The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(54)

The police officer on the other end of the line seemed to take the call in stride, as if people went missing every morning around there. Sheri couldn’t imagine that was the case, though. The surrounding blocks had changed over the past decade since they moved in, but this was hardly a sketchy inner-city neighborhood.

The cop asked a few questions—including what Roger was wearing.

Sheri hadn’t seen him since she dozed off beside him the night before, but she knew him well enough to guess at the clothing he’d had on. Jeans, a T-shirt, and, because the morning was cool, a front-zip hooded sweatshirt jacket.

When a pair of uniformed officers turned up at her door an hour later, she assumed they were coming to gather more information, having convinced herself that the sirens she’d heard screaming through the neighborhood earlier were probably responding to a fire or something . . . something . . .

Something, anything, else.

Please, God, not Roger . . .

Oldest, most comforting rule ever: when you hear sirens and worry, they never turn out to be wailing for the person you’re worrying about.

Rules: made to be broken.

A body had been found matching her husband’s description.

Catapulted into grief and disbelief, Sheri remembers thinking, in the back of her mind, that he must have had a heart attack. He was fifteen years older, in his mid-fifties, a small man—short in stature with a slight build, though not as fit as he should have been. And he was a smoker.

Whenever the dreadful truth managed to hit her—murder—it trampolined away again.

Only now, two days later, has it really begun to sink in.

Now that her husband’s body has been released to the funeral director for burial, a somber detective is standing on the doorstep offering Sheri condolences and a small bag filled with the “final effects.”

In other words, the contents of Roger’s pockets and his gold wedding ring.

His wallet, of course, is missing. And the officer tells her they’re hanging onto the clothing he was wearing—jeans, a T-shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt, just as she’d guessed. Evidence, he explains.

Of course. The case is unsolved.

All they know is that someone mugged Roger as he walked the dog Thursday morning, viciously stabbing him and leaving him to bleed to death on the street where a passerby found his body. Too late.

“Again, I’m so sorry for your loss,” the officer tells Sheri as she stands numbly clutching the bag.

“Thank you.”

Over the policeman’s shoulder, out on the sidewalk, a couple of neighborhood kids roll by on skateboards. Across the street, toddlers in bathing suits jump through a front yard sprinkler as their mothers keep a watchful eye from the porch steps. Out there in the world beyond Sheri’s doorstep, it’s a gloriously sunny Saturday morning: birds chirping, lawn mowers buzzing, kids playing . . .

Incredulous, Sheri tries to focus on what the officer is saying.

“We’re doing everything we can to find the person responsible, Mrs. Lorton.”

“Thank you.”

“Here’s my card. Call me if you need anything at all. I’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you,” Sheri says yet again, pocketing the card.

She closes the door, tosses the bag aside, and collapses on the floor, sobbing.





Cancerversaries = Bullshit

I don’t commemorate Suspicious Ultrasound Day, Biopsy Day, Diagnosis Day, Mastectomy Day. No offense to those of you who do. But for me, those dates are just uncomfortable to remember and always will be. It’s certainly easier to look back with some perspective years later, but I’m not sure anything is gained by marking those days as an anniversary. To me, it’s more the whole journey that matters and how far I’ve come overall.

However, there is one milestone I’d like to mention. The Boobless Wonder turned one last week. As my first grade students like to say, “That’s cool, right?”

When I started this blog, I never considered how long I’d keep it up. I went in thinking “One day at a time,” because honestly, sharing intimate details with the cyber world seemed batshit crazy. Looking back now, I see that it was never the world I was reaching for, but one person that might relate to my experiences. Maybe I’d find someone else going through the same crap and we could support each other.

In the aftermath of my diagnosis, my brain was still so cluttered with all things cancer, I’d lost the ability to go about my days. It was one thing to have a calendar full of appointments, a million never-ending questions, pain from expanders, then implants, but it was quite another to talk about it all the time to my fellow teachers, my friends, even the jerk I was dating at the time. I mean, who wants to listen to it?

Even those closest to me needed a respite once in a while. Which I totally got, but that didn’t change the fact I was on overload, my emotions consistently raw.

I realized I needed an outlet. A way out of my own head, some breathing room from those oppressive walls of cancer.

This is where I found it. And so, Happy Blogaversary to me! Sharing personal crap on the Internet turned out better than I ever hoped.

PS That doesn’t mean I think cancer is a gift! I don’t!

PPS No offense to those of you who do!

—Excerpt from Elena’s blog, The Boobless Wonder