to feel happiness again after so many years in a total drought of despair? Why did He allow him to wake up after fifteen years of sleepwalking – only to snatch that happiness away and shut the door? Did He enjoy tormenting him?
He shook his head and pushed those thoughts to the side. He couldn't deal with that now, or perhaps, ever. He had to press on.
He turned the page.
And, there it was. Her photograph. That smiling face and those dancing blue-green eyes, so full of life and love and happiness. She had represented everything that he was missing. That smile that had so often brightened his day now seemed a cruel reminder of shades of what could never be. The photograph and that dreadful announcement in bold block letters heralded that the flickering ember of hope that once burned within him had now all but been extinguished.
"Why?!" He cried, crumbling up the paper, bowing his head and body in a mournful round.
For eleven years he had known her. For eleven years she had been there day and night, caring for him, cheering him, believing in him as nobody since Trudy had ever done. But it was beyond that. She had been his friend and had loved him at times where he was most unlovely. She had become his confidante and she knew him better than anyone alive, or in some ways dead, ever had. She had been there through some of the darkest moments he had ever faced - helping him to survive. She was everything he had needed all along, standing right there in front of him, and he was too blinded by pain to see it – until the veil was lifted. But now, it was too late.
"Why?!" he screamed again, throwing the paper off to the side and pushing the table away from him with such a force that it moved it away from its perfectly-centered placement in the middle of the room into a lopsided diagonal. The bowl of fruit, salt and pepper shakers, juice glass and napkin holder all went toppling onto their sides and he didn't even notice.
Jumping up from his chair, it too toppled to the ground as he marched out of the dining room and into the living room with both hands on top of his head, his face pointed towards the ceiling. "No! I can't do this! Do you hear me? I can't go through this! Not again!" he said, frantically pacing in his living room. "Why do I lose everyone I ever love?"
Breathlessly, he leaned one hand against the bookshelves, his eyes closing as tears streamed down his face. He bowed his head and wept.
"Natalie...oh...Natalie...!" His voice was now but a whisper and his shoulders shook as he thrust his forehead against the hand that was placed upon the shelf causing salty tears to splash onto the floor beneath him.
When at last his crying slowed, he opened his eyes, immediately focusing upon a handsomely bound first-edition copy of The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that Natalie had given him the previous Christmas. She had explained that Longfellow authored the poem Christmas Bells (which later inspired the song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day) during a period of depression after he had lost his beloved wife and his son had been severely injured fighting in the Civil War. The story of Longfellow's mourning for his beloved Frances reminded Natalie of what Adrian had gone through and of how he put the pieces of his own life back together.
The leather bound book had to have cost at least half of her weekly salary, so how she had come up with the money for it was beyond him. But he recalled the excited look in her eyes and the crinkle in her nose when she handed him the present and surprised him – no, astounded him - by her generosity. The idea that anyone would take the time to come up with such a thoughtful gift – never mind the opulence that it represented – left him speechless and touched his heart in a way that he would never forget. It was then that it hit home to him that she really cared, and it wasn't just because he was her employer.
He mattered to her. There was no catch. This was the real deal.
Looking down at the floor, he muttered to himself. "It's my fault. I should have known! I should have foreseen this! Things like this don't just happen in my life! Other people's, yes, but not mine. I should never have gone down this road and loved her. I should have learned the first time to never let it happen again. What…What was I thinking?!"
You weren't thinking, Mr. Monk. You were feeling. And that's a good thing.
Her words, spoken in her voice. The very words she spoke as a comfort to him now reverberated in his head, mocking him, taunting him with echoed derision of what could never be.
"This is a good thing?" he said to no one there. "This?! This pain! Natalie? This misery? Is that what you were talking about?"
He bowed his head and sobbed again.
"NO!" he screamed, taking his clinched fists and smashing them through the glass pane of his mission-style bookcase then with everything within him taking those same, now-bloodied hands and picking up each and every identical white vase that sat on the bookcase's top and smashing them against the wall. Looking only briefly at the shards of pottery on the floor, the mess did nothing to assuage his anguish and so he grabbed hold of the entire cabinet itself and pulled it over onto the floor.
"No, Natalie! Feeling is NOT a good thing!" he cried. "It's a very bad thing, Natalie. I spent a lifetime wanting to feel love – someone's love for me and my love for them, and every - time - I opened my heart to someone else, all I've gotten is pain in return. Rejection. Heartache. Loss. That's what I feel!" he said, sucking back sobs even as he staggered throughout the room.
Looking around his room at each of the carefully chosen accessories in his décor, each placed so specifically, each with a certain balance, each according to his tastes, he scoffed.
"I accumulate things…" he said, kicking the coffee table with his foot and then overturning it with his hand before going for the couch.
"Spend money on objects…" he said, picking up the couch cushions and tossing them to the side… "Thinking order will make me happy…" he said, looking at the photos on the wall. Reaching up, he took them one by one and began tossing them to the floor. "But look at this order… I have..." he said, sucking back sobs, "...the most well…ordered...apartment in all of San Francisco, and does it make me happy?" He screamed "Does it?!"
Turning his head, he focused on Trudy's photo, one of many that still decorated his apartment some fifteen years after her death.
"What are you smiling about?" he sneered in anger, taking even her photo and tossing it to the side.
"Heartache! All I feel is heartache...and misery...and loneliness! Apparently that's all I'm ever going to feel! I was a fool! I was a fool to think it could ever be any other way. I was a fool to think…to think you would love me. To think you would stay. To think I wouldn't lose you like I've lost everything else." He sobbed, even as he thrust aside the fact that he had, in fact, pushed her away.
After making a mess of the living room, he marched into his kitchen, opening the cabinet and pulling out a clear glass before retrieving a bottle of Scotch from under the island that the Mayor had given him as a gift two years prior.
"We'll just see who feels what again!" he said, knowing full well his extremely low tolerance for alcohol and being completely determined to drink himself into oblivion.
Wrapping a dish towel around his bleeding knuckles, he ripped off the wrapper around the lid and went to open the bottle, but it wouldn't budge. After trying several times unsuccessfully to untwist the lid, in anger he slammed the bottle against the wall in the hallway, shattering it into a thousand pieces and leaving broken glass and liquor in its wake.
Dropping the bloody towel on the floor he stumbled over, wiping sweat from his brow, and pulled out the drawer where his kitchen gadgets were stored, looking for a cork screw. Pawing through the usually orderly drawer, he quickly grew frustrated, pulling the whole thing out of its socket and smashing it three times against the top of his island. Not only did the island crack but kitchen accessories now were strewn all over the kitchen floor into the hallway. But, he looked triumphant as he found the corkscrew.
Picking it up, he reached back into the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of wine that he had purchased for guests the last time he and Natalie visited the Allacco Winery, prior to them solving a case. Removing the cork, he filled the glass full and then moved back into the living room, with the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other walking across the rubble in the hallway as he went.
Stopping in the middle of the room, he dropped the open bottle of wine onto the floor and shuffled over to his record collection against the wall. Staring at the albums, he guzzled back several gulps of wine then set the glass on the shelf. The effect was almost immediate. He blinked a couple of times and tried to focus on the titles in his collection, quickly finding the recording that he sought - Mozart's Requiem in D minor, K. 626 sufficiently reflected the mood he was in.
Taking the disk out of its sleeve, with shaking hands and tear-filled eyes, he carefully placed it on the turntable, switching the record player volume as loud as it could go in order to drown out the agony which pervaded his soul. Picking up his glass as the melancholy choir began to sing, he convulsively sobbed, sloshing wine all over himself, the floor, and eventually the wall. Stumbling towards his chair, he stopped short, collapsing in tears next to the ottoman as the music played.
"Why did you make me feel again? Why did you make me love you – only to lose you? Why? Why?" he bawled.
Letting the glass fall out of his hand and to the floor, he cried violently into his arm and then laid down in the floor, rocking in anguish, bellowing out her name, over and over and over again, until he was overtaken with exhaustion having no tears left to weep.
His eyes traveled across the floor to a photo of her left sitting on his desk, one of him, Natalie and Julie from Christmases ago when things were different, simpler and good. Closing his eyes in bitter remembrance he recalled all that he had lost and the first time that he knew.