Chapter 40
The Geography of Unseen Scars
Reed
I sat there, staring at the front door of Maliyah's apartment, keys in hand, not moving.
I need you to leave for a few hours. Not "Can you give me space?" Not "Would you mind?"
I need you to leave. The difference felt significant. Final, almost. I pulled out my phone, checked the time. 10:47 AM. She'd said a few hours. I hadn't even asked if she'd text me when I could come back. When I could come back. Not if. I held onto that. Had to hold onto something.
My car was parked down the street. I walked to it slowly, unsure what to do next.
For weeks I'd barely left her side—working from Lucas’s room, sleeping on her couch to be there when the nightmares came.
And they always came. God, if I could kill Bryce again, I would.
If I could erase her memories, I would. I would do anything to have been there that night, to have answered my damn phone, to have never walked away.
But I couldn't change the past. So I need to keep moving forward.
I sat in my car and stared at my phone. No new messages.
Christ, I was pathetic. I had a feeling she was with the kids, that she was finally ready to let them come home—but she wasn't ready for me to be part of that reunion.
My chest tightened. I had no right to feel hurt by it—hell, I was the reason they'd been separated in the first place.
I'd walked away when she needed me most, and now I was paying the price.
Still, knowing I deserved it didn't make the exclusion any easier to swallow.
I started the car, pulled out into traffic without any real destination in mind.
Just drove. Let muscle memory take over while my brain spiraled.
What if this was the beginning? What if asking me to leave for a few hours became asking me to leave for a day, then a week, then permanently?
My phone sat in the cup holder, the dark screen mocking me.
Still nothing. It had been all of twenty minutes, but I couldn't stop myself from obsessing. I needed to shake it off though.
I turned onto Memorial Drive without thinking, following the curve of the Charles.
The water was gray today, choppy with wind.
A few stubborn rowers cut through the current, their movements precise and determined.
Crazy. You couldn't pay me to be out there—where the water was opaque and the things under the surface were questionable at best.
I should go to my apartment. But the thought of being that far away, of not being able to get back to her quickly if she needed me, made my chest tight. What was I supposed to do for a few hours? And without meaning to, I found myself in Brookline.
I parked across the street from my childhood home, engine still running, staring at the doubled-decker. The shutters were dark green now, not black. Window boxes with fall mums. The oak tree had grown, reaching toward my old bedroom. A trellis climbed the side wall.
The sun glanced off my bedroom window where I'd hidden from Mom's vacant stares.
Depression and anxiety broke her—terms we never used then.
We buried her pain in silence, ashamed instead of understanding.
Now as a cop, I recognize what I couldn't name as a child, how darkness once kept hidden finally finds the light.
I cut the engine. Sat there in the sudden silence. This was where I learned people vanish—first in an instant, then over years. I still see Mom's face when the officers came. The way she crumpled, strings cut. That sound she made—not scream, not sob. Something primal. Broken.
And then the quiet that came after. It was a terrible, suffocating quiet that never learned sound again.
Before Dad died, she would hum while she cooked—she had a beautiful voice and perfect pitch.
After he was gone, the humming stopped. The cooking stopped.
Eventually the conversations stopped too.
She spoke less each year until her silence filled the whole house—the laughter and music were gone.
My mother had died two years ago, though the woman who'd raised me vanished long before that—the day they buried my father. I remember her kisses when I was small. Then quick embraces. Then nothing, once my face began mirroring his and my footsteps followed as well.
That's what love and loss had done to her, and that's what I'd been so terrified of doing to Maliyah.
But Maliyah wasn't my mother. And Lucas and Zoe weren't me.
I sat there, letting that sink in. The past had shaped me, but it didn't have to dictate my future.
I put the car in drive and headed to the next stop.
Mount Hope Cemetery was quiet. I parked near the main entrance and walked the familiar path to the graves. Left at the giant memorial. Past the bench where I used to sit when I needed to think. Up the small hill to the plot my mother had bought after my father died.
Two headstones. Side by side now, though hers was newer—shinier.
JAMES MORRISON April 27, 1957 - November 23, 1996 Beloved Husband and Father Boston Police Department End of Watch: November 23, 1996
CATHERINE MORRISON March 13, 1960 - August 2, 2023 Beloved Wife and Mother Reunited at Last
I stood there, hands in my pockets, staring at the names. "Hey, Dad," I said quietly. "It's been a while." The wind picked up around me just a bit—lightly tousling my hair, the cold biting into my cheeks.
"I fucked up. Pretty badly." I sat down on the grass between the two stones, my jeans soaking through as they quickly became cold and damp.
"Maliyah. She's amazing. Funny, sweet, kind, amazing mom, and beautiful.
She's so beautiful, Dad. And she makes this sound when she laughs hard—half snort, half giggle—brings a smile to my face even as I think about it now.
She has these two incredible kids, Lucas and Zoe. "
I pulled up some grass, ripping the blades to pieces as I fidgeted.
"I fell pretty hard for them, you know. Didn't think it was possible.
Guess I didn't really want it to be possible since, well—you know.
But I let myself believe I could do it—take a chance.
And then sure enough, I got shot. Not bad, just a shoulder wound—not like you. "
I cleared my throat, my fingers finding the scar tissue beneath my shirt.
"When I was bleeding out on that floor, all I saw was you.
I saw Lucas and Zoe standing at my grave.
I saw Maliyah going hollow like Mom did.
" I glanced at the other headstone. "Sorry, Mom.
" My voice broke. "So I ran. Convinced myself hurting them now was better than destroying them later. "
My throat burned as I fought back tears. "But I was wrong. I hurt those kids anyway. And Maliyah—" I swallowed hard. "I made her feel like she wasn't worth fighting for."
I looked back at my mother's headstone. I stared at my mother's name etched in stone.
"Mom, I—" My voice caught. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough.
" I traced the letters with my eyes, feeling the anger I'd carried for years shift into something else.
"I hate that you stayed but weren't really there.
And yet—" I swallowed hard, surprised by the tears.
"Part of me understands it wasn't a choice. Doesn't make it any easier though."
I pressed my palm against the cold marble. "I won't repeat history. I won’t abandon them again—not while I still have breath in my lungs. I can't." My hand trembled. "But God, I'm terrified I won't be able to get them back."
I stood up, brushed off my jeans. "I'm going to fight for them. Not because I'm not scared—I'm terrified. But living without them hurts worse than dying ever could."
I laid my hands on their stones, feeling the cold bite into my fingers. "I love you both. Always did—even when it was hard. Even when it hurt. That never changed."
I walked back to my car, feeling lighter somehow.
Clearer. My apartment felt foreign when I walked in—stale air, mail piled under the slot, dust everywhere.
I'd barely been here in weeks, only stopping to grab essentials before rushing back to Maliyah's.
After a quick shower to warm my cemetery-chilled bones, I dressed and retrieved the box I'd shoved onto my closet's top shelf after Mom's funeral.
Inside: photo albums. My father's dress uniform badge. A folded flag from his funeral. Letters my mother had written to him after he died—I'd found them in her nightstand drawer after she passed. I sat on my bed and opened the first album.
My parents in their youth—late teens, maybe early twenties. Yellow-tinted seventies photo, white border faded with time. Their wedding day: Dad in dress blues, Mom in a simple white dress, wildflowers woven through her hair. Both grinning like co-conspirators.
I kept moving through the album. Me as a baby.
My dad holding me, that proud father look on his face.
My mom laughing at something off-camera.
Beach day: me at six with a half-collapsed sandcastle, Dad's hand steadying the tower, Mom's smile genuine.
Little League. Backyard barbecues. Me and John with gap-toothed grins.
The last photo in the album: my parents and me at a Halloween party, mom dressed like a police officer with a mustache and dad looking like James Dean with a pack of cigarettes rolled in his short-sleeved white shirt.
Me standing between them, in a cowboy hat and boots with fake pistols and a sheriff's badge, missing one of my front teeth. All of us smiling.
It was less than a month before he was killed.
I took that photo out carefully, held it up to the light.
My fingers shook as I laid it beside me.
I took out several more photos. Me and my dad at a Red Sox game.
My parents dancing at someone's wedding.
My mother, before—bright-eyed and laughing.
And after—hollow, distant, fading. The progression of loss, captured in four-by-six glossy paper.
I found my father's badge, ran my thumb over the number. 4137. The same badge number I'd requested when I joined the force. The number that connected me to him, reminded me daily why I'd chosen this job. And why I'd been afraid of it.
I closed up the box, laying my hand on the top. This was the family I wanted to build—lasting though. True. Love in every form. I carefully put everything back, storing it away again. I felt better about things. I have a ways to go, but there was something different in me—in my heart.
My phone buzzed.
John: How are things going?
Me: Okay. She's recovering. Doing good.
John: Drinks soon?
Me: Yeah.
John: Good. Text when you've got the time.
Me: Will do.
I pocketed my phone and headed back to my car. I drove aimlessly for a while. Past Maliyah's apartment building—I slowed down but didn't stop. Caden and Felicity's car was out front though, so my guess is I was right.
She'd needed her kids. Good. She needs them and they her. I kept driving. Found myself heading toward the North End, circling endlessly until I found a spot. Finally parking down the street from a small Italian market I'd visited a hundred times.
Giuseppe looked up as I entered, his face breaking into a smile. "Detective Morrison! It's been too long."
"Hey, Giuseppe."
"How is your lady? John came in, told me about what happened. Terrible business."
John was my best friend, but he was a teenaged gossip at heart. "She's recovering. Getting stronger every day."
"Good, good." His expression grew serious. "And you? You're taking care of her? Doing okay?"
I didn't know how to answer that. "I'm trying. I felt like that was the right answer for all of his questions in one."
He studied my face for a long moment. "My father used to say that love without risk is not love at all. It's just safe. And safe is boring. And doesn't keep you warm at night." He pumped his eyebrows suggestively at the last, making me laugh—and I think I even blushed a bit.
"Yeah, yeah, old man."
Giuseppe hunched his shoulders and raised his fists. "I'll give you an old man!" His wedding band flashed as he jabbed at the air, apron strings swinging.
I shuffled toward him, fists raised in mock defense.
Giuseppe landed a slow-motion punch to my gut.
I staggered back, knocking a bag of rigatoni to the floor.
"Help! Senior citizen brutality!" I called out.
An elderly woman glanced up from the cheese counter, rolling her eyes when Giuseppe winked at her.
I left the market smiling and carrying a giant bag of goods with Giuseppe's words echoing in my mind.
He's right—safety doesn't keep you warm at night.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Still no text from Maliyah.I checked the time.
It had been well over three hours since I'd left.
How long was "a few hours"? When would she text? What if she didn't?
I drove to a coffee shop, ordered black, and sat with my phone face-up, waiting. Finally, I texted Maliyah.
Me: Is it safe to come back?
My phone buzzed moments later.
Maliyah: You can come back now.
Five words. No elaboration. No indication of how it had gone. I didn't care that she hadn't said anything else though. She wanted me to come back.
I stood up so fast I nearly knocked over my chair, and I was out the door in seconds.
Me: OTW
No response.
I strangled the steering wheel as a third light turned red. An elderly woman inched across while I drummed my fingers. Green. Two blocks. Another red.
She opened the door immediately. Alone. Her face blotchy, eyes red-rimmed but dry. She looked exhausted, relieved, and unreadable.
"Hey," I said quietly. "You okay?"
She nodded, stepped back to let me in. She held up her phone. Sit down. We need to talk.
My stomach dropped. This was it. She was going to tell me to leave. I sat on the couch. She took the chair opposite me. And started typing.