Chapter 3 #2
Jane and Callie have been best friends since they were assigned as roommates their freshman year at Rutgers.
Both children of alcoholic parents, they used to dream out loud to one another about what their lives would look like after they graduated.
They’d run a coffee shop in a small town, bake the scones themselves every morning.
They’d move to New York and stay out until 3:00 A.M. every night, teetering on their high heels to the best late-night pizza place and laughing about the lame guys who had tried to pick them up at the bars of the Lower East Side.
But then, the spring of senior year Jane met Damien while she and Callie were away for a weekend down at the shore.
It was March, the beaches still wind-whipped and gray, but a group of them went in on a house together—Callie and Jane and anyone else who didn’t have parents chipping in for a spring break week in Cancun or Clearwater.
Damien was already in his forties then, the Caputo boys a generation older than Callie, but she recognized him right away as he chatted with a group of men clustered near the beer taps.
Everyone from Pine Lakes knew the Caputos, Captain Frank and his family at every ribbon cutting and ceremonial tree planting, the two Caputo boys sharing their father’s easy, confident grin.
She had never really spoken to him around town, but when he caught sight of her standing next to Jane at a high top near the door, he walked right over and asked, didn’t he know her from somewhere?
After a little polite small talk Callie had to excuse herself to use the bathroom, hoping Jane would forgive her for leaving her alone with some random older guy from the Pines.
But by the time she waited in line and made her way back to the table, Damien and Jane were standing close enough that the rims of their beer glasses nearly met and they both looked a little startled—and she registered, with no small amount of hurt, disappointed—to see her appear next to them.
After graduation Jane moved to the Pines with Damien, and three years later he got down on one knee on a canoe in the middle of Atsion Lake.
Callie was promoted from patrol to Narcotics, got her own apartment near Secaucus that she rented with the cheap beige furniture the realtor used to stage it for viewings.
And even though they were still young, Callie had the feeling of a chapter being closed. Their youth already over.
Opal throws herself at Callie’s knees the second she’s through the front door. She’s the spitting image of Jane, with her sun-streaked blond hair, gray-blue eyes, blond eyelashes.
“Hello, love bug,” Callie says, running a hand over Opal’s head. Her fingers catch on a sticky patch of hair. Callie pulls back, her heartbeat in her ears.
Opal cackles, mouth open wide to reveal tiny pearls of baby teeth. “Daddy let me help make a cake!”
Callie relaxes. Cake batter. Just chocolate. But the Baby Doe case has her mind canted toward the ugly and brutal. Those pictures. The blue-tinged skin. The small curled fist.
Jane is on the sofa, raises a hand in greeting.
Callie still isn’t used to the dark circles under her eyes.
Jane says she can’t sleep more than a few hours at a time because of the pain in her legs and hips.
She doesn’t want to take more meds, though, because of the way they make her feel like she’s under water; says she doesn’t want to be too drugged out to play with her kid.
“That sounds delicious. What do you say we give you a bath though, get that mess out of your hair?”
Thank you, Jane mouths from across the room, sweeps her hand at the mess of the living room, rolls her eyes at Damien’s back as he loads the washing machine.
Opal races to the foot of the stairs. “Let’s go, Auntie Cal. I have new bath toys!” Callie follows, has to step over splotches of spilled batter that have somehow strayed from the kitchen and into the hall.
There’s a rush of water through the pipes as Damien punches the start button on the laundry, then a grinding noise from somewhere deep within the belly of the machine.
“We’ve got to get that looked at, Damien,” Jane says.
Damien doesn’t answer, but Callie catches him grimace before he turns to greet her, forcing a smile. “Chief Hauser, good to see you, as ever.”
“Hey. None of that Chief Hauser shit.” The irony isn’t wasted on Callie. That the only people who use her title are the ones she wants to be familiar with her.
“What’s shit mean?” Opal asks.
“Stuff! I meant to say stuff. No Chief Hauser stuff, please.” Callie feels her face getting hot. Damien laughs, to her relief.
Opal pulls at the hem of Callie’s T-shirt. “You said a bad word!”
“Mom and Dad will be over for dinner tonight too.”
“Great.”
“Dad mentioned that the guys have been giving you a hard time.”
Callie hadn’t said anything to Frank about it but clearly she didn’t have to. “It’s nothing. Cops are always giving each other shit. Stuff!”
“Shit shit shit,” Opal says, skipping around the coffee table.
Callie winces. “I’m sorry. I’ve been here for less than five minutes and I’ve already corrupted your daughter.”
“Eh. She’s heard a few choice words over the past few weeks.” Damien lays a hand on her shoulder. “Everyone always asks me why I didn’t follow in my dad’s footsteps. Those guys are assholes is why. They’ll back off.”
“Not all of them are bad.” She hasn’t wanted Jane to know about her issues with the guys, knows it would make her feel guilty. But she also means it. There are eight guys on the squad and only three of them are giving her any real hassle.
Opal puts herself between Damien and Callie, pulls on Callie’s arm with her sticky hand. “Come on, Auntie Cal. Let’s go!”
Upstairs in the bathtub Callie floats yellow plastic boats on the surface of the water, uses foam letters to spell out AUNT and CAT and DOG against the green tile.
“Mommy is going to get better one day.”
“She’s already much better, isn’t she? She’s really strong. You should be proud of her. She’s working so hard to get better for you.”
“She still has to use a chair in the shower.”
“That’s true. But she won’t need it forever.”
Don’t look, Jane had said about her scars the last time Callie helped wash her hair. Callie had been tempted to tell her that the injuries didn’t unnerve her, but Jane’s voice had sounded so uncharacteristically small that Callie had only said okay.
Sounds rise from the entryway: the creak of the front door, Frank and Lorraine greeting Damien and Jane.
At the sound of her grandparents Opal jumps up so fast her feet nearly slide out from under her, and Callie barely manages to catch her under the arm, keep her from smacking her head against the lip of the tub, her little body soap-slick and slippery.
The moment passes in a half second and Opal is fine, unfazed, but Callie’s heart races.
As she catches her breath, runs a towel over Opal’s narrow shoulders, she wonders if this is what Baby Doe’s mother felt when she left her child behind.
How dangerous it was to love someone so small, so vulnerable and prone to harm.
How she might have looked at the baby and her only thought was I can’t.
She’s putting the bath toys away while Opal stands on a step stool at the sink, squeezing a tube of toothpaste into a dixie cup, when she hears another voice. A man’s voice, but not Damien’s and not Frank’s.
It must be Luke.
“Shit,” she says, not realizing she’s spoken out loud until Opal peers over at her, a conspiratorial glow in her eyes.
“Oh god, Opal. Sorry! I—Ugh. Don’t tell your parents, okay?”
The hint of collusion pleases Opal even more. “I’m really good at secrets,” she says, and holds her little finger out to Callie. Pinkie swear.
Opal leads her to her bedroom and Callie is relieved that Opal takes a long time picking out her pajamas—more time for Callie to steel herself.
During Jane and Damien’s wedding weekend, Luke, Damien’s older brother, had been strange around Callie, alternately solicitous and aloof.
As soon as she thought she was making inroads with him—landing a joke, exchanging a knowing glance as Lorraine straightened the already perfect flower arrangements in the reception hall—in the next conversation he’d find an excuse to refresh his drink.
When they were meant to walk together as a part of the recessional he wouldn’t put his arm through hers, just held out a hand for her to walk ahead of him.
Then, he asked her to dance as the band started up.
His hands were firm on her back, but as soon as the song ended he turned away from her.
Opal gets herself into her pajamas, then goes skidding down the stairs shouting for her grandparents, leaving Callie to catch up.
When she walks into the dining room she’s glad to see Jane sitting at the table.
She pauses behind her chair, smooths the back of Jane’s hair where it’s tangled from the hours on the couch.
“Thank you,” she says, gripping Callie’s hand in hers for a second. “No one else was going to tell me I looked like a hot mess, huh?”
Damien comes in carrying a salad bowl. “Janie, you’re recovering. No one cares what you look like.”
“I care,” Jane snaps. “I need to feel like I’m a person and not just another lump on the shitty sofa.”
“That shitty sofa cost four grand because you insisted on a sectional.”
“Stop fighting! You guys always fight,” Opal protests.
Lorraine smooths a napkin across her lap. Even Frank, used to conflict in his work, looks adrift, uncomfortable, and crooks a finger at Opal, bends to whisper in her ear. Across the table from Jane, Luke takes a sip of his beer and raises his eyebrows at Callie.
Callie tells herself to get it over with. And someone has to break the tension, shift the conversation. “Good to see you, Luke.”
“How goes it, Hauser?”
She does her best to hold his gaze.