Chapter 18 Matt
The suspect ran and I gave chase.
Down the alley behind the pawn shop, vaulting over a dumpster, boots hitting wet pavement. My partner, Detective Lopez, was somewhere behind me, shouting something I didn't catch over the sound of my own breathing.
The guy was fast, but I was faster. Three years of running had done that.
I caught up to him at the chain-link fence just as he tried to climb it. I grabbed his jacket, pulled him down, spun him around and pressed him face-first against the metal.
"Hands behind your back."
He struggled. I pressed harder and got the cuffs on. He was still talking, making excuses, saying he didn't do anything. I'd heard it all before.
Lopez caught up, breathing hard, hands on his knees. "Jesus, Reeves. You're like a machine."
"Clean living," I said.
"Bullshit." He straightened up. "How are you not even winded?"
I didn't answer. Instead, I patted the suspect down, found a wallet and a baggie of pills in his jacket pocket, and handed them over.
I keyed my radio. "Suspect in custody. Alley behind Morrison and Fifth."
The drive back to the precinct was quiet except for the suspect complaining about his cuffs being too tight.
Lopez told him they were fine. I stared out the window at the city lights, the late-night traffic, people walking home from bars or night shifts or wherever people went at eleven PM on a Tuesday.
At the precinct, we processed him. The sergeant clapped me on the shoulder when we were done. "Good collar, Reeves."
"Thanks."
"You want to write it up tonight or leave it for morning?"
"I'll do it now."
He nodded and walked off. Lopez lingered by my desk, loosening his tie.
"You want to grab a drink?" he asked. "Martinez and Foster are heading to O'Malley's."
"I'm good."
"Come on, man. When's the last time you came out with us?"
I sat down and pulled the keyboard toward me. "Got paperwork."
Lopez watched me for a moment, then shook his head. "All right. See you tomorrow."
"Yeah."
By the time I finished the report, the squad room was mostly empty. Three years ago I'd been in uniform, going home to a wife. Now I had a detective's shield and no one waiting up.
I grabbed my jacket and headed out.
The drive home took twenty minutes through empty streets. My apartment was in a neighborhood that was trying to be nice, all new construction and clean sidewalks, a coffee shop on the corner I'd never been to. I parked in my assigned spot and took the stairs to the third floor.
Inside, I flipped on the lights and stood there for a moment. Three years and I still hadn't hung anything on the walls. The furniture had come with the lease, the kitchen was mostly empty, and the only personal thing in the apartment was a photo of my parents on the bookshelf by the TV.
I opened the fridge. Leftover Thai from two nights ago, a six-pack with two missing, condiments I couldn't remember buying. I grabbed the takeout container and ate it cold, standing at the counter.
The TV went on out of habit. Some late-night show I didn't watch, voices filling the silence. I sat on the couch and stared at the screen without really seeing it.
My phone rang.
I almost didn't answer. It was past midnight, and the only people who called this late were work or wrong numbers. But then I saw the name.
Dad.
I picked up. "Hey."
"Matthew." His voice sounded wrong. Thin in a way I'd never heard before. "I'm sorry to call so late. I just… I needed to talk to you."
"What's going on?"
"It's your mother." He took a breath, and in that pause I heard something crack. "We saw the specialist today. The one Dr. Hendricks referred us to, after all those tests."
My grip tightened on the phone. Mom had been forgetting things for months.
Small stuff at first, like where she’d put her keys, whether she'd eaten lunch.
Dad kept brushing it off. Just getting older, he'd say, happens to everyone.
But then she got lost driving home from the grocery store last month. A route she'd driven for forty years.
"What did they say?"
"Alzheimer's." The word came out like he'd been holding it in his chest all day. "They ran more tests, did the scans, and... it's Alzheimer's, Matthew. They said it's already progressed further than they'd like. Moderate stage, they called it."
I set the takeout container on the coffee table.
"She didn't recognize Mrs. Patterson yesterday," Dad continued, his voice unsteady. "Her best friend for thirty years, and she looked at her like a stranger. I've been covering for her, making excuses, but I…" He stopped. "I don't know how to do this."
"Dad."
"She's scared. She knows something's wrong, and she's scared, and I don't know what to tell her. I don't know how to make this okay."
"You can't make it okay, Dad. It's not okay."
"No," he said quietly. "It's not."
We sat in silence for a moment, breathing on opposite ends of the line.
"We'll know more after she sees the neurologist again next week," he said finally. "They're talking about medications, things that might slow it down. But they were clear that..." He trailed off.
He didn't need to finish. I understood.
"I'm coming home," I said.
"Matthew, you have a life there. You don't have to—"
"I'm coming home, Dad. We'll figure out the rest."
He was quiet for a long moment. "Okay," he said. "Okay."
When we hung up, I sat there in the blue light of the TV, phone still in my hand.
I thought about my mother in the kitchen where I grew up, looking at the woman who'd been her best friend for three decades and seeing a stranger. I thought about my father making excuses, covering for her, watching her slip away one piece at a time.
And I thought about Millbrook. I'd gone back a handful of times over the years, but I'd made an art of not really being there. Quick visits to my parents, two or three hours at most, never straying past their driveway. The town itself I avoided entirely.
I walked to the window. The street below was empty, the coffee shop dark. Somewhere in the building, someone was playing music too loud.
I didn't know how much time Mom had left. Not how long she'd live, but how long she'd still be herself. How long she'd know my face, my name, the sound of my voice.
I was going back.
I had to go back.
Dr. Schafer's office looked the same as it had for the past two and a half years. Same leather couch, same chair across from it, same box of tissues on the side table I'd never touched. The clock read 4:15. Fifteen minutes in and I'd already told her about Mom, the diagnosis, the phone call.
"So you're going back," she said.
"Yeah. Millbrook’s Sheriff's Department has a deputy opening. It's a step down, but it gets me there."
She nodded slowly. "That's a big decision."
"Not really. She's my mom."
"And you're sure this is about her? Not about proving something to your father, or to yourself?"
I'd been ready for this. Two and a half years of therapy and I knew where she'd push.
"Probably some of both." I shrugged. "I want to help but, sure, maybe part of me wants to be seen helping. Doesn't mean I can separate them completely. I know the difference now."
Dr. Schafer smiled. "That's good, Matthew."
"I've had practice."
"You have. So let's talk about the other part."
"What other part?"
"Elena."
I kept my face neutral. "What about her?"
"She's still in Millbrook."
"I know."
"Your parents mention her sometimes, don’t they? They’ve told you that she has a clinic there now, that she’s doing well."
"Yeah."
Dr. Schafer waited, but I didn't fill the silence.
"You've told me you always change the subject when they bring her up," she said. "Why's that?"
"Because there's nothing to talk about. That was three years ago. We've both moved on."
"Have you?"
"Yes." I held her gaze. "I have. I'm not going back for her. I'm going back for my mom."
"I'm not suggesting otherwise. But you'll see her. Millbrook's a small town."
"Probably. And it'll be fine."
"Fine."
"Yeah. We're adults. If I run into her, I'll be polite, she'll be polite, and… yeah, that's it."
Dr. Schafer studied me for a moment. I knew that look, the one she used when deciding whether to push or let it sit.
"You've never talked about her much," she said. "In two and a half years, you've talked about the affair, about Angela, about your patterns. But Elena herself... you keep her at a distance, even here."
"Because she's not the point, right I'm the point. My choices were the point."
"That's true. But it's also a way of not looking at something."
"There's nothing to look at. I hurt her, she left. She built a new life. End of story."
"And you're okay with that."
"I have to be."
"That's not what I asked."
I looked out the window. A pigeon was sitting on the ledge, pecking at something. "I'm okay with it," I said. "I've had three years to get okay with it. Whatever I felt for her, whatever I thought we had… I destroyed that. I don't get to have feelings about her anymore. That's the cost."
"The cost."
"Of what I did. You don't get to blow up someone's life and then feel sorry for yourself about losing them."
Dr. Schafer was quiet for a moment. "That sounds like a rule you made for yourself."
"It's just reality."
"Mm." She leaned back in her chair. "You know, there's a difference between accepting consequences and punishing yourself. Between moving on and pretending you have."
"I'm not pretending."
"Okay." She didn’t push.
"I'll be fine," I said again. "It's been three years. She's got her life and I've got mine. If we cross paths, we cross paths. I'm not going to spiral over it."
"I believe you believe that."
"But you don't believe it."
"I think you've done a lot of work, Matthew. I think you've changed in real ways. But I also think Elena is the one thing you haven't let yourself look at directly. And I'm not sure what happens when you do."
I stood up and grabbed my jacket. "Guess we'll find out."
She watched me move toward the door. "Matt."
I turned.
"If it's harder than you expect," she said, "that doesn't mean you've failed. It just means you're human."
"I know."
But walking out to my car, I told myself it wouldn't be hard. Three years was a long time, and whatever I'd felt, whatever was left… It was background noise now. I'd see her and feel nothing. Or close to nothing. A dull ache, maybe, something I could ignore.
I was good at ignoring things.
I'd be fine.