Yet another chapter! Anyways, I'm going to take this story slow, so don't expect this story to be done in a week. It will take time! But it will be great!
Tell me what you think!
Robert and Elliot come back inside, slamming the door behind them.
"Would you calm down Robert, this is only a title, it'll go away."
Olivia doesn't seem to understand that this isn't a case, this is world wide news, splattering every tv station possible.
"Olivia, this isn't a case where we can put it away and it'll disappear within a few days, this is a worldwide story, people are going to be going crazy, the NYPD could be looking at you for investigation besides the airlines." Robert says quickly, his voice trailing off, leaving Olivia to look at the paper
She looked at Elliot, his tie was gone, the cuffs of his shirt rolled, the top button of his shirt open. It looked like he hadn't slept at all. Robert didn't either.
"I just got back from the newsstand and saw it, I stayed the night in the living room, Elliot did too. Robert gathered a cup of coffee together and handed one to Olivia, then Elliot. While starting up another pot to make he stopped in his tracks.
"I thought you should know" Robert said "They're saying mechanical failure."
"Who's saying mechanical failure?"
"London."
"They know?" she asked, thinking why London would know
London was one of James' main ports to go to, he usually had to go through London, and he'd spend a few days there before he had to fly back to the United States.
"No. It's just bullshit at this point. They're guessing. They've found a piece of the fuselage and an engine."
"Oh" she said
Olivia combed her hair with her fingers, it was her own nervous habit. A piece of the fuselage she thought. She repeated the phrase in the mind. She tried to see the piece of the fuselage, to imagine what it might be. Elliot looked at Olivia, watching her dark brown hair falling to pieces around her shoulders. She didn't seem as if she was the wife of man who had jus died, she seemed sturdy, almost cold-hearted.
"The cabin. About twenty feet."
"Any...?"
Before she could say bodies, Elliot put his hand on her arm, trying to comfort her.
"No. You haven't eaten all day have you?"
"It's alright."
"No. It's not alright.
She looked over at the table, which was covered with dishes of food, tupperware containers, casseroles, pasta, cakes, salads. It would take a large family to eat all this.
"It's what people do." Olivia said "They don't know what else to do, so they bring food."
Throughout the day yesterday, a period of policemen had walked the staircase, bringing yet another offering. She was used to this, seeing victim's family's bombarded with food, gifts, sorrow. But it amazed her how the way the body kept moving forward, past the shock and the grief, past the retching and hollowness inside, and kept wanting, sustenance, kept wanting to be fed. It seemed unsuitable, like wanting sex.
"We should have sent it back, to the police and press, it'll just go to waste here."
"Never feed the press" Elliot says
"They're hungry to to be let inside house." Robert says, continuing
Olivia smiled, and it shocked her, that she could smile. Her face hurt, the dryness and the salt of the crying. She suddenly remembered that Julia was upstairs.
"Did Julia eat?"
Elliot looks at her, before trying to reassure her.
"Margaret, the woman upstairs took her to her place, she said she'd take care of her while this blows over, she figured you were trapped by all the investigations."
"I'm going to go see how she is."
"Olivia, the airlines are coming in an hour."
"I'll be down by then."
Then Olivia walked to the front door. Next to the front door was another door, one that was frosted glass, a french door type of design. In fact, it just led to Margaret's section of the house. There was a front door part to Margaret's side, but with the press out there, this side door made her appreciate the architecture of the house.
She walked through the door and came to the stair case that led to the third and fourth floors of the house. The small room near the staircase was a sitting room. Olivia loved the way Margaret furnished the house, she loved how she left it simple and elegant, nothing strewn around the floor or the walls.
"Margaret?" she called up the stairs
No answer.
She walked up the stairs, and found Julia and Margaret asleep on the couch, she wanted to lie down with the woman who resembled her mother physically, but her formerly blonde hair turned to an ashy silver, her face and cheeks sunken in. She walked back down stairs, walking over to the living room.
On the table next to one of the leather chairs was a photograph from another era. In the picture, Margaret had on a narrow, dark skirt that fell to the knees, a white blouse, and a short cardigan sweater. There were pearls at her throat. She was long waisted and thin, and her glossy blonde hair was parted to one side. Her features were strong, what people meant when they said a handsome woman. In the photograph, Margaret was sitting on a sofa, leaning forward to reach for something out of the frame. In her other hand she was holding a cigarette in the sort of pose that had once made cigarette smoking seductive, the cigarette held casually in slender fingers, the smoke curling around the throat and chin. The woman in the photograph perhaps twenty years old. Now Margaret was seventy two and wore baggy jeans that were always slightly too short, loose sweaters that attempted to camouflage a prominent stomach. There was no longer any trace of the young woman with glossy hair and a slender waist in the woman with the thinning silver hair who was now with Julia.
She returns to her section of the house, walking up the stairs, her hands at her waist. Elliot hears her go up the stairs, following her, making sure she's okay. She walks into her room, walking into the closet on her side of the bed. Elliot knocks on the door frame of her room.
"May I come in?" he asks smiling a bit
Olivia turns around as she turns the light on in the closet
"Yeah."
"You alright?" he asks, trying to tread lightly
"You know I've been asked that so many times already, I don't know what it means anymore."
"Right" Elliot says
Olivia looks through her closet to change, she finds a pair of blue jeans and a loose fitted white dress shirt. Her body is so tired that she doesn't care if Elliot sees her. She moves out of the closet, closing the door behind her and looking at Elliot.
She looks at herself in the mirror, then pulling off her silk robe, leaving nothing but skin. Elliot's never seen her like this, to allow herself to be exposed so vulnerably, not to protect herself with the lively attitude of who Olivia Benson is. From his angle, he can only see Olivia's back, including her backside, leading down to her bare legs that hold the woman up. The legs that keep her going throughout the day, that move the strong woman through the day despite the struggles she's lived through.
She takes a pair of undergarments from the dresser next to her and puts them on. Olivia looks back at Elliot who sees she's clearly struggling with the clasp at her back.
"El...?"
Elliot already knows, he gets up and finds himself behind her in the mirror, Olivia looking at him through the mirror. Her body is thin, almost boney. Her face sunken. Elliot clasps the her bra and feels his hands on her back, her skin looks at the two of them in the mirror, her head looking downwards at her feet.
He walks back to her bed, sitting down. She dresses and finds herself asking him about Kathy.
"How is Kathy?"
Elliot sighs, knowing she wants to move on from the intimate moment they just had, even if it was just him trying to help.
"You know with the new house at the beach and the kids going back and forth, she's genuinely happy. She's truly happier now that I signed the divorce papers."
"And you?" Olivia asks
"I don't know." Elliot says, running his hands over his face
"What about you, tell me, truly." Elliot asks
"I feel as if I've temporarily lost James and that I'm trying to find him.
"You're not going to find him" Elliot said "He's gone."
"I know, I know."
"He didn't suffer" Elliot said, looking at her standing above him
"We don't know that." Olivia says, turning away from him
"Robert is pretty sure of it."
"That's what he says to all the families" Olivia says "No one knows anything for sure, it's all rumor and speculation."
"You should get out of here Olivia" Elliot says "It's a madhouse at your stairs. I don't want to frighten you, but they've had to bring out some uni's to guard your door."
Behind Olivia, a cold slice of air entered through the window. She breathed in deeply. She hadn't been outside all day except into the back yard to take a pair of pants off the clothes line.
"I don't know how long this will take to die down." Elliot says
"Robert says it may take a while." Olivia responds, her hands at her hips
She inhaled deeply. It was like breathing in death, the way it sharpened the senses, to alert the body it was failing itself.
"I loved him." she said
"I know. I know. We all loved him."
"Why did this happen?"
"Forget the why" Elliot said "There is no why, it doesn't matter, it doesn't help, it's done, and it can't be undone."
"I'm..."
You're exhausted. Go to bed."
"I'm fine."
"That's you're favorite phrase."
Olivia's eyes were swollen and ached from crying. Her head felt heavy. She'd blown her nose so much that the skin between her lips and nose stung. She'd had a headache since early morning and had been swallowing aspirin without counting. She imagined her blood thinning out, pouring out her.
There will be many days like this. Robert had said. Not quite as bad, but bad. She could not imagine living through yet another day that she had just lived through. She could not remember the sequence of things. What had happened in the morning or afternoon. There were bulletins on the tv, words that made her stomach turn.
Downed after taking off...baby clothes...ninety seconds for the wreckage...shock and grief on both sides of the...the continuing story of American Airlines flight 270...FAA maintenance inspection...speculation that a massive...
And then there were the images that Olivia doubted would ever leave her. Her NYPD photo plastered over the news, a vast plain of ocean with helicopters hovering over, men in diving gear, water smashing against the cliffs, relatives at the airport, and then immediately after the footage of the relatives, three still photographs of three men, all in formal poses. Olivia had never seen that particular photo of James. She could not imagine for what purpose the photo would be taken. Not just in case? But whenever else did a pilot's face appear on the news?
All day Elliot and Robert had told her not to watch. The pictures would stay with her, they warned her about that. It was bette not to have seen them, as they would come back in her mind, her daydreams.
It was unimaginable, Elliot had said.
Meaning. Don't imagine it.
But how could she not? How could she stop the flow of detail, the flow of words and photographs in her mind. Throughout the day, the phone had rung continuously. Mostly often Robert had answered the phone, but sometimes when they were watching the bulletins, he let it ring. and she heard the voices on the answering machine. Tentative, inquiring voices from news organizations. The voices of friends and neighbors, calling about how terrible it was. "I can't believe it...I'm sorry..."
A voice from a woman who sounded edgy, professional. She knew the union didn't want it to be pilot error. She had already heard there were lawyers scavenging. She wondered if a lawyer had tried to contact her, if Robert had cut him off. The divers she knew, were searching for the flight data recorder and the CVR, the box with the last words. She was afraid of the diver's finding the latter. It was the one news bulletin she knew she wouldn't be able to bear-hearing James' voice, the authority in it, the control, then what? It seemed ghoulishly intrusive to record the last seconds of a man. Where else but on death row did they do that?
Elliot leaves the room, leaving her to her thoughts. She looks up at the closet door. On the back of the closet door, Jame's jeans were on a hook. He would of worn them when he came home. She takes in his scent, breathing through the denim. She took them off the hook and placed them on the bed. She heard change in the pockets. She reached into one of the back pockets and found a wad of papers, slightly bent, compacted from being sat on. There were receipts from a sandwich shop in London, one for a package of lightbulbs, and one for a few groceries. Then a receipt from the post office that read for a thirty two dollar purchase. Stamps she guessed. Two lottery tickets. Lottery tickets? She hadn't known that James played the lottery. She looked at one of the tickets more closely. On the bottom corner there was a note scribbled M at A's, it read. There were numbers followed by it. Margaret at someone's? Melinda? Another lottery pick? Olivia then unfolded the papers again, finding two lined papers, on the first, several lines looked like a poem, written in ink. James' hand writing.
Who have sought more than is in rain or dew
Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,
Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,
Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips;
And wage God's battles in the long gray ships.
The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
God's bell has claimed them by the little cry
Puzzled, she leaned against her dresser. What poem was this and what did it mean? Why had James' written it down? She looked at the second piece of lined papers. It was a grocery list. She read them on the list: extension cord, color ink printer, Bergdorf fedex robe to arrive 20th.
Bergdorf? The New York department store? She tried to remember the the December calendar, James' would have been home on the twentieth. Was this a reference to her anniversary present? She gathered the papers in her hand, clutching them tightly. She leaned her back against the dresser and slid down to it's length. Her exhaustion was bone deep. She could barely hold up her head.
I hope you guys enjoyed this! I just got my own macbook and can write whenever I'm free.
I would appreciate a review, maybe tell me what you think is going to happen? I want to see what you guys think will happen.