Friday, August 3, 2018

FAÇADE Chapter 22


Will the faithful be rewarded when we come to the end
Will I miss the final warning from the lie that I have lived
And I am not worthy, I am not worthy of this
Stay with me, don't let me go, because there's nothing left at all
I am still calling to you

~ Breaking Benjamin, Ashes of Eden

When I tried to pick up the pieces.
Chicago was everything and nothing I had hoped. It looked the same, smelled the same, but it didn't feel the same. I was in desperate need of that nostalgic feeling of belonging that one got when returning home. It was mocking me, this city I’d spent most of my life living in. It was all wrong.

My parents met me at the airport, despite me begging them to stay home and let me rent a car. My mother looked the same as the last time I'd seen her, with hair the same shade of mostly brown with red highlights that she paid a lot of money to maintain. She had a team of beauticians that ensured she never aged. Father looked similar, but I could actually see the passage of time on his features. A touch of gray throughout his almost black hair made him look somehow smarter. His face was angular, long and rectangular. I inherited his jaw and cheekbones, much to the delight of the girls I’d gone to high school with. It was something they never failed to remark upon when they met my father. He looked an entire year older, like he’d actually had a birthday since I’d last been here.

“Edward, it's so, so good to see you!” Mom exclaimed. She never spoke in a normal tone of voice; she was perpetually overzealous.

“Hello, Mother.” I greeted her with a hug.

“Edward,” my father nodded at me as I let go of my mother and stepped over to hug him. “How are you, honestly?” He clapped me on the back as he asked.

“Honestly? Glad to be home. Really glad this case is over.”

Mom gasped for effect. “Was it dangerous?”

“All of my cases are dangerous, Mom. That's why I’m undercover.”

“Oh!” She clutched at her necklace, running her hand over the chain. Her face looked pinched, but I couldn't quite discern the emotion she was going for. Too much Botox.

“We’re happy to have you back,” Dad said.

“Victoria, Katherine, and Margaret are going to be at the house in time for dinner,” Mom added with a smile.

“That's great, thanks for inviting them.”

She chuckled. “As though I could keep them away from their Edward.”

I laughed a little, though it felt forced. It was like I was in a strange land, one not fraught with danger around every corner. The air tasted different, there was no rain in sight, and I suddenly felt like a foreigner.

It was better once we reached the house. The familiar surroundings gave me a sense of comfort. I unloaded my bags in my old room, the one they kept ready for me because I always came back after a case was finished to prove to them that I was in one piece.

“Junior?” I heard from the staircase. There was only one person in the world allowed to call me that.

“Katie?” I called back.

Three females appeared in my room, and I felt the final piece click into place. “My harem!”

They each laughed in their own way. “You’re such an ass,” Katie commented.

“But you love me,” I returned. I looked at Victoria. “How have you been, Vicky? I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Uncle Edward!” she said, jumping up and down a little.

“Maggie,” I greeted her, pulling her in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“What, I don't get one?” Katie grumbled.

“You called me an ass, remember?” I teased, going over and giving her a big hug and lifting her off the ground. “And I even let you call me Junior without complaint!”

“But you are a junior,” Vicky piped up, her nose wrinkled. I tweaked it.

“Yes, but it’s not my name. I don't call you Red, even though you have red hair.”

She giggled and held her arms up for me to pick her up. “Like Mom.”

I looked at Maggie’s curly red hair. “Yeah, like your mom.”

Katie put her arm around me. “So, brother dear, I hear our mother's making your favorite.” She laughed. Mom thought whatever she chose to make was my favorite. It was always something different.

“What's it this time? Chili? Steaks? Roast turkey?”

The three of them laughed at me. Maggie shrugged. “Who knows, as long as I’m not having to cook.”

Katie gave her a high five. “Amen to that.”

The four of us went downstairs to see when dinner would be ready. Dad was out on the deck, so I let the women gather in the kitchen and hoped I wasn't making a sexist ass of myself by retreating.

“Hey,” I greeted him as I closed the sliding door behind me.

He looked up from the book he was reading as I joined him in an Adirondack chair. “Are you really doing well, or was that for your mother’s benefit?”

He had a keen eye. “I’m… okay. It feels strange to be here. Normally I enjoy coming here for at least a few days after a case, but it feels alien this time. I got so entrenched in this last job that it felt too real.”

He squinted at me. “That's not good.”

I shook my head. “No. I was suspended for sixty days. I’m going to turn in my badge, Father.”

He sat up even straighter in his chair. “Why?”

“It’s not right for me anymore.” I was silent for a minute as I gathered my thoughts, and he gave me time to do so. “I did some things, witnessed some things, pushed some limits. It helped in the long run, or that's what I kept telling myself. I had to be real careful when I gave my report to my superior, and that's just not what I swore to do. That’s not what the oath is all about.”

“I can understand your feelings, I think. Of course, I've never been in your shoes, but I know what you’re saying. You went above and beyond to end this case, but the methods you utilized are weighing on your conscience.”

My father was the CEO of a homebuilding corporation. He was smart and savvy, but he had no idea what I went through on a regular day to day basis. Still, I knew he meant well, and that if anybody understood me, it was him.

“I need to decompress and decide where to go from here. I have that sixty days, I guess. Then I'll go back, talk to Jacob, and formally tell him I'm done.” I ran my hands over my face, felt the stubble that was growing back. “I just don't have a clue what I’m going to be when I grow up.”

“I know that the answer is no, but I’m offering just the same. My door is always open, if you ever become desperate.”

I grinned at him in thanks. It wasn't the first time he’d offered, or the first time I’d declined. “How are Katie and Maggie doing?”

“Working on a boy.”

My brow went up. “Like, they’re special ordering XY chromosomes?”

“Like that, yes.”

“Huh.”

“Yep.”

“Well, they’ve done a wonderful job with Vicky.” My niece was five, and I knew that my sister and her wife had been trying for a few years to get pregnant again. Maggie had carried Victoria, and used her eggs. This time, they wanted to use Katie’s eggs and she would carry the baby. It hadn't been working out very well the last I heard. Something about a hostile environment, whatever the hell that meant.

“Kate has had several medical procedures to fix the issues she was having, so they believe they’re ready to proceed.” My father settled back in his chair with his book.

“That's great news.” I’d have to remember to congratulate them later.

“Mmhmm.”

Dad was mostly tuned out now, which was fine. I stared out at the backyard and tried to use the relentless green as a blank slate to clear my mind. It worked well enough that by the time Mother called us in for dinner, I was calm and happy.

Vicky sat next to me, talking the entire time about how excited she was that school was starting soon. She had so many friends going to the same school, and her chatter was easy to focus on instead of any nagging feelings that tried to creep in. My sister challenged me in air hockey, so we spent the time after dinner in the basement playing games. We traded off playing the winner, and I realized I really needed the silliness and fun with my family. Victoria wasn't too bad at the game, so I went a little easy on her to see if she could win a time or two. It made her so incredibly happy to be the winner. It was easy to be her age. The only thing expected of her was to be nice, and to go to school and learn to read. Nobody was demanding life and death decisions, and nobody was tempting her to go astray. I wished for a moment to be her age again, but that wasn't how it worked, of course. There was no use in being melancholy over no longer being a five year old. Not to mention I got in a lot of trouble at that age, if I was remembering correctly.

“Ha! Beat you again, Uncle!”

I grinned at her and picked the puck out of the slot on my side of the table. “You’re right, pipsqueak. Good job.”

“You're too lost in your own thoughts to even realize that you are letting her win,” Katie murmured from next to me.

I shot her a look that said to shut the hell up. “She’s getting good,” I said defensively.

Vicky giggled and even Maggie snickered. Yeah, okay, so a five year old was kicking my ass because my head was in the clouds.

We called it a night very shortly after that. The pipsqueak had a bedtime to adhere to, and as much as I loved them, I needed a bit of solitude before I went to sleep myself. I said goodbye to them at the door, Mom and Dad right behind me. The pair of them went to their room for the evening, and I went upstairs to mine.

With the door closed and the silence moving in, I suddenly wanted to take it all back; every time I asked for peace or solitude, every time I hurried someone out the door to be alone. I must not have known what I was asking for, because the lack of noise created a vacuum in my brain and I couldn't handle it. I flipped on the TV for companionship and marveled at how pathetic I was.

I missed her. There was no way around it, I missed Bella. Her wit, her snark, her refusal to back down. The way she cried over criminals because they were family to her. The way she took out the threats to her family without a second thought. It was ruthless, but there was something about it that I admired. So what the hell did that make me? The fact that at times I could rationalize, empathize, and reason away the criminal activities Bella either committed or participated in, made me question everything about my beliefs.

I didn't think I could become a paper pusher in my father’s company. I didn't have it in me. I wanted to make a difference, to change someone’s circumstances for the better. Why else had I chosen law enforcement? Why else had I balked at Bella’s crime sprees? And yet, in the end, I’d caved and let her have her way. I’d heard by now the gruesome details of what happened to Emmett, and I knew without a single doubt that it was Bella. They couldn't prove it, though God knew the suits were pushing Jacob to charge her with anything they could. Tax evasion, I thought wryly.

Alone in my old bed, in my parents’ oversized house, I thought of growing up here with Katie. All I’d wanted was to save the world. I always played the sheriff, the knight to her princess, the superhero. My sister urged me to join the local police force, to stick near the family. When she married Maggie, she begged me to come back to Chicago permanently. Katie wanted me here near her children, because she always knew she’d be a mother in one way or another. That was her goal, for us to raise our kids together. She was a family counselor, the type that helped couples stay together and work through their differences. She counselled bullied teens and introverted adults. She was a wonder, my Katie, and she was raising a great kid. How could I tell her that I wasn't going to have a family? How could I look her in the eyes and tell her I was still the good guy she’d known me to be our whole lives? If she knew half the things I’d done, I feared she’d send me packing back to Seattle. She wouldn't want me anywhere near her precious, beautiful Victoria.

I found myself in my dad’s study raiding his liquor stash. I couldn't deal with the reality of my life at this stage. I didn't know what it would take to put the pieces back together, but I needed to figure it out, and fast. I didn't want to know what would become of me if I didn't.



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