Comfort Food -- Carolyn
"Cherry tomato?" she asked the man seated in the driver's seat of the red department-issue sedan. "They're from my garden," she continued, holding the ziploc baggie towards him. Outwardly, she continued the conversation with her partner, but as she gazed out the rain-spattered windows of their car, her mind was more actively involved with thinking about her garden.
She had padded through the dew-wet grass in her yoga pants just after dawn to gather the day's ripest tomatoes from the plants staked up alongside her garage. Across the slate path, a small brown rabbit was nibbling at her lettuces. She knew she should chase him away, but didn't have the heart to deny him an early morning snack. Truthfully, she didn't plant the butter lettuce for herself. She preferred a sharper salad green, but her mother had always planted butter lettuce, and so Carolyn continued to do so out of habit. She had seen this same rabbit many mornings, and they were learning each others ways.
As they worked their first case together, Carolyn couldn't shake the image of that rabbit whenever she looked at her new partner. No one in their right mind would compare her brash partner to a timid rabbit, but she when she got too close to a subject Mike didn't want to discuss she could see in his eyes the same fear the rabbit had when she got too close to him. She could watch Logan walk into a crowded bar and search the room, and remember the small brown rabbit sitting up on its back legs, nose twitching, scenting out potential danger. And as they stared at each other across the observation room at the end of their first case, she could see in Logan the same wary watchfulness and lack of trust the rabbit had given her that very morning.
"Come on Barek, it's been a long day. Let's grab something to eat. I'll let you buy. But no rabbit food. I want red meat," Logan said as he stalked past Carolyn on his way to dump his files in his desk drawer.