It ended with that phone call.
Jack cleared his throat, pushing the past to the past and looking again at his brother. Time to fix the present.
"It's time, Cody," Jack repeated quietly now, not taking his eyes off of the photo, where Pam stayed alive forever.
Cody looked at Jack and then at the back of the picture frame. He didn't have to see the picture; he had memorized every detail long ago. He took a deep breath. "We still held hands every night when we went to bed."
Jack looked up at him, surprised by the response.
"I still enjoyed the feel of her hand. Soft. Cool." Cody looked at his brother. "I miss the craziest things, Jack. I miss grocery shopping with her."
"You hated going shopping with her," Jack said quietly. He thought guiltily of how many times he'd taken his life with Laine for granted, even knowing how it could disappear in a heartbeat.
Cody nodded. "I know. She read every single label every single time we went. I miss her poking me with her elbow while I'm driving down the street and saying, 'Look at that tree, Code. You could paint that, honey.' And the tree would be three blocks behind us by then and I'd be saying 'What tree?' Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I can almost feel the warmth of her hand, Jack. I thought I'd still be holding her hand when I was old."
"I thought you would be, too." He cleared his throat. "It wasn't your fault."
Cody continued to look at the back of the frame. "I'd told her that wasn't a safe place. If it wasn't for that stupid cake ... She loved that bakery, though, you know? I should've been with her."
"You were on duty. And if you had been with her it would've just been you on the sidewalk that night instead of her. Or maybe both of you." He'd had the same feeling of guilt himself. He was now almost quoting what their mother told him when he'd expressed them to her. "You can beat yourself up all you want, Code. It doesn't make it your fault."
"Real easy for you to say, Jack." Cody glanced out the big window beside the desk, intently studying the changing color of the leaves on a red oak in the front yard before returning his gaze to his brother.
Jack looked away from Cody for a second, "It isn't easy," he corrected quietly. "See, I was going to go with Pam. We were in the driveway when Aunt Shirley pulled up in front of the house. I stopped to help her carry her junk in and, when I finished, Pam was already gone. It shouldn't have been you with her, Code. It should have been me."
Cody looked at Jack, a flash of surprise melting in his blue eyes. He blinked, too sure of his own guilt to hear his brother. "I'd just busted that guy --"
"Didn't have anything to do with it. He was a junkie looking for cash. It wouldn't have mattered to him if it were Pam at that ATM or the first lady. All he wanted was money, Cody. It didn't have anything to do with you."
Cody sat heavily on the desk, scattering the few remaining files. He looked tired. "I'm not ready to leave the kids yet," he admitted quietly.
Jack considered his next words carefully. "You're always talking to me about faith, Cody; about trust. Always telling me that you have to let go of stuff and let God be God." He took a deep breath and sighed.
His own crisis of faith weighed heavily on his mind. He'd discovered it one week after Pam's murder, on Cody's birthday. As he lay in their bed, holding Elaine tightly, his mother called.
"Cody's gone," she whispered into the phone.
For a heartbeat, Jack could hear Rudy Sotello. 'Pam's gone,' he'd said. Jack clenched his jaws and held his breath, waiting, breathing only when his mother began to speak again.
"He waited until the kids were asleep and asked me to watch them. He took his bicycle."
Jack took a slow breath to calm down before he spoke. "Mom, it's been a week. Maybe he just needs a little time by himself."
"But he's been gone three and a half-hour, Jack. I keep thinking, 'I'll give him another fifteen minutes and then I give him some more, but he's still not here. It's almost midnight. Jack, I'm really worried."
"I'll bring him home, Mom."
He rode to the park, where he found Cody leaning against the fence around the tennis courts, looking at the stars. He was in a tee-shirt and shorts although a cold front had moved through in the last hour, dropping the temperature 20 degrees and dumping an inch of rain. Cody's clothes and shoes and hair were still soaking wet. Jack knew he had to be cold, but wondered if he felt it.
"Hey, kid." Jack leaned against the fence beside his brother, speaking softly. "It's, like, fifteen degrees out here. Want my sweatshirt?"
Cody ignored the question. "Look at the stars," he ordered softly. "They're perfect tonight-sharp, clear. Pam would love this ..."
Jack glanced up and then looked at Cody. Park lights backlit his face, making his eyes look dark and hollow. "Time to go home, Code. Mom's worried."
Cody didn't appear to hear him. "Pam loved to watch the stars, you know? We'd stand out in the yard for hours some nights, just looking up." He smiled a little sadly, remembering. "The neighbors thought we were nuts. She always looked for Orion, showed it to the kids. I never asked her why, Jack. I meant to, but I just never thought of it at the right time. Most people look for the Dippers, but Pam looked for Orion, and I don't know why. Now I'll never know." He exhaled slowly, his breath making a cloud in front of his mouth. "Boy, she loved to watch the stars."
Jack watched Cody's face in the dim light.
"I don't think Pam can see the stars anymore, Jack."
Jack swallowed. He'd felt himself build a wall between him and God for the last seven days, his anger growing as his faith dwindled. He wondered if Cody felt that same distance and bewilderment and anger. His own fading faith made him speechless.
"You have to have darkness to have stars. You know, they're always there, but you just can't see them in the daylight. You have to have darkness."
"Code -"
"If there's really no darkness in Heaven, Pam can't see the stars anymore."
Jack looked at Cody's bike, thrown carelessly into a puddle by the courts. The anger at God grew.
"Do you think she'll miss the stars, Jack? She loved them. You think she'll miss them? Miss Orion?" Cody drew in a ragged, choked breath. "Do you think she'll miss us, Jack?"
Jack wrapped his arms around Cody and pulled him into his shoulder. Cody sobbed, grieving like he hadn't been able to for the days since he lost his wife. Jack held him tight, letting him mourn, feeling his faith crash.
It hadn't recovered yet.
Jack shifted at Cody's desk and looked away from his brother's face, remembering that long ago night in the park. Unlike Cody, who'd held onto his faith so devoutly, he'd let his go. "How," he asked slowly, "can you claim to trust Pam to God forever if you don't even trust the kids to God for one weekend?"
Cody looked over at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.
"That's not faith," Jack finished. He looked at his feet, crossed on Cody's desk, and studied a spot on the toe of his shoe.
Cody raised a hand to run wearily across his eyes and then through his hair, shoving long bangs out of his face. He sat with his head down, rubbing the back of his neck.
"You can't stand guard on the kids 24/7, Code. No one could. You've made their lives as safe as you can. You've done everything you can. It's time for you to show me some faith." He leaned forward, close to his brother. "Come on, Code," Jack urged softly, "you could really use the break."
Cody hesitated.
"Okay," Jack admitted, "I could really use the break, and this is the only way Laine'll let me have one."
A hint of a smile touched Cody's face. "She really does lead you around by the nose ring, doesn't she?" he asked softly.
Jack nodded slowly, his expression serious. "Oh, yeah. Somethin' terrible." Then he smiled at the thought of his tall, willowy wife leading him by the nose.
Cody looked away from his brother, staring at a photograph on the wall behind Jack's head. Jack knew the photo-it was one Cody had taken on their last camping trip as kids. In it their dad was casting his line into the lake for one last try at fish for dinner. The sunset behind him made a perfect silhouette of the man they both loved so much. If that photo didn't swing Cody his way nothing ever would. After a minute, Cody nodded.
"Well, then," Jack instructed, standing, wanting to lighten the mood, "try to get a haircut between now and then, huh? I'd hate for anyone to think I'm taking up with hippies."
"Hippies? How old are you?"
"Or maybe rock stars."
Cody smiled and ran a hand through his nearly black hair. He wore it short, but kept the bangs long-to the middle of his cheekbones if they fell forward. And they always fell forward, giving Cody an appearance of innocence impossible for someone his age. Jack accused him of wearing it that way for just that purpose. "It's as short as yours, most places," Cody protested.
Jack leaned forward and ruffled Cody's bangs. "It's the other places that need the haircut. Have your lazy self ready by 5:30 and we'll stop for breakfast on the way out."
Author Notes
OKAY! Chapter done! :)
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