Short Story Friday: A Disquieting Occupation

anyaehrim (54)in #writing • 6 years ago (edited)

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She is immovable. A stone statue with her two hands plastered against each door frame as if supporting the door from collapsing onto her. My suitcases are heavy with all my belongings and heavier by standing still like this. Waiting.

Her eyes glare down at my shoes, but she's not a woman who talks seriously about shoes. I know those are her thinking eyes. The eyes that I saw in the crowd three years ago, her tape recorder extended towards me, and her mouth speaking the words murder and who is the suspect.

I heard so many things about marriage and children since her face struck out of that crowd, and pursued me into the police building. I had not thought about those first moments with her before now. How forward her questioning assaults are in such circumstances. Her insistence to take me out for a drink, her inquiry about what kind of dances I know. Music I like. Instruments I play. But I told her. I was a chest that bullets pass through, and a relationship was a liability.

Just as I said then I repeated now. I cannot stand here and watch her gate me off from my responsibilities to the people. To keeping her safe. But she's steadfast. She looks up at me with those piercing eyes, her hair rustled about, her tank top and pajama mash-up of sleeplessness. She'd been up again writing for the morning deadlines. There's hints of red in the corners of each eye. Her coffee breath hits me before her words do. Are you going to coming back this time? Is there going to be somewhere I can reach you?

I respond that I'm always at work during these cases, if not sleeping in my car during stakeouts. I don't have to come back. She shakes her head. I realize I have never told her I cannot stakeout well. I am too at peace with myself, and sleep on the dot when I settle down. I mean to tell the commissioner this so someone else can do the job right. If I do, I'll be demoted to doing paperwork. I won't be on the streets. Then I can support a child and even be there for them when they need me. I won't be in front of bullets.

But not now.

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I try to push forward. She's obstinate and wants an answer. There is a clock near the door that ticks through the whole house when it's quiet, and right now it sounds like a hammer coming down. I hear her fingertips cracking the old wooden frame of the door. Having to ask me these questions hurts her, I fear.

The morning light peaks out from behind a cloud, haloing her head before blinding me. I squint. I feel the suitcases forming a band of sweat in the palm of my hands. There's a pebble in my shoe, a car passing by, a paper being thrown out of it. Her most recent story is probably inside it. Hey, she says. I am not focusing, and she sees this in my squinting eyes. She may think I am evading this again. She says we need to compromise. This is about children and about a life together.

I say I need a different job. That I need to be there for the children.

She says that I am not going to die simply because I am a cop.

But I am not a cop, I correct. I am a detective. Cops are domestic disturbance officers. Or patrol officers, grinding the streets and the cars for the law. I stake out high-profile killers. I deal with drug dealers. Fishy suicides. I do protection duty, and touch crime scenes, touch cold case files, touch hurt family members' hands. There's not enough coffee for what I do. And not enough time to worry about hurting someone if I happen to get hurt.

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I hear about good detectives dying every month. Funerals. Broken families.

I tell her all this, not because she doesn't know, but because her home is being compromised by my being here. I'm too close on a serial killer's trail. Even now, the door ajar worries me. Her back is exposed to that dangerous world out there. That is why I am leaving for a couple of days. I am too close. My name's been in the papers she helped write this morning. I haven't been home for a week.

Her head cocks to one side, shielding the sun from my eyes. Some of her hair moves out of the way revealing that wrinkle-less face. Those tired eyes.

I say I'm not leaving her. I will stay in touch. She can call me. I will come back with the same suitcases, the same clothes. I will always have my phone turned on for her. She doesn't have to worry about me anymore than I worry about her.

I want to kiss her, but she remains in the door far too long. My suitcases slip out of my hands and fall open over the floor. She removes her fingers from their trenches in the door frame. She helps me pack again.

A clock nearby ticks slower.