Chapter 9
Not very far from the post office, Hope is walking to work. She is not hurrying because she has left herself enough time to
make it at a regular pace. Tired from her run, she thought about driving to work just this once. But one of the small pleasures
and Hope does not take it for granted now.
As she walks, her mind goes back to those flowers. She is feeling a little guilty about not putting them in water before she
left. She could’ve taken the time to take care of the flowers and driven to work, but she didn’t. She is pondering why, wondering
if she just doesn’t care, if she is that heartless, when her phone rings. She does not have to look at it to know who is calling.
Hope left a lot behind when she fled Philadelphia, but not her husband, Alex. He hasn’t let her. The flowers are just another
example of his persistence. When she left, he’d told her to take all the time she needs, but she’s pretty sure he never expected
it to take this long.
She thinks about ignoring the call—she’s almost to work, after all; it isn’t a good time—but she knows she’s just putting
off the inevitable. Better to get to work without the guilt over neglecting the flowers and ignoring her husband who sent them hanging over her head her whole shift.
He has been understanding. He’s kept his word and given her all the time she needs.
The least she can do is answer when he calls.
It’s bad enough she has left his flowers, a romantic gesture many women would swoon over, to potentially die.
But maybe they won’t, a little voice inside her says. Maybe you’ll be surprised.
“Hello?” she asks, as if she doesn’t know it’s him.
“Hey,” he says. “I dialed before I realized you’re probably at work.”
“Not there yet,” she says. “But close.”
“I still can’t believe you’re working.” He gives a little laugh. “You were supposed to be taking it easy.” She can hear his
smile, can picture his face in her mind as he says, “So like you to get a job even though you don’t have to.”
“I wanted to do my part. You know, money-wise. It felt weird with you taking care of everything and me not contributing at
all. It felt . . . wrong. And besides, it gives me something to do.”
“I know—I just didn’t think you’d, you know, return. I mean, with everything—” He stops talking, but she hears his unsaid
words anyway. With everything that happened, he never thought she’d go back to police work again. He’s not the only one.
At the time she’d felt she had no other choice but to leave, at first just the job, but soon it became her home as well as
the job. There were too many reminders, too many triggers. It wasn’t just PTSD and it wasn’t just grief that sent her running.
It was some hybrid of the two, a condition that—regardless of the name—had left her rudderless, altered.
The only thing she could think of that might make a difference would be to go somewhere else, someplace not so familiar, to
be around people who didn’t know her, in a place that didn’t hold unpleasant memories. Alex couldn’t come—he had a demanding
job and was up for a promotion—so he’d let her go alone. She’d left before he could change his mind. Now she understands without
him saying it that he regrets that decision.
“Like I said,” she finally replies, “it keeps me busy. And it’s not like anything ever happens here. It’s a very low-risk situation.” She gives a little laugh to reassure him. “It’s a big night if we get a drunk and disorderly.”
She pauses so he can speak, but he doesn’t. In her negotiator training they learned to use pauses for effect. If you pause
long enough, the other person will feel compelled to speak just to fill the silence. Nature abhors a vacuum and all that.
But it is she who fills the silence now.
“Thanks, by the way,” she says, changing the subject, “for the flowers.”
“You know I couldn’t let your birthday go by without doing something,” he chides her, but there is a playful tone in his voice.
In that moment she misses him, wishes she could click her heels and be back in Pennsylvania.
“Yeah, I guess I should’ve expected it. I just didn’t want to . . .”
“Celebrate,” he says, repeating what she’d said a few weeks ago when he suggested he come down and visit for her birthday.
He’d made it sound casual, but they both knew it was not.
“Well, I’m just about there,” she responds, because she doesn’t know what else to say. Celebrate is a word that went missing from her vocabulary eight months ago.
“Listen,” he says, talking faster now that he knows his time is running out. “I didn’t call you about the flowers.”
She opens her mouth to ask him if they can talk about this later, but he continues before she can speak. “I called because
you got a letter. Or actually, not a letter. More like an invitation. It’s an . . . event. They’re recognizing you for, you
know, what happened. I don’t want to say too much—I want you to see it. I think maybe it would help. If you’d like, I could
overnight it to you? I could go to the post office right now and—”
Hope can barely hear him over the sound of her heart thudding away inside her chest. She doesn’t want to be recognized.
She wants to be as anonymous as she is in this town.
“Alex,” she says, her husband’s name like a stranger’s as she speaks it.
“I’m about to start a shift. I can’t really talk about this now. ”
“Okay,” he says. She hears him sigh, the air leaving him like a popped balloon. “We can talk about it later.” He must know
she will not want to talk about it later, but he has the grace not to say so.
“I really do have to go into work now,” she says, which is the truth. She has reached the doors of the combination town hall/police
station.
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I’ll let you go.”
But Hope knows that isn’t true, and though it makes no sense, she counts on it.