Long Bright River(68)
—What are you selling? she says. Whatever it is, I don’t want it.
—Nothing, I say, surprised. I’m sorry. Is Truman home?
The lady lifts her eyebrows at me, but doesn’t move, and says nothing more.
I weigh my options. The woman before me could be anyplace between sixty and eighty years old. She looks something like an aging hippie. She’s wearing a bandanna on her head and a T-shirt that says Virginia Is for Lovers. Is this—could this be—Truman’s mother? I know he has one, and that she is alive, and that he loves her. I know she was the principal of an elementary school at one time. But last I heard, she was retired and living up in the Poconos.
I try to peer past her, into the house, but the woman closes the door slightly, as if to block my view.
I try again.
—I’m a friend of Truman’s, I say. I was just hoping to speak to him.
—Truman, says the woman, as if searching her memory. Truman.
* * *
—
It is then, finally, that Truman himself emerges from the back of the house, wearing a towel around his waist, sort of hopping to get to the door. He’s embarrassed to be seen this way, I know: proper Truman, whom I have rarely seen in anything other than a uniform, even after work.
—Ma, he says. This is my friend Mickey.
The woman nods, suspicious, looking back and forth between us. Okay, she says. But she makes no move to let me in.
—Just hang on, Mick, says Truman, and he moves his mother gently out of the way. One second. He closes the door. In the moment before he does, his eyes connect with mine.
* * *
—
Five minutes later, the three of us are sitting uncomfortably in the living room. Truman is clothed now, straight-backed in his chair, his right leg stretched out on an ottoman before him. We all have tea. Truman’s mother looks at the cup in her hands.
—Drink it, Ma, says Truman. It’s cool enough now.
He looks at me. My mother’s been living here for a little while now, he says. He hesitates, glancing at his mother, seeing whether she’s listening. She had a fall, he says.
—And she’s been forgetting, he adds, quickly and quietly.
—I am right here, son, says Mrs. Dawes, looking up sharply. Right here in this room with you. I’m not forgetting anything.
—Sorry, Ma, says Truman.
—Why don’t we go out in the yard? he says to me.
* * *
—
I follow him, watching the sure broad back of him as he leads the way. How many times have I watched him from this angle, leading the way up the steps of a house, leading the way into crime scenes, leading the way as we answered one call after another? Shielding me, in a way, from the worst of it, the first sight of a body or a gruesome injury. Our shared history means that I take strange comfort in following him.
It’s freezing in the backyard. Small shrubs, brown from winter, run along a brown wooden fence. We can see our breath as we speak.
—I’m sorry about my mother, says Truman. She’s—
He hesitates, searching for the word. Protective, he says finally.
—Don’t worry about it, I say—thinking, not saying, that I’m mildly jealous. That it would be nice to have someone in my life who was protective of me in that way.
* * *
—
In the backyard, I recount for Truman the story of my meeting with Denise Chambers, and its surprising results. As I speak, he wears an expression of warmth and concern. The words tumble out of me more and more quickly.
—No, he says. Really?
—Really. I’m suspended.
He pauses. Any new info on Kacey? he says.
—Nothing, I say.
For a long time, Truman goes silent, biting his lips as if wrestling with whether or not to say something. Finally, he speaks.
—What about Cleare? he says.
I look at him.
—What do you mean, Cleare, I say.
Truman looks at me for a while.
Then he says, Mick. Come on.
When he says this, I sense the crumbling, all around me, of some large and unwieldy pretense, a defensive wall I erected years ago and counted on, along with Truman’s sense of discretion and respect, to protect me from any direct questions.
Suddenly, I find my voice has been taken from me.
I rarely cry. I didn’t even cry over Simon. I was mad, yes; I punched the refrigerator. I shouted into the air. I hit pillows. I didn’t cry.
Now, I shake my head. One hot tear spills down my cheek and I wipe it angrily away.
—Fuck, I say.
I don’t think I’ve ever even cursed in front of Truman.
—Hey, he says. He is gruff. He doesn’t know what to do. The two of us have never touched, unless it was in the process of wrestling some perp to the ground.
—Hey, he says again, and at last he extends one hand and puts it on my shoulder. But he doesn’t try to hug me. I appreciate this. I’m humiliated enough as it is.
—You okay? he asks.
—Fine, I say roughly.
—How did you know about Simon, I say.
—I’m sorry, Mick, says Truman. It’s kind of an open secret. A lot of people know. The PPD is small.
—Well, I say.