Author's Note:
Finally. What we all wait for.
Please let me know what you think.
Chapter Three
"Is This How It Happens?"
Cindy Larson's apartment was a few blocks from the bar where she died on the seventh floor of a building that looked like it had seen better days. The tenets seemed to be composed mostly of hard working, blue-collar people who did their best to make ends meet. It takes a minute of waiting outside the door, but eventually a nervous-looking teenager bearing flowers lets us in behind him. He looks apprehensive, but Mac flashes a badge and he hustles off toward the elevator without another word. His reaction is a normal one.
The super of Cindy's building is a big, burly Italian with heavy eyelids and sweat rings on his t-shirt. His speech is slow and elongated, but a few minutes after opening the door to us he's leading us to the elevator to have a look at Cindy Larson's apartment. The elevator is just as worn as the rest of the building but shows signs of recent vacuuming. It doesn't smell like cigarette smoke or vomit, and it doesn't require copious amounts of prayer to get the door to open once the elevator manages to stop. These qualities alone make it better than most buildings I've looked at recently.
"How well did you know Cindy Larson?" Mac asks the super as we walk down an otherwise empty holiday.
"Not very well," he answers. "We said 'hello' in the hallway every now and again, and she paid her rent early most months. Once she helped me repaint this hallway when some brats from the third floor got a little antsy with a few cans of their dad's spray paint."
"That was nice of her."
He shrugs. "Yeah, I guess so. But like I said, that's all I really knew of her." He stops beside a door and unlocks it with a key ring that must have weighed at least five pounds. "This is hers. Let me know when you want me to come back and lock up."
"Will do," Mac says as we walk in the apartment. Once the super is down the hall he shuts the door and I start taking mental snapshots of the home around me.
It's tidy and has all the usual clutter of being lived in. Unopened mail is in a basket by the phone and that morning's dishes are still soaking in the sink. A chicken breast was left to thaw on the counter, waiting to be turned into dinner for one. An erasable calendar had been filled out for the remainder of the month, with February 23 circled in bold red. According to her home, Cindy Larson had every intention of returning tonight. Something, however, stopped her plans.
"What do you think?" Mac asks me and I realize that he's closer than I thought.
"Her answering machine is blank and the apartment doesn't look like it's been tossed," I say observing the calm apartment. "It looks like she lives alone."
"There goes your family theory," he teases gently, knowing that he thought of it the same as I did.
"Better safe than sorry," I reply and a look passes between us that carries all the potential of a loaded gun.
The words to just leave my mouth seem to be the motto by which Mac and I have handled our relationship. Safe as just friends, rather than sorry as scorned lovers. It's unspoken, but it's a rule that's just as tangible as any law that we uphold on a daily basis. I spend a lot of nights tossing and turning, wishing it wasn't so. Some mornings, when Mac comes into work looking exhausted, I wonder if he's doing the same thing. I doubt it most of the time, and then his eyes meet mine and there's nothing in the world that makes more sense.
I lift my eyes to his and again I'm struck by the intensity I find there. There's a part of me that wants to listen to the words buried in the silence; to read what's written cryptically between the lines. My survival instinct is too strong, though, to get caught swimming in that particular current. The risk of drowning is far too high.
"I'll check the bedroom," I say and my voice is weaker than I expected it to be. If other people were here, Mac would have asked if I was okay. Tonight it's just us and his stare is asking the question anyway. The intimacy we feel but rarely show is there and it reminds me what it's like to care for someone as much as I care for him. He's still staring at me, waiting for me to answer. I'm not surprised to find that I don't have one.
He watches me down the hallway—I can feel it like his hand on the small of my back—and then I hear him move to the living room. Papers shuffle, and I know I'm safe. If it was any other day I wouldn't feel so threatened. This is what I tell myself, though logically I know the fact that it's a holiday has nothing to do with it. Today, though… today I feel raw for some reason. Some fundamental part of me has been peeled away, and I'm left feeling more exposed than I have in years. I don't know what it means, and I don't want to. It goes against my nature to leave an anomaly unexamined, but tonight I feel like it might be easier being someone else.
The pursuit of evidence calls my attention to the bedroom, and I gratefully succumb. The room is small but quaint, and the smaller touches show me that it was a sanctuary. More paperback novels are stacked on the floor next to the nightstand. There are a couple of boutique candles scattered throughout, and I can't help but think that a book by candlelight sounds like a nice way to spend an evening at home. The one thing I notice, though, is the lack of photos. The few pieces on the walls are pieces of art, not pictures of family or friends. A conclusion begs to be drawn, but I refuse. Her bedroom looks too much like my own.
I walk around the side of the bed and an opened envelope on the nightstand catches my attention. The return address is from a family planning clinic on the other side of Manhattan. The letter it contained had been taken out and was now lying beside it. Giving in to curiosity, I pick it up and scan my eyes over the first few lines. The meaning takes just a second to understand, and once I do my heart begins to sink. I was suddenly consumed by the fact that it may have been two victims instead of one.
She'd been trying to have a baby.
She'd been trying for months, if I understand the lettering completely. The sadness I feel then is suffocating. It breaks my heart that a woman brave enough to smile for a driver's license photo and attempt parenthood on her own is now lying on an autopsy table a few miles away. It's easy to view a victim as just another case until you find something like this; the thing that makes them even more human in your eyes. It's hard to see death on a daily basis without desensitizing yourself to it, and I'm just as guilty as anyone else. We can't get hung up on every victim because it would affect out work and, within a few months, drive us absolutely crazy.
But the emotional aspect of her death is by no means the only thing that my brain picks up on. If she'd been trying to get pregnant, why did she drink? It wasn't just a glass of wine with a meal, either. It had been enough to slow her body's respiratory processes to a complete stop, resulting ultimately in her death. A woman trying to have a baby doesn't do something like that.
Deciding that I'm missing something, I leave the letter lying on the bed and head for the bathroom. If she was trying to get pregnant, she would have been on medicines for fertility. If she was already pregnant, she would be on prenatal vitamins.
Her bathroom is incredibly small and decorated with prints of pink roses, right down to the ruffled shower curtain that hangs on the opposite side of the room. Her medicine cabinet is mostly bare, save for dental floss and a prescription I recognize as being the fertility meds. I'm comforted some by the thought, but only for a moment. She may not have known she was pregnant. This thought in mind, I pull a pair of latex gloves from my pocket and reach for the trash can.
The first thing that catches my eye is an empty pregnancy test box. The stick is inside and I hold my breath as I pull it out.
It's negative, but my relief is short-lived. I find two more negative pregnancy tests in the bottom of the can and three unused tests in the cabinet below her sink; she was planning on trying again. When I leave the bathroom, a more complete picture of the woman is forming itself in my head. The letter I'd read earlier had warned that the first few tries at artificial insemination didn't always take, but instinct is telling me that she'd taken her inability to conceive hard enough to feel like drinking at two in the afternoon.
I'm on my way out of the bedroom when I trip over another stack of books piled at the end of the bed. Cursing under my breath, I bend down to pick them up. I'm not sure why. Logically, I know that Cindy Larson won't be returning to her home. On the emotional hand, however, I know that if something happened to me I would want my belongings to be handled with equal respect.
"Are you okay?"
Mac is standing in the doorway, looking around for the source of the noise I'm sure I caused.
"Yeah. I tripped," I say lamely and the corner of his mouth tilts up the tiniest bit into an amused grin.
One day, I'd love to kiss him there.
Setting the thought aside, I reach for the books I'd scattered. The titles I retrieve are all similar to the one she'd left in the bar. One, however, didn't look like a novel. This book was bound in rose-colored leather and looked much more like a diary than a recreational read. I know it's wrong—there are female codes about this, I'm sure—but I can only hope she forgives me. If there's something here that would point my eyes in the direction of a murderer, I need all the help she can offer me.
"Is that what I think it is?" he asks me as I take a seat on the corner of the bed with the diary in my lap.
"I think so," I confirm and look up at him. "Have you found anything?"
"Her rolodex is full of business cards and connections. I couldn't find a single number she kept for personal reasons," he says, crossing his arms over his chest. "Unless I'm mistaken, she's a matchmaker."
My eyes widen.
"You're kidding."
He shakes his head. "From what I understand, she works for a matchmaking company here in Manhattan. She's listed as a 'romantic consultant'."
"And she drinks herself to death on Valentine's Day."
"Looks that way," he says and the line of his mouth tightens just a fraction. "Unless there's something in that book that tells us otherwise."
I nod and open the cover.
It's filled with the same neat handwriting that covered her calendar and the jackets of her books. The date is written at the top, and I'm not really surprised to find that "dear diary" has been written on the top left corner of every entry. This particular journal starts back in September, and the entry is only two paragraphs.
Dear Diary,
I met with the sperm bank again today. I start my fertility treatments next week, and I can't wait. It feels like my entire life has been leading up to this moment. I picked up the phone to call my mother and tell her before I realized she wasn't going to answer. I still miss her. Especially now.
I wonder what my baby will be like. Will it be a boy or a girl? I think I want a boy. They're rowdy and loud and so much fun. I'll have to start thinking of names. I've always really liked the name Colby. I'll get some name books from the library and look at my options.
I wince a bit as I finish. There was no way she could have known back in September that February would roll around and find her childless and deceased. I scan my eyes over the rest of the entries and find nothing that mentions stalkers or unhappy clients that would have harassed her. Every other entry is a detailed list of names she's picked out—both boys' and girls' names—and those entries are punctuated with the sad reports that the artificial insemination didn't take. She's upbeat, though, and writes that she's sure it will work the next time. There are lots of "next times" as it turns out, and my heart aches for her as I read of each continued disappointment.
Her last entry was written last night, and the longer entry is marked with frequent stains on the pale pages. The ink has run and bled through. Her despair shows with every tear that mars her words. I read through it slowly, no longer convinced that it's a murderer we're looking for.
Dear Diary,
I'm not pregnant, and I'm not sure why. I was so certain it would work this time, but I was wrong. Again. They keep telling me that there's no reason I shouldn't be able to conceive, but it's not working.
I keep thinking that I've wasted precious time. Ten years ago I would have laughed if someone asked if I had children. I was much too busy then. I loved my job, I had a decent apartment, and much more of a social life. Now, after the parade of terrible break-ups and the death of my mother, I can't help but wonder what was so important that I couldn't have given up.
I think I've lost my chance. All the years I spent trying to find someone else were wasted, and now I can't have my family. I wonder about Amber all the time, and I wonder why I ever gave her up. I was young, I know, but I could have done it. Lots of people do. My own mother did. Is this my punishment? Am I being punished for giving up my own daughter? It's the only thing that makes sense.
Every day I see people who are looking for true love. I find them their partners, and I get wedding invitations all the time. I thought once that I always had time for that, and that it would come when I was ready. I've been ready for a while now, and still I'm here writing down what I should be telling someone else.
I know I decided last year that I didn't need a man to raise a child, but it would have been so nice. I know better than anyone what it's like to grow up without a father. But I'm almost forty now, and it won't be safe to get pregnant for much longer. I can't keep waiting for a husband when what I really want is a baby.
I don't know why I ever waited. One day I was twenty and carefree, and then I blinked. Now it's been almost twenty years and I'm alone. I won't ask where the time went. I'm pretty sure I already know.
My hands are shaking as I close the diary, and I feel the tell-tale sting of tears hovering just behind my eyes. So many of her words feel like echoes in my head, and I don't bother pretending that I don't know where I've heard them before.
I'm always telling myself that I have time. Cindy Larson is only a little bit older than I am.
Every time I turn down a dinner date from a perfectly nice guy, I tell myself that I'll have time later. I'm too busy right now. Every movie I miss, and every ballet that I don't get a chance to go to bounce off the armor that is my ignorance. Where once it was a shield, it no longer feels like bliss.
Every day that Mac doesn't hold me, I tell myself that it's fine. Every kiss that we never share and every opportunity that we never take… they're hovering, just out of grabbing distance, and I don't dare reach for them. Because there's tomorrow, and the next day, and even still the day after that.
Of course you'll always have time, Stella.
It's so easy to believe when I know I'll be getting up to go into work the next morning. He'll be waiting for me there, I know, because he always is. He's the constant in my life, and I'll always stand patiently by while we decide when it's safe to love each other. Now the idea seems stupid.
I feel a strong hand on my shoulder and I know exactly the look that will be on his face when I finally get the courage to look up at him. He'll see the tears in my eyes and he'll hold me for a few seconds, rocking me until he understands what's going on. I'll look up at him and smile the way I only do when he's in the room, and we'll turn away because we're not there yet. We're not willing to take that final step. And it won't matter, because there's always tomorrow.
"Is this how it happens, Mac?" I ask him softly, running my hands over the smooth leather cover of Cindy's diary.
"What's happening, Stella?" he asks and I can hear the roughness in his voice. I don't know what it means.
"Time is flying by," I say, my eyes still staring down. "One day we're fine, and then the next it's all behind us and we don't know where it went."
He says nothing, but he squeezes my shoulder.
"She was trying to have a baby," I say. "But she couldn't and she didn't understand why. It was why she went to the bar today. I don't think she meant to kill herself, but it happened anyway. There are still unused pregnancy tests in the bathroom, and she'll never need them."
I feel a tear slide down my cheek and I wipe it impatiently away, feeling ridiculous but justified. I set the diary down beside me and stand up, facing my best friend and the man I've loved for years but kept on the sideline waiting for fairer weather. In every line of his face I see the better half of myself, and I know I can't let this go another day. Because one day, he may not be there waiting for me in the lab. One day, he may not be around to hold me. The thought makes me shudder; it's been my nightmare on more than one sleepless night.
"I can't keep doing this, Mac," I tell him breathlessly. "I keep waiting for the day when our lives aren't so complicated, but I don't think it's coming. There's no reason for me to keep pretending I don't love you, or that you're not the only reason I can find to get out bed on the days when the world catches up with me."
Another tear falls and I find that my thoughts are getting harder to sort through. His eyes are fixed on me, and for once I can't see what's going on behind them.
"What happens when it's all gone, Mac?" I beg of him. "This may not be what you want—maybe you've never wanted it—but I do. I'm not holding onto that secret forever. You're the only one I've ever wanted to wait for; you're the only one who's worth it."
The air rushes out of my lungs and I can feel my knees crumble beneath me when he says nothing. I realize in a rush of understanding that I've managed to ruin everything with the confession I'd been suppressing for years. A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach is telling me that tomorrow I'll be starting over, and I'll be doing it alone.
I've moved to walk out of the room when his voice reaches my turned back.
"Do you want kids?"
The question catches me completely by surprise and I turn around, confused.
"I've always thought we would adopt," he says. "At least the first. After that, we could try seeing what our children would look like. Genetics have always interested me."
My heart is hammering in my chest and I feel like I might faint.
"I want three," he continues, stepping a fraction closer to me. "At least one girl, so she can look like her mother. They'll all be intelligent; I know that already. I want them to be as strong and resilient as you are every day of their lives."
"Are you serious?" I ask. My voice is trembling dangerously as he comes within an inch of where I'm standing in the doorway.
He nods.
"You're a dancer, Stel, and I'm a soldier," he explains, taking my arms and pulling me against him. "I'll teach them to fight for what they believe in, and you'll teach them grace and compassion." His breath tickles my cheek as he leans close to me. "You can't tell me they won't be amazing."
I let out a laugh that's almost a sob, and I can't help but marvel at how much I love this crazy, wonderful, beautiful man.
I feel his lips at the corner of my mouth and my eyes instinctively close, waiting to feel his next touch. They slide over the skin of my cheek and he kisses me again just below my ear. I'm shaking, I know, but he's holding me close.
"I love you, Stella," he whispers and snakes his arms around my back, pressing me closer. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't imagine you here against me, just like this. You're all I have, and you're all I want."
His hand moves to cup my cheek, and I lean into him. Lips I never thought I'd feel find mine and the sensation almost brings me to my knees. This first touch, first kiss, is soft and I feel like it could disappear in the blink of an eye. Mac pulls back from me and I find myself staring into darkened blue eyes. He's asking permission, and I give it to him by kissing him again.
This time, we're not gentle. He kisses me hard and fast, and the resulting tension knots itself low in my stomach. His body is hard against mine, and I feel the sinew of every muscle as I cling to him. His hand brushes across my ribs and the breath in my lungs catch. Instantly a fire erupts, filling me with a heat that I never hoped to feel again. His shirt is bunched in my fists and I tilt my head up, needing more of him than he was offering only to realize that it will never be enough. His tongue brushes against mine and I feel the undeniable rush of every kiss we never stole, and every night we spent in separate beds. Arching against him now, I'll never understand why.
"Tell me again," he rasps against my mouth, the command sending shivers down to the tips of my toes. His lips find my jaw and I start to shake, wondering if my legs are going to support me much longer.
"I love you," I moan, the breath impossibly heavy in my chest. I can't imagine ever keeping that fact secret anymore.
He releases me only after I'm dizzy and desperate for him, and he keeps his arms around me while I find my legs to be stable beneath me. We're both panting but a smile lurks at the corner of his mouth. Unable to resist, mine follows. He pushes a rampant curl back from my face with the back of his hand, and the gesture is gentle enough to make me weak. Standing here, with him, I've never felt so wanted in my life. More loved. The look in his eyes tells me it's only the beginning.
As far as Valentine's Day goes, I could have done worse.
A lot worse.
A/N: I'm contemplating an epilogue. Any comments?