Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Luke
It was just a coat.
At least, that's what he told himself.
“You sure about this?” his sister Colleen asked yet again, her question making him grind his teeth. Thanksgiving dinner had been anything but traditional, the cartons of Chinese takeout still on the table.
No multi-generational gathering. No sprawling extended family. No football.
No turkey, no pumpkin pie, no mashed potatoes, no green bean casserole. No cranberry anything.
And especially no heart-shaped cakes.
His late wife, Amber, had died on Thanksgiving Day two years ago, and anything that reminded him of the holiday made his stomach turn.
General Tso's chicken and stir-fried rice, though, didn't.
Plus, it was his six-year-old daughter's favorite.
“Yes. Quit asking. You trying to undermine me?” he grunted at his sis, trying but failing to terminate the topic.
“I'm not.” Colleen gave him a sad smile. The two of them looked alike, just like their dad. Blond, blue eyes, dimpled cheeks, and ears they could wiggle without moving another muscle. Not that Colleen did that anymore, but she could when they were kids.
Their brothers, Dennis and Kell, looked like their mom. Dark hair, deep gray eyes with corners that turned down, laugh lines pushed up by apple cheeks when they smiled.
But Luke got the same-shaped eyes as his mom. Ah, family. A big genetic roll of the dice.
“Good. I’ve made up my mind. That bag haunts me.”
“I think you're right. Two years, Luke.”
“I know.” He shrugged into his jacket, peeking out the window. Cold, clear, and even better, no snow. That would make this easier.
He needed easy.
“And you've wanted to do this for so long.”
“Yep.”
“And you really don't want to talk about it.”
“Nope.”
“DADDDDEEEEE!” Harriet launched herself into his arms, her face smeared with orange sauce. His little girl looked so much like her mother it pained him sometimes to watch her. “I want to go with you!”
“Can't, honey.”
“You have to work? Have to go catch bad guys again?”
Harriet had learned recently in school what police officers do, and had connected the dots.
“Sometimes I catch bad guys, but I do a lot of other work, honey. Most of what I do is help good people.”
“How do you know if they're good or bad?” she asked.
Colleen caught his eye and gave a nonverbal cue that asked that same question.
“They have a secret tattoo on the back of their neck that tells you,” he said, pulling on one of his daughter’s dark braids, the ends curly.
“They do?” Harriet immediately touched the back of hers. “Where is mine?”
Luke bent down and kissed that spot. “There. I just put one on you.”
“A good one, right?”
“The good one was already there, sweetie.”
“You were born with it!” Colleen chimed in, beginning to clean up their ever-so-fancy holiday meal. Oatmeal butterscotch cookies waited for dessert, but Luke's stomach was having none of that.
He had a job to do before he could come home and enjoy anything.
And the job didn't involve bad guys.
If only.
“How long will you be gone? Aunt Colleen says we're watching that funny movie with the big green man.”
“Elf?”
“Yeah! The one we watched last week.”
“You already saw it?”
“I want maple syrup on my s'getti next time, Daddy.”
“Oh, you definitely already watched it.” He bent down and planted a kiss on the top of her dark, curly head, the dark hair soft and wispy, but so much like Amber's. His own wavy blond hair, clipped close from a haircut two days ago, didn't show at all in his only child.
Harriet was one hundred percent her mother's daughter. Every day, it was like looking at a miniature Amber.
Which was a mixed blessing. The pain and the beauty mixed together–some days more pain, some days more beauty–made him feel oh, so human.
“Hate to say it, Luke, but I've got to be at work in ninety minutes. That enough time?” Colleen called out from the kitchen, the sound of efficient movement punctuating her words.
His big sister had always been embedded in their lives, but even more so since Amber's passing.
She practically lived with him and Harriet.
Actually had for two months after his wife's sudden death. All the way through that first horrific Christmas. His younger brother, Kell, and parents took plenty of shifts, too, but Colleen had stepped right in, taking over.
“More than enough time.”
“You sure you–” Colleen bit her lips, clipping her own words.
Already in scrubs for her nursing shift at the local emergency room, she held a crochet hook and a half-finished afghan square, a blend of the standard red, white, and pink that permeated everything in Luview, Maine.
For the last few weeks, she’d been trying to teach Harriet.
Emphasis on try.
Harriet was more interested in baking than fiber arts.
He cut his sister a glare at the truncated question. It was sharper than he intended, but he couldn't help himself. Rolling his shoulders, he softened the look, then sighed.
“I am. I know it's irrational.”
“Feelings usually are.”
He made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, the kind he used to wrangle drunks at Bilbee's Tavern after closing, when they refused to call for a ride and badgered poor Edina at the bar to give them their keys.
Or a ride.
And not the kind you take in a car.
“That sound doesn't work on me,” Colleen said with a snort.
Dang.
“Works fine on Spud.”
“Spud is a seventy-eight-year-old Vietnam vet in love with a bottle.”
“Your point?”
“You need different techniques when you're helping good people.” She smacked his arm and he couldn't help but laugh. Being a small-town police officer meant creating lots of emotional walls to do the most basic elements of his job.
Being a daddy to a sweet, loving little girl who wanted nothing more than her mommy every waking moment meant those walls had to come up and down in ways that were dizzying.
Shifting from one emotional state to another took a level of effort that drained him.
Earlier today, they'd visited Amber's grave, Harriet's tears harder to manage than his own. When she’d asked Luke whether she could ever be good enough to get Mommy to come back, he’d damn near lost his mind. How do you answer that?
You don’t. He just held her and told her how much her mother loved her.
Driving around the center of his hometown, the touristy Luview, Maine–aka Love You, Maine, the town where every day is Valentine’s Day–had been an exercise in restraint. The last thing he needed was to be love bombed by romantic love when all he felt was the absence of it.
Living in a heart-shaped world was nearly impossible when your own heart had been ripped out by a cruel twist of fate.
Rituals completed, they'd come home, watched TV with Colleen, and ordered takeout.
His sister wouldn't leave them on this day; his brother Kell was in L.A. with his girlfriend, Rachel, visiting her family. Their older brother was stationed in Germany, a FaceTime away, with Mom and Dad. They’d decided to visit Dennis when cheap plane tickets became available.
They'd been his rock two years ago, always there whenever he needed them.
And he'd needed them, all right.
Everyone knew Luke didn't want to celebrate Thanksgiving anyhow, so it was better this way.
“The only good people I'm going to meet on this errand are stray dogs and squirrels,” he announced as he reached for the small bag, working hard not to look at it. Amber's special red poncho, the rest of her outfit, and the clothes he'd been wearing the day she died were inside.
He was going to donate them. Wanted to burn them, but it felt wrong somehow. Donation made more sense. Let someone in the world benefit.
Pain was easier to bear if it had a function. A purpose.
The plan was simple: drive half an hour away to an old gas station in Fixby Hills, where no one would see him. The donation bin there was for some charity that would take the items down to Manchester, New Hampshire.
He'd never see the coat again.
Which was the entire point of this strange exercise.
“Don't use your grumpy sound on the animals,” Colleen teased.
He harrumphed loudly.
They shared a laugh.
And then Luke walked out to his personal vehicle, a black Jeep parked next to his pink police car, and marveled at the clear night, his breath a silent white message that rose up and disappeared into the ether, as if it didn't quite make it to heaven.
“Amber,” he murmured before climbing in. “I’m doing the best I can. But this is so, so hard.”
He climbed in. Started the engine. Pressed his lips together.
And backed out of his driveway, determined.
Determined to unstick himself from this place where he couldn’t move forward.
He was stuck. Stuck by grief. Stuck by circumstance.
And it was time to set part of him free.