No Witness But the Moon(72)

“I can’t tell her,” said Vega. “I can’t talk about any of this stuff without exploding.”

“And you’re exploding a lot, I gather.”

“Kind of.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs.

“Hmmm,” said Cantor. Vega didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me,” she said. “Are you having a lot of dreams?”

Vega closed his eyes. He saw the woods. Shadows moving in the darkness. A noise like cannon fire. Four shots. Four punctuation marks that signaled the end of life as he knew it. His stomach roiled. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck. His mouth tasted like old pennies.

“I guess—I’m sort of getting these uh—physical reactions.”

“Post-traumatic stress.”

Vega made a face. “That’s for soldiers and rape victims and people who’ve survived atrocities. I’m a cop. Cops carry guns. Guns kill people. If I can’t handle the basics of my job, what kind of cop am I? Hell, what kind of man am I?”

“Is that what you’re worried about? That if you admit you’re having a hard time processing this, you’re less of a man?”

“Look”—Vega ran a hand through his hair—“I know I made a mistake. I know that. But Jesus—I should be doing better than I’m doing.”

“So that image of a police officer you had as a little boy—you’re afraid you’re not living up to the dream?”

“It was never my dream,” said Vega. “Maybe that’s the problem. Being a police officer was not a lifelong ambition for me. I wanted to be a guitarist in a rock band.”

“What happened?”

Vega shrugged. “Life got in the way I suppose. I had college loans to pay off. My girlfriend got pregnant. I became a cop for all the wrong reasons.” Vega ticked them off on his fingers now. “Security. A pension. Health insurance—”

“Oh come now, Jimmy.” Cantor regarded him over the tops of her glasses. “You’ve been a police officer for eighteen years. I very much doubt medical benefits kept you on the job.”

“No. I like the work,” he admitted. “I like making people feel safe and protected. I like the adrenaline rush of a good collar.” He closed his eyes and tried to put something into words he never had before. “I feel like—what I do matters. And when I’m doing it, I matter.”

“Then those are good reasons for why you stayed.”

“So how come I look in the mirror and feel like a fraud? All these other guys I work with—they wouldn’t be falling apart the way I am. What the hell is wrong with me?”

Cantor laced her long piano fingers in front of her and smiled reassuringly. After all the terrible stuff he’d just told her, she still seemed to think he was worth saving.

“Nothing is wrong with you. You’re experiencing a very normal human reaction. You took a life. It’s not something you intended to do and you’re coming to grips with the weight of that. Because you did it as a police officer, you’re having to come to grips with it in a very public and humiliating way.”

“The media’s making me out to be some kind of monster. I can’t defend myself against the lies. I can’t even say I’m sorry for the stuff that’s true. Not that anyone would forgive me anyway.”

“Do you forgive you?”

“I don’t know.” Vega tossed up his hands. He didn’t have an answer. “I just want to stop feeling scared all the time.”

“That’s something we can work on.” Ellen Cantor winked at him beneath her mop of silver hair. “No navel gazing necessary.”

Vega had no memory of what they talked about after that. The time flew. He discussed things he never expected to: his former marriage. His relationship with Joy and Adele. The shooting, of course. But also his mother. He hadn’t realized how intensely her murder had affected him, especially since the killer had never been caught. It was like a giant open sore that never seemed to heal.

“I feel like I let her down,” said Vega. “She’s been dead almost two years and here I am, a homicide detective, and I still have no idea who killed her. If that’s not bad enough, now I find out that she had a lover all these years she never told me about.”

“You said your mother’s best friend is still alive,” said Cantor. “Perhaps you can talk to her.”

“Martha has Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t remember talking to my mother on the phone three hours before she died. How is she going to be able to tell me anything?”

“Jimmy—” Cantor lifted her glasses to the top of her head. Her eyes were softer and warmer without them. “Sometimes it’s not about what people tell us. It’s about what being with them helps us tell ourselves. You’re hurting so badly right now over your mother. Maybe just being around her best friend could be of comfort to you.”

“Perhaps.”

Cantor turned to her computer and pulled up a file on the screen. “In the meantime, we’ll work on your PTSD in a completely scientific way.” She printed out some sheets with eye and breathing exercises designed to control his flashbacks and calm him. Vega looked at the pages and frowned.

“You don’t want to do it?” asked Cantor.