Chapter 38 Darby #2
I hang up and slip the phone back into my pocket. “Sounds like he’s on his way back.”
Not trusting myself to look at her, I hold my fingers out to the dog to see if I can pet her. She shoves her head under my hand, backs into my legs, winds around, and presents her butt for scratches. “Why are you so lucky, Skadi? You get all the good conversations, plus treats and scratches.”
She barks, whirling around and tap-dancing.
“Oh no.” Darby laughs, shaking her head. “You said the T-word. I don’t have the bag to give her any.”
“I can fix that.” I head back into the kitchen.
“We’ll just raid Ren’s cheese drawer. You like cheese, Skadi?
Yeah. I thought so.” I find some thick cracker-cut slices of cheddar and give her one.
Then another. Wagging her tail, she looks at me.
The drawer. Back at me. “Yeah, that’s what I always say.
Who needs a whole drawer of cheese anyway?
” I give her another piece, but I shut the drawer. “All gone.”
She huffs with disgust, knowing it’s a lie, but trots over to her water bowl to wash down the cheese.
I head back into the living room, trying to pull off chill and cool.
Not creepy or desperate. But it’s a losing battle when I can’t keep my eyes off her.
Her smile is tinged with embarrassment. “Sorry I startled you. I should have come to the front door and knocked. I had no idea the guys were gone.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just feeling silly that you caught me talking to her out loud like that. It’s how I process things, even if she doesn’t understand everything.”
“They understand way more than you think. They can smell things we can’t even begin to comprehend.
One of my buddies had a K-9 named Jerry.
Meanest, biting-est dog you ever saw. Loved to chase down perps and bite them just for the joy of sinking teeth into something.
But one day he started whining, scratching at the car door.
Hawkins thought he might be sick, so let him out, but Jerry had a mission.
Nose to the ground, winding back and forth through a wooded area behind a subdivision, then he took off like a bullet.
“By the time Hawkins caught up, Jerry had found a toddler in grimy pajamas, passed out in some bushes. Guess the little guy had slipped out of his bed in the night and gotten lost, but it was early enough his mom hadn’t realized he was gone.
We still don’t know how Jerry picked up on the kid.
He was sleeping, not crying, so he didn’t hear anything. But he knew someone needed help.”
“Aw, that’s amazing.” Skadi jumps up beside her and then looks at me, her head tipped, her ears flickering.
Daring me? Or inviting me? Not sure. “She’s certainly helped me more than I can ever say.
Just having someone to talk to, who loves me no matter what…
” Darby’s cheeks color a little, but she gives me another shy smile that’s like a gut punch.
“I’m not used to talking to real people.
Outside of work, at least, but that’s mostly work stuff, you know? Not feelings.”
The gut punch tightens, invisible fingers that inexorably draw me to sit beside Skadi and hope the beast doesn’t bite me despite the cheese. “Keeping it all bottled up inside can wreck your mental health.”
“Yeah.” Her fingers glide over Skadi in slow, steady strokes that melt her into a puddle of white and gray fur between us. “I went for counseling throughout the divorce, just to have someone to talk to about… everything.” She pauses for a moment. “Is it okay to ask you about your marriage?”
“Sure.”
“How long were you married?”
“About three years.”
Her breath sighs out, her fingers gliding over Skadi. “When did you know?”
“Know it was over?” She nods. “Almost right away.” Her gaze snaps up to mine, and I can’t help but grimace.
“We were young enough to not have a clue but old enough we thought we knew what we were doing. I loved her, she loved me. I thought that’d be enough for anything.
Even though the divorce statistics for cops are brutal. ”
Not to mention domestic violence, but that wasn’t something Corrine never had to worry about with me.
My dad, though… Yeah.
Darby’s eyes tighten slightly, sensing the nugget of old pain like Jerry smelling out that missing toddler.
“So are the stats for domestic violence,” I admit.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, because that’s not something I would ever do.
I saw what it did to Mom.” I pause a second, shuffling through my thoughts.
How much to tell her? Not to hide anything, not at all.
It’s too important. A defining moment in my past, my therapist would say.
So she deserves to know, if there’s any hope at all for me to be welcomed into…
Skadi noses my hand, encouraging me to pet her too.
“He was a cop too, but he was just about as mean as Jerry the Malinois. He and Mom fought like feral cats in a back alley. I can remember her standing in the kitchen in her nightgown and robe, heavily pregnant with my brother, crying while he shouted and broke things. I never understood why she took it. Why she stayed. He didn’t hit her, but he had anger issues.
It was still abuse. We were glad when he worked long hours, because when he was home, we all walked on eggshells. ”
Darby’s fingers close over mine on top of her dog’s back.
“He was killed when I was ten. Routine traffic stop gone bad. The whole town turned out for his funeral, talking about what a great man he was. It was hard for a kid to get. They had no idea what kind of man he was behind closed doors. It just felt so… fake. Like lies. Mom cried for weeks, months after he was gone. But I never could understand it. She hated him too, or so I thought, but she never recovered from his death. Miserable when he was alive, miserable when he was dead. I didn’t want that for me and Corrine. For anyone.
“But then I’d catch myself wishing I still had a dad too.
Especially in high school. Ren’s father was even worse than mine, but he came to every single game, screaming for his son.
So damned proud of everything he accomplished.
Henrik’s Dad passed away when we were kids too.
Doyle’s father was out of the picture most of his life.
In hindsight, maybe that’s why the four of us were pulled together.
We had holes in our lives we were trying to fill, and those holes affected our marriages too.
“Which is a long-winded way for me to say that the reason I knew my marriage was in trouble was kids. I never wanted to be a parent. She did. I thought she’d get over it, but it ate away at both of us until it was a chasm deeper than the Royal Gorge.”