Chapter 4
The movie credits came to an end and the main menu flickered to life on the screen and yet and I couldn't bring myself to move. I just sat and studied the room around me without around me without taking anything in.
A siren blared down my road startling me out of my haze just long enough to realize that she'd been gone for hours and I needed to go to bed. I had Parker for the day starting in the morning and if I wanted to keep up with him, I was going to need some sleep.
I flipped off the lights in the room and managed to collapse onto my bed hoping that sleep would come easy, knowing that that it would be the absolutely last possible thing to happen. And so I laid there staring at the ceiling for a long while, before rolling over to look at the other side of the bed.
She'd never slept there. In fact we've only shared a bed a handful of times on cases. I smiled remembering when we had that itty bitty bed at the back of the RV at the circus and how she'd concluded the only way that we'd sleep properly is if we slept with her back to my front. I'd tried to tell her it was called spooning. She didn't seem to care and had just snuggled into me and dropped off to sleep.
I looked at the empty side of the bed and wondered how many times I had wished she was over there in the last six years. The number was too high to count. But it didn't give me an answer to any of the million questions whirring through my head, as I hopelessly flopped onto my back again. Glancing over at the little green numbers thinking that this night felt more like a week as the numbers seemed to creep by even slower than before.
The sun came up and I still hadn't closed my eyes or come up with an answer. Parker wouldn't be here for hours yet and I wasn't going waste any more time in bed so I gave up and laced on my running shoes hoping that taking to the streets would at least clear my head.
I set a punishing pace almost sprinting down the streets and towards the national mall, grateful that the roads were deserted at this hour. With every contact with the cement and then the dirt clay mix of the malls walk ways I seem further from an answer. The clean, fresh, spring air do nothing for me but add to my confusion as I ran around the entire mall and head back to my apartment with no answers, but very little time to ponder that as I jump in the shower. Successfully managing to get clean clothes on in time to hear Parker using his key in the door. Rebecca must have just dropped him off.
Parker was the key to getting my mind off of everything else that was happening and so I focused on my little boy and making sure that we had fun today. There was hockey, ice cream and a trip to the spy museum before I took him to diner, and then home. But when I closed my door again and looked at the empty apartment again the reality that I had to make a decision hit me like a freight train and the fact that I was no closer to having an answer for her was just an added weight.
I pulled the bottle of good scotch that she'd gotten me from the credenza and poured a three-finger glass of the smooth amber liquid. I tipped the glass back for that first sip I relished a little in the burn it created in the back of my throat.
I sat in the armchair and slowly sipped the liquid just staring around the room looking at all the little ways that she'd infiltrated my life. The collection of her books on my bookshelf the bindings well loved, each one with a dedication on the inside, everyone but the first making some connection to him. There was a photograph of the two of us at some function she'd asked me to attend with her, the seats she'd help bring into his apartment and they'd gotten trapped in the elevator, a science project of Parkers that she'd helped with, and the cap from her beer last night was still sitting on the end table.
Pulling out my phone there were no texts, no missed calls, no emails from her. No sign of life from her since she left my apartment and I couldn't really remember the last time that had happened with the exception of when we were in other parts of the world. The thought made me feel a little hollow, even as the exhaustion creeped into my body. Pushing out of the chair I made my way back into my bedroom with every intention of collapsing and figuring it out in the morning.