“Scotty called me in. The shooting tonight… Kevin was… involved.” Riley is measuring her words, like she’s finding one at a time and slowly stringing them together.
I don’t know much about what’s happening, but I know enough to be careful with my words too. Still, I can’t help it. “I’m scared, Rye.”
“Do you know what… what happened?”
From upstairs, I hear Kevin cough. Or it could be a sob. I should be with him.
“I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay, I love you, Pony.” I already have my finger on the button ready to hang up when Riley says it, the nickname from back when we were kids, one she hasn’t used in years. Pony for me, for my long blond ponytail I wore every single day in elementary school—the only style Lou could manage no matter how much I begged for French braids. And Puff for Riley, for the trademark Afro puffs she wore atop her head from grades one through five. Riley’s mom wasn’t much more creative.
I love you, Pony.
I love you, Puff.
I love you, Pony.
I love you, Puff.
The end of a million sign-offs until one day we’d just stopped.
“I love you, Puff,” I say now. It reassures me better than any stupid tea, and I try to hold on to that comfort as I trudge up the stairs and climb back into bed with my husband.
* * *
Lines of light shine through the venetian blinds covering our bedroom window to form shadowy stripes across our navy bedspread. I throw my arm over my eyes to shield them from the light, and pat the bed beside me. It’s still warm, but Kevin is gone. That’s when I hear the loud retching from the bathroom. Fred leaps off the bed, nails scratching across the tile, as if heading to Kevin’s rescue. My own stomach roils in solidarity, and I swallow a gag.
I need to call into work, before anyone gets in this morning. It’s crazy to even think I could give two shits about confirming that Steven Frye’s X-rays are covered by insurance or calling Maureen Wyatt to remind her about her cleaning. As the phone rings, I frantically debate what the hell to say. Do I go with the flu, or fake a few pathetic coughs? When the answering service picks up, I settle on a quick “Something came up, and I’ll be in on Monday.”
By the time I hang up, Kevin’s returning from the bathroom, his face the color of wet concrete. My phone vibrates against the bedside table, the glow of the screen bright in the dim room. I don’t move to answer it.
“It’s probably Riley. I’ll call her back after you leave.” I don’t tell him I talked to her last night. It’s not a lie. I just don’t say it. “She’s worried after I ran out of the restaurant so fast.”
“What did you tell her when you left?” Kevin snaps, his sharp tone catching me off guard.
“Nothing, Kev.”
“You can’t talk to her about this, you know,” he says.
“What are you talking about? Why not?”
“Come on, Jen. She’s media. Our names haven’t even been released yet. The department is going to handle PR and stuff. Until then.”
“But Riley is not ‘media,’ Kevin. She’s my best friend.”
She was my first friend. And best still feels true even though we’ve lived in different cities longer than we’ve ever lived in the same one. Over the past sixteen years, ever since Riley left for college, there have been moments when she didn’t even seem real, more like the main character in a favorite movie that’s always on TV. I got used to the distance—we had FaceTime, texts, visits a couple of times a year—but now she lives right across town. It stings a little that we haven’t seen each other as much as I’d hoped we would. It’s one thing to feel distant from your best friend when you live in different states; it’s another when you’re a few miles apart. But she’s only been back a few months; we have time to reconnect. Besides, she’s always, always been there for me when it mattered. Like when I was fired from Fat Tuesday for refusing to sleep with my married boss and Riley banged out a fiery two-page, single-spaced email to him demanding that he pay me severance. The first time I miscarried, she flew home and held me on the cold linoleum of my bathroom floor as I sobbed until dawn. And, of course, there was the money for the IVF, for our miracle baby that’s flipping over in my stomach right now.
Kevin sits down heavily on the bed; the springs in the cheap mattress groan. “Look, Jen, I know, okay? But the union rep, the captain, everyone made it clear that we can’t talk to anyone right now until they decide the story we’re gonna tell. That’s what they said. They need to figure out the best way to ‘present’ this to the public. I don’t totally know what that means. But you know how these things blow up. We can’t risk it. We need to see what happens today after my meetings. This is my life, Jenny. Promise me.”
Our life, I want to scream. Our life, Kevin. But my husband, my sweet husband, looks so scared and broken that I bite my tongue and promise. Satisfied, Kevin lumbers around our bedroom, getting dressed, slamming drawers, yanking clothes off hangers, all the while talking me—and himself—through what’s going to happen today, the meetings with his union rep and officials from OIS. I struggle to recall what that is… the Officer Involved Shooting department, I think, one more of the many acronyms to keep track of in the police world. Being a cop, or a cop’s wife, is like living in your own country, a parallel nation to the US, one with its own language, own rules, own secrets.
Kevin grabs at things on the dresser—his wallet and keys, which he drops, twice—and then crosses over to the bed.
“I’ll call you later, okay?” His lips rest on my forehead for the briefest of moments.
I grab his arm and make him stop and look at me. “I love you, Kev.” It’s different from the breezy “I love yous” I usually send him off with, and I can see in his eyes that he knows it. I watch him walk out the bedroom door, listen to his feet pound down the stairs, and then the front door slams.
I should get up and get something in my stomach, not for me but for Little Bird, even though I have zero appetite. I force myself out of bed and down to the kitchen to make some toast and more disgusting tea.
Even though I burn the bread, I sit at the table and choke it down. Little black crumbs fall onto the workbook for the Realtor’s license exam I’m taking in a few weeks. I haven’t told a soul except Kevin that I’m taking it, because if I don’t pass, I don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. I should try to study or catch up on the mountain of laundry or cut my raggedy toenails, but I can’t seem to move. Then again, the alternative—sitting here all day, waiting and listening as the silence of the house grows louder and louder—is also unbearable. I scream at the top of my lungs just to fill the void, to have something to do.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!”
It helps—a little, even if Mrs. Jackowski next door hears and wonders if I’ve gone insane.
I want to call Riley again but remember my promise. Instead, I go to the fridge and grab my favorite picture of the two of us, held to the door by a magnet shaped like a cheesesteak. I blew it up and framed it for Riley for her fancy new loft. I never got around to framing mine. There we are in those cute little bikinis. I’d blown a huge raspberry into Riley’s ticklish ear seconds before Mrs. Wilson took the photo, which is how the camera caught Riley—usually so serious—laughing out loud, her grin wide enough to reveal two missing bottom teeth. This has always been the best thing: making Riley laugh.