Cat had almost burst her bladder waiting to put Bree to bed. The snow from earlier that day had been replaced with a steady, freezing rain, and the drops tapping on the window didn’t help as she tried to hold it in.
Waiting was stupid, like watching water boil. Cat put the test down on the side of the sink and turned on the TV in the living room with the volume low. MSNBC was rerunning a Dateline feature on indicted mob boss Dominic Tagliatore, “the Debonair Don” as he was called; who allegedly murdered and connived for the past decade to become head of the biggest drug and gambling network in the Northeast. There were people in the neighborhood who claimed they knew the Don from back in the day. “A standup guy, and a great cook,” they would say. Cat picked up Brianna’s toys and tossed them in a box as she listened.
The apartment was spic-and-span. The lights were low, and vanilla-scented candles burned on the stone island that separated the kitchen from the dining room. She was glad they had renovated their own apartment first. They had just finished tearing out the center wall, which opened up the space. The hallway, which once ran from the front door to the rear bedroom now started just past the kitchen. The hardwood floors added a cozy touch. Her only regret was not having more sound insulation between the living room and Bree’s room, which were adjacent to each other.
After tonight’s shift, Cal had three days off and Cat was determined to help him get a full night’s sleep. She wore his favorite Victoria’s Secret negligee. She had bought new satin sheets, and candles and oils were set by the bedside, as was a book on Swedish massage. Her hands were ready to knead Cal’s back like pizza dough. She would even withhold the results of her test until the morning-one less thing for him to worry about. For breakfast there would be French toast with bacon, hominy grits, and a steaming cup of Swiss almond gourmet roast. Then, she’d surprise him with tickets for that evening’s Jets game.
The building was quiet. Letting their tenants go so they could renovate the other two apartments was a risky maneuver. Their single paycheck was already stretched to its limits. Once renovated, though, they could charge more for the space. Cat had offered to go back to work early, but Cal insisted she wait until Bree hit the first grade. It was important to him that the baby have constant parental care at an early age. For a man who knew nothing of his origins, Cal had a devout sense of values. He was so old-fashioned, Cat believed he was born in the wrong era. He would have been happier in the Victorian age. She didn’t know how to bring up the subject of graduate school.
She’d put aside her ambitions temporarily to make Cal happy, and in truth, she enjoyed raising Bree, more than she thought possible. But the bug to pursue her MBA was nagging her more than ever. If Cat spent another five years at home stuck with a daily vocabulary of polysyllabic simplicities like “Boo-boo” and “Da-da,” she’d be fit to be tied. She was thirty, and this was the perfect age to practically apply an advanced degree for optimum effect. Cal would have to pick up some slack at home. How to sell it to him, though…?
Thinking of her family and the man who was undoubtedly her best friend, Cat was amazed that she was even at this point in her life. In her youth, she would have been more likely to throw eggs and rotting fruit at her husband than kisses. When she attended Rutgers University, Cat marched in the “Take Back the Night” rallies; she once shaved her head at a sit-in to bring back the Equal Rights Amendment, chained herself to a tree in Oregon to save the old growth forests, and was a huge vocal advocate of homosexual and transgender rights, before it became the mainstream. How on earth did she end up with a cop?
They had met at a nightclub. Catherine wore jeans and a T-shirt. Her girlfriend pointed out Cal’s interest in her, from across the club. In a room filled with dozens of prodded, preened, and scantily clad women, across a blaring dance floor, he was looking at her. He later admitted to her that his friends protested his becoming ensconced with the most hopelessly plain-looking woman in a club. She was glad Cal ignored his friends’ objections (and his own inherent shyness toward women) and followed his instincts.
Almost immediately, Cat experienced the best vibe over any guy who had ever approached her. As they talked, she thought he was too good to be true. She was so used to guys putting on the act just to score, that she kept waiting for him to screw up; to look at her cleavage or touch her too soon. He never slipped once. He was perfect. The most decent man she’d ever met. She was embarrassed at her own betrayal to her feminist convictions when she realized (after three drinks) that she found him gorgeous, and went weak-kneed at the thought of his baby blue eyes.
Cal’s conviction toward law and order and truth was almost priestly. To “protect and serve” was more than just a job to him. By the end of their fifth date (still unmolested) Cat knew she would never find a finer man. His antiquated convictions about marriage and motherhood were a small concern, but Cat knew if she let him go, she’d spend the rest of her life measuring new suitors by the standard Cal had set; and they would all fall short. She was on her guard at first, waiting for the neoconservative, the closet Promise Keeper in every cop to rear its ugly head, but it never showed. So it was a no-brainer. Over time and through lots of trust, her feminist shields (admittedly, a bit too militant in her youth) started to thin. She had tried the stay-at-home mom thing and was better for it, but now it was time for her to attend to her dreams. Grad school was possible. Cal would bend over backward to make it happen. She’d bet her soul on it.
A special live report interrupted the show. Cat wondered if all police wives had the same knot in their stomach whenever a special report came on. The odds were always against a cop’s spouse. If the report was not about a policeman being killed, then chances were that police were rushing to whatever crisis was happening and placing themselves in harm’s way while everyone else ran the other way. But, if Cal had been involved, they would have called her already, or more likely, sent a unit over to get her.
She was on the couch clutching Bree’s Pooh bear when Hunt’s Point was mentioned as the location of the incident. It was Cal’s precinct. Cat began wringing the toy’s arm. A graphic with a bloody rifle scope appeared next to the anchorman’s head with the words Cop Killed in bright red and yellow. Her knot tightened. The report said the incident happened only an hour ago. Plenty of time to have sent over a squad car or called. She looked at the phone on the wall, still silent.
The reporter on the scene was a local celebrity, one of those Lois Lane types with the tenacity of a pit bull and the face of a soap star. “An officer from the Forty-first precinct was killed in the line of duty tonight…”
The seam on Pooh’s arm began to fray, and then it burst.
Cat stared at the ruined toy. They had had plenty of time to contact me, she conveyed to the toy telepathically. It stared back at her with cold black eyes and a Disney-perfect smile that mocked the chaos in her head.
“… decapitated by a sharp instrument in an abandoned tenement while chasing a suspect. There has been no sign of her partner, officer Callum MacD…”
“No!” Cat threw the toy at the TV. She looked at the telephone, willing it to ring. When she picked it up, the line was dead.