Past Forward Volume 1 (9 page)

He reached for his phone. “Hey, Tesdall. I’m
out here at the Finley place. I gave her the M.E.’s report and
she’s taking it kind of hard. Blaming herself. You’d better get out
here.”

“Me! Why me?” Chad’s voice was almost a
whine.

“That’s an order son.”

Life isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair. Life
isn’t…
The words replayed themselves through his mind like a
scratched vinyl record on Uncle Zeke’s turntable. They continued to
taunt him as he turned down her driveway and parked at the corner
of her house.

His usual place. He shouldn’t
have
a
usual place. His truck had worn a path in the grass around the edge
of the yard. He started to curse the chief and stopped himself. The
last thing he needed was more trouble with the Lord.

As he stepped from the cruiser, Chad heard
Willow’s cries falling from her window. “Why not me, Lord?
Why!”

He took a deep breath. Why not indeed! His
gut wrenched. How callous could he be? He wouldn’t want Cheri alone
with no one to comfort her, loaded with false guilt. He’d want
someone—anyone, to be there for her.
You know, Lord, I’m pretty
sure I’ve avoided the ‘here I am, Lord, send me’ prayer, but
apparently You chose me anyway. Remind me to cultivate gratitude
sometime. Right now, I’m just praying for the grace to get through
this. Again.

Inside, Chad called to her as he climbed the
stairs. “Willow? I’m coming up. The chief—” He paused. It wouldn’t
be a good idea to tell her he was only here because the chief
ordered him.

“He mentioned you were hurting.” At the top
of the stairs, he saw her face as it peeked out her door.

“Go away.”

“I can’t.” He didn’t dare say why.

“Why not?”

“She would ask,”
he grumbled to
himself. “We’re all concerned about you. Let’s go for a walk. Talk
to me.”
Yes, please talk to me so I don’t have a chance to blow
this,
he silently pleaded.

The door shut. He stared at it wondering
what to do next. Should he wait downstairs? Take a drive, check the
Mighty Aphrodite
for early drunks, and then come back? Had
she eaten today? Should he make her something to eat? What was it
about Willow that had him constantly fussing over her to eat
anyway?

She reappeared mid-thought. Without a word
to him, she crossed the hall and disappeared into the bathroom.
Water splashed in the sink giving him encouragement that she’d be
down soon. He practically fled to the porch, but remembering the
chief’s words, he retraced his steps into the house and strode into
the kitchen for a glass of water.

She found him there minutes later, her face
freshly washed, eyelashes still wet, but whether from washing or
crying he’d never know. “Drink.”

“You’re bossy.”

“You need some bossy right now. Drink.”

She smiled. It had worked. You never knew
with women. You could try for an innocent joke and some women
treated it like an insult of mammoth proportions.

They walked along the trees to the oak where
her mother’s grave was still littered with wilted and dried
flowers. “It hasn’t been a week.”

He was confused. It had been
longer—Realization dawned. It hadn’t been a full week since the
burial. He had a hard time calling the short service a funeral. “I
know. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re kind to come out here like this. It
was my understanding that men didn’t handle tears very well. Mother
used to say that men are allergic to them.”

“Everyone needs time alone to grieve,
Willow, but no one should have to do all of their grieving alone. I
don’t like tears any more than the next guy, but I dislike the
cause of them even more.”

A glance at her face surprised him. She’d
been crying all the while. Tears streamed down her face and left
trails on her t-shirt. Somehow, the grief hadn’t reached her vocal
chords yet. Torn between the natural inclination to comfort and a
deep desire to run, Chad stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets,
nearly looking as miserable as she felt.

Her hand wiped her eyes impatiently. Then
came a sniffle. Irritably, she glared at him. “Don’t be nice to me.
I can’t take it.”

“I can’t just be mean so you won’t cry.”

They sat at the foot of her mother’s grave,
Willow weeping. Her arms rested on knees drawn up to her chest. Her
hair fanned around her shrouding her from his sight. She wept
freely, the silence punctuated by occasional sobs. Chad, unable to
help but even less able to leave, awkwardly patted her back
occasionally and murmured worthless attempts at comfort.

“Someone has a serious case of the grumps,”
Judith Crane commented knowingly.

Joe glanced up from a report as Chad slammed
his ticket book on the counter. “Something wrong, Chad?”

“…
just a glorified
babysitter. Can’t wait to get to Rockland and do
real
police
work,” Chad muttered under his breath.

Joe’s eyes met the chief’s as Varney peeked
around his office door to see what the fuss was. “Tesdall, you get
that Finley girl taken care of?”

“Yes, the babysitter did his job. He didn’t
tuck her in and give her a sucker for being good, but hey, he’s
learning. They didn’t teach him—”

“That’ll do, son.” Chief Varney ran a
relaxed station, but he didn’t tolerate disrespect.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he hung the
cruiser’s keys on the keyboard and clocked out for the day.

As Chad tore from the parking lot, the
remaining officers and the chief stared at one another, shocked.
Chad was such an even-tempered guy; they’d never seen him like
this. Joe and Judith exchanged glances as the chief disappeared
into his office, chuckling. Unfortunately, neither of them heard
the chief murmur, “The boy’s fighting something. Oh won’t Darla
love this.”

“So Chad’s bringing her? Is something going
on there or what?” Shannon Dougherty stood with the rest of the
movie group, waiting for the box office to open.

“Not that I know of,” Martinez loved being
the center of attention. “He just said—” Carlos Martinez jumped and
stuffed his hand in his pocket retrieving a buzzing cell phone. “I
hate that vibrate thing.”

Seconds later, he snapped it shut and turned
back to Shannon. “I guess not. He thinks she’d find
Beau
Geste
a little too sad right now. He’s taking her to that
Alcott one tomorrow.”

“Alcott?”

Eden pointed to the poster near their group.
“Yeah. She’s the lady who wrote
Little Women
. They made a
movie out of one of her other books,
Eight Cousins
. It’s
about some kid whose parents died and her uncle has to raise her.
That’ll be cheerful.”

“I feel sick.”

Chad stared in horror at Willow before he
realized that she was not discussing the quality of the movie. Eyes
closed, Willow had her hand clapped over her mouth as though the
gesture would make a difference. He stared at the remainder of the
popcorn in their bucket and tossed it on the floor at their
feet.

“Here, use this.”

As though permission was all that’d held her
back, Willow lost her refreshments. The half-empty theater gave
them some privacy but not enough for them to be able to sit still
and wait for another wave of nausea. She wiped at her mouth with a
napkin and then tossed it in the bucket.

“I’ve got to get rid of this or everyone
else will get sick. Should I get another bucket?”

“Can we leave? I’m afraid it’ll happen
again. I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I don’t want to get
everyone sick.”

Chad nodded and navigated his way down the
row of seats to the aisle. He saw Willow stand, take a step, and
then collapse into the seat he’d just vacated. He took a step
toward her, saw the bucket, and realized he probably needed a fresh
one. Immediately.

Just outside the theater door, a trashcan
tempted him, but he resisted. He disposed of the contents of the
bucket in the men’s room, tossing the bucket in the garbage, and
raced for the concession counter begging for another bucket. “My
friend is sick—”

“You’ll have to buy an extra-large popcorn
if you want a bucket.”

“I just need the bucket in case she throws
up again! Do you want it all over your floor?”

The pimply faced teenager shook his head
solemnly. “Nope, we wouldn’t want that, but I have to charge the
full price of an extra-large popcorn, or I can’t give you the
bucket.”

“What about a large drink cup?”

“Nope,” the reply came before he’d finished
speaking. “I have to charge for those too.”

“I should just let it splatter your floor
and see how your customers like it!”

“Well, I don’t have to clean it up, but I
don’t think it would be very nice to do that to the girls. They’d
probably be pretty grossed out.”

Tired of arguing, and praying that he wasn’t
too late, Chad shoved another six dollars across the counter and
waited impatiently as the kid punched buttons, smoothed bills,
faced them all the same direction, and finally closed the drawer.
As he began to wash his hands, Chad lost his patience. Again.

“I don’t need clean hands, I need the
bucket!”

“I can’t handle popcorn after I touch money.
The health department is very particular about that.”

Chad reached ineffectively across the
counter for the bucket in the boy’s hand. “I don’t want the
popcorn. I just need the bucket.”

“Oh, I have to give you the popcorn; you
paid for it!”

“But I don’t want it!”

Patiently, as though speaking to a very
young child, the teenager explained cinematic protocol. “It works
like this. You pay for the popcorn; I give it to you. You didn’t
buy a bucket; you bought a bucket of popcorn. If I don’t give you
what you bought, then I get in trouble with the boss. You could
pitch a fit and get me fired for not giving you what you paid for
so I gotta give you the popcorn!”

“Fine! Then give me the popcorn!”

Chad knew what was coming the minute the
metal popcorn scoop hit the golden kernels. “Do you want
butter?”

“No.”

“Ya sure? It’s free.”

“Will I get it faster?”

“Well—”

Exasperated, Chad exclaimed, “Yes, give me
butter, napkins, oh and I need a bottle of water.”

“That’ll be two bucks and the napkins are at
the end of the counter.”

Chad glanced at his wallet as the steaming
bucket of buttered popcorn slid across the counter. He had several
twenties, a five, and a single one. His mouth opened to protest the
inflated pricing in theatrical establishments but heard himself
say, “Keep the change.”

He grabbed the waiting bottle of water, the
bucket of popcorn, and resisting the temptation to pour it all over
the service counter, dumped the imitation butter-soaked kernels in
the trashcan on his way back into the theater. Seconds after he sat
next to Willow and passed her the bucket, he felt a tap on his
shoulder. “Here’s your change. We’re not allowed to take tips.
Thanks though.” The kid nodded at Willow. “Hope you feel
better.”