Day 873: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Wednesday - Prompt: words

The advantage of the insomniac: it is easy to out-wait the people worried about you, and the night is then available for you to do whatever it was they might be worried about you doing, without you wasting words trying to explain why you had to do what you had to do.

Captain H.F. Lee of the Big Loft, VA police force waited patiently, his keen ears monitoring the breathing of his cousin Hopkins Lee on the couch … when the cousin had gone to deep sleep, Captain Lee went out.

It was late Thursday night, four days into the great memorial for 12,000 victims of the Ridgeline Fire that Big Loft and Lofton County, VA would rather have ignored.

Local bigshots had wanted to bring in white supremacist terrorists to prevent the families of the Black and Latino victims from having access to the burned-down neighborhoods where their lost loved ones had once served – to prevent the dignity of those lives from being publicly recognized, and also to prevent the full realization of the reality that yes, the elite of the world could lose everything as a result of their own schemes. The Ridgeline Fire had burned down three of Big Loft's most elite neighborhoods, as a result of a resident there insulting a hitman he had employed!

The plot had been defeated – the previous Friday the plotters had been snatched up and turned over to the FBI, which had maintained a presence in concert with the local police, who on this occasion had been headed up all week by that same Captain H.F. Lee.

To all exteriors, Captain Lee was scarcely moved by all of the stress and emotion of just his work that week – and Friday would be no exception, although the emotion at the memorial would become even more personal to him. It was already personal, in that he had lost his Black wife and son and knew what that kind of loss was, and also because the space for the memorial had been made available by his grandmother, Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton – the same woman who had led her branch of his family to celebrate the death of his Black wife and son on that very spot. She was repentant. That was shocking, and about to become even more shocking.

But all that was to exteriors – behind his marble facade, Captain Lee was profoundly affected by the emotion of the great memorial for what it was, and the personal elements only compounded that … nearly 24 years of Army service had also offered up a great deal of loss, and a great number of memorials to go with the loss of his own wife and child.

And then, the phone call had come … his love, Maggie Thornton, had been in a car accident with her cousin Margie.

Captain Lee was consciously aware that he had severe PTSD and was also ridiculously high-functioning – he knew about his personal catch-22. It was dangerous for him to be in situations of compounding heavy emotion and stress, but because of his ability he was always called to such situations. Yet it was equally dangerous for him to sit around with his memories and feel useless while others faced danger – perhaps even more dangerous, because he just had too much destructive capacity. So: given the choice of being of service or not being of service in high-need situations, he chose to be of service, trusting that the Lord would hold the balance of things sufficiently that he would do nothing that was not of service.

At such moments as hearing that Maggie Thornton was in a car accident – triggering all that trauma around the loss of Vanessa and also all the realization that even if Maggie had survived, she was traumatized by the loss of her husband and child in a car accident and so that would compound matters for her – Captain Lee had no recollection of blacking out, but only of calling on the Lord, and then going to his knees in prayer in his office inside the trailer serving as temporary headquarters for his precinct until his phone rang.

It was Maggie … she had not been in the car … so, option 2 was at play. He could hear the hollowness in her voice … what it had meant to look on a crumpled-up car that had nearly been her tomb, and to remember the sight of the car that had been the grave of her husband and her child although she had escaped … survivor's guilt, the depression … they had shared their struggles with each other, and he knew the contour of her challenges as she knew his. Another car accident would qualify as a very serious problem.

Captain Lee loved Maggie Thornton. He had successfully resisted falling in love for 27 years … he had come home to Lofton County and found attractive women just coming out of the woodwork, but he had ignored them until Mrs. Della Scott had gotten his full attention. She was married and so that was over before it ever began … but she had awakened him to the depth of his own need for a mate, and exactly what he needed … and the thought had led back to the widow Thornton, whom he had already noticed. After that, a choice … to allow his will to follow his feelings, or to shut things down as he had many times before … but before, the routines and demands and satisfactions of military life filled the void. Yet in civilian life … and he did want to return to a full civilian life.

So: he had chosen love at last, and, to his surprise and joy, she had responded warmly to his discreet and gentle approach, and at the first appropriate opportunity had let him know she loved him too … and so, that was a wrap. Captain Lee was set for life, as far as he was concerned … and life largely would be about loving, caring for, and protecting Maggie M.T. Lee, who loved and cared for him. Time of the actual marriage mattered not, save for certain marital activities that would have to wait.

So: upon hearing the hollow tone in her voice, Captain Lee's one and only thought was getting to his beloved. To his mind, his cousin Hoppy Lee arrived as an answer to prayer – off they whisked to the coffee shop where Maggie and Margie her cousin were sipping coffee and waiting. Captain Lee got out and opened doors, knowing that extroverted Maggie would take the seat beside her love Hoppy … and that would free him to get in the back with his love, Maggie... and she wanted the comfort and safety of his arms as badly as he wanted to have her in his arms. They had not separated that night until she was ready for bed … or at least, Margie was.

Hoppy Lee had come up to his cousin's apartment to do triage checks – some bruising from his fall, but heart rate and blood pressure were normal. Captain Lee had dodged death once again. His cousin's theory was that he had just blacked out so quickly that his body had not had time to go critical. None of that made a bit of difference to Captain Lee. Since he was fine – a man of his background laughed at bruises – there was work to do that night, and it was just a question of waiting for Hoppy, who wouldn't understand, to go to sleep.

Hoppy Lee was a mountain man just like his cousin: early to bed, early to rise. The difference was that Captain Lee had specialized training for enduring extended work days, and that made good harmony with his long struggle with insomnia. He was out the door as soon as Cousin Hoppy was deeply asleep.

Captain Lee was not a man of words … he had gotten so choked up upon seeing Mrs. Thornton after the accident that he had not been able to find the words he wanted. He was a man of action, however, and there were certain things that needed to be done. The next day was Friday. Mrs. Thornton and Mrs. Bell, in addition to going to work, would need to get food over to the Church in the Midst of Life from the commercial kitchen where they did their cooking. They had stopped to get coffee after finishing up on Thursday evening and literally had stepped out of the car before it was hit.

Captain Lee lived within walking distance of police headquarters and took rideshares out to the temporary precinct, and of course could requisition a police car when necessary. So: he kept his Lexus and his Ford pickup truck in two private garages, well away from the Rosewood Apartments. He liked things tidy: since he was living the modest life of a police captain in a quiet division, that is what he presented to the world. The fact that he was wealthy was not anybody's business but his inner circle.

Maggie Thornton was now a part of that circle... she had no clue that Captain Lee had been heir to a fortune that he had given away but then had returned to him with significant interest, or that in his 22 active duty years he had lived solely on what was provided to him and had banked and later invested all his Army checks. But, she would learn … her accident had provided the occasion he had wanted to start the conversation.

Captain Lee walked over to the garage where he had his car – about 30 minutes of walking – got it out of the garage, drove it to the nearest gas station and gassed it up, and then parked it outside of the Rosewood Apartments. He then went and got his truck as well, gassed it up, and brought it over – he and Hoppy would both do the assist in the morning for the ladies, as usual.

But it was the keys to both his vehicles that Captain Lee had wanted to press into his beloved's hand … she had been waiting up for him for he had said he was bringing her something, and she wept as he put the keys to both his personal vehicles, and the keys to his garages, in her hand, along with $500 for gas money. He had said it before to her: “All that I have is yours” … now, he could not speak, for the sight of her tears choked him up, but he had shown her what he meant, and she was beginning to understand the depth of the meaning.

After this, Captain Lee returned to his apartment, and was at last able to sleep, having done all he could.