About a month after I quit seeing her, I heard that Norris had gone home with her. Then I heard that Norris and Gilliam had both gone home with her on the same morning. I didn’t believe it, but the thought burned in my gut anyway.
When I heard she’d quit the diner a year later, I hoped that meant she was going to Seattle like she planned. It was several more months before I heard the real reason she’d quit working. She was sick, according to the rumor mill. And then came the word, barely above a whisper.
AIDS.
That word scared the hell out of me. I remembered Gio’s warning and felt foolish for disregarding it.
After my first test came back negative, I started thinking about her a lot. I found out where she was being treated easily enough. Anthony’s sister was a nurse up at Sacred Heart and could find out anything medical about anybody.
The small hospice was in the heart of the worst part of town, where the rent was cheap enough to afford a place for the dying. I prepared myself to lie to whoever ran the place and say I was her brother, but the woman in charge didn’t ask any questions. She led me up a flight of stairs and down a long, narrow hallway.
The door to Lauren’s room stood open about a foot. I considered knocking, but in the end I just eased it open. A wiry black woman sat next to the bed, dabbing at her patient’s lips with a washcloth.
The woman lying in bed was thin and she seemed exhausted. Splotches of dark brown or red peppered her face. Her hair was damp and slicked back away from her face, except for that one lock. Her eyes were closed and shook her head slightly.
“Lauren, girl, you gotta eat,” the black woman at the bedside said softly. “Gotta keep up your strength.”
The caregiver tried to spoon a thin broth into the woman’s mouth but she refused to open it. I stared at the woman in the bed and tried to find Lauren somewhere in that emaciated frame. I searched her sunken face for some vestige of the woman I remembered.
The caregiver lowered the spoon into the bowl with a patient sigh. Then she noticed me and raised her eyebrows questioningly.
“I’m…an old friend,” I said, trying to be quiet, but surprised at how loud my voice came out.
“Really?” she asked, looking me up and down. “What do you want?”
“A moment?”
The caregiver considered, then rose and walked toward the door. “Five minutes,” she said. “That’s it. She needs her rest.”
She brushed past me and I grabbed her by the arm. “How is she?” I asked quietly.
The look she gave me was full of contempt and pity at the same time.
“She’s dying,” she said.
I let go of her arm and she left the room.
Lauren’s eyes were still closed when I sat down next to the bed. I reached out tentatively and touched her on the shoulder, whispering her name.
Her eyes fluttered open and came to rest on me. There was a flicker of confusion, then recognition flooded her face.
“Connor,” she said, her voice a croaking whisper.
I smiled at her, but my gut wrenched.
She brought her hands up to her hair and covered her face.
“I look terrible,” she said. I could barely hear her through her hands.
I took her hands and pulled them easily away from her face. Tears welled up in her eyes and slid from the corners onto her pillow.
“No, you don’t,” I said. I pushed the lock of hair away from her brow and tucked it behind her ear. “You look the same as ever. You’re beautiful.”
“Liar,” she whispered, almost a hiss, but she smiled.
I was a liar, but I sat with her, shushing her questions and stroking her hair. I told her more lies. After fifteen minutes, the caregiver returned to stand in the doorway, signaling an end to the visit.
“Eat your food,” I whispered, and lowered my face to hers. Her breath was stale and her lips were cracked and dry, but I kissed her on the open mouth anyway. When I pulled away, she was crying again.
“Eat,” I whispered again. I got up and walked toward the door. When I reached the caregiver, I said, “Thanks for the extra time.”
She shrugged. “It’s her time, not mine.”
“Does she get many visitors?”
“Just her mother.”
I pressed my lips together, nodded and left.
I should have gone back to that hospice every day or two. I should have sat with her, pushed away that stray lock and told her lies. It would have been fitting. And, for a change, telling lies might have been a good thing.
Instead, after the first visit, I stayed away. The thin tears that fell from the corner of her eyes and streamed onto the pillow were loud accusations. I liked to think that I didn’t go because I knew I didn’t deserve the vindication that might have come with sitting at her side as she left this world. But I knew the truth.
When she died, I couldn’t even muster the courage to go to her funeral. It happened right in the middle of my workweek, which made for a hollow excuse.
The truth was, though, I didn’t want to see newly turned earth next to her open grave. I didn’t want to see fake grass or real flowers. I didn’t want to see her mother, whose careworn features I feared would resemble Lauren too much.
I don’t know how many people went to her funeral.
I don’t know if there was a single cop there.
Two days later, I went to her grave. It was late October, and cold.
I made my way through the acres of cemetery and found her grave. The stone was small and simple and bore merely her name, the dates she lived and the words “Beloved Daughter.”
I touched the top of the marker with my fingertips, then bent and kissed the rough stone.
“I’m sorry, Lauren.”
I didn’t love her. I was no better than all the other men in her life, just one in a parade of empty sexual partners. I had used her, too, if only gently.
Gently, I thought, and my stomach burned.
I wished that were true.
No Good Deed
I recognized that cholo bastard as soon as I walked into the McDonald’s, but what was I supposed to do? Rebecca and her kids were already inside. I didn’t have my gun with me, but I wasn’t about to run away from any piece of shit.
The guy was standing in line to order, wearing his baggy jeans, blue flannel shirt over the wife-beater T-shirt and a blue bandana. He was right out of a gang movie.
I would’ve recognized him by his face, his wispy goatee and the smart-ass look on his face. But it was the bloody cross tattooed on his neck that nailed it for me. You don’t forget a tattoo like that.
I stood at the doorway for a few seconds, debating how to handle things. I’d been a cop for fourteen years and this wasn’t a new experience. In a city this size, you always run into the losers that you’ve arrested in the past. Usually, thankfully, I see them first and avoided them.
Maybe he wouldn’t see me. Or recognize me.
I pushed my bicycle in and walked it toward Rebecca and the kids. If I stood in the fucking doorway, he’d make me inside of five seconds for acting so strange. I greeted Rebecca with a brief kiss on the cheek and, as always, the shock of smelling her skin flustered me. I turned to the kids and said my hellos.
“Uncle Conner!” Anthony Junior yelled as he hugged my leg.
I tousled his hair as I felt Rebecca’s smile upon me. The seven-year-old boy was his father through and through. Same hair, same face, same eyes. I loved him like he was my own, but his features haunted me.