“Rob Turney. Paul mentioned the name.”
“Yeah. Banker type. I keep telling Evie if she moves on, this is not going to be the last guy interested in her. Evie outclasses him.”
“Odd you’d have such a strong opinion,” Gabriel mentioned, amused, though he had to admit Ann rarely voiced such a firm one.
“The day after Flight 174 crashed,” Ann said, turning serious, “Evie did this impromptu puppet thing with the kids at church, a brilliant teaching moment about life after death. And Rob sat in the back of the room, listening politely, then smirked as she finished. I had violent thoughts.”
“That would do it,” Gabriel said. “And Evie’s point was…?”
“She said something like…” Ann closed her eyes, recalling. “‘People die. But when they love Jesus, they don’t stay dead. They are raised to life again so they can be with Jesus. And for all eternity, for years and years and years of forever, they never have to think about death. It will never be something that will happen again. They will always and forever be alive, in heaven.’”
Gabriel waited until Ann opened her eyes. “Agreed. He’s a jerk.”
Ann slapped her hand on the table. “Thank you! I knew I wasn’t overreacting to that arrogant smirk. The kids got the point, and that was the reason it mattered. Rob didn’t see that. He just reacted to the ‘years and years and years of forever’ way she chose to phrase it.”
Gabriel smiled. “I once explained it not quite so eloquently as: Death is similar to a sneeze-you can feel it coming, but then you sneeze and it’s over. You can tell people you sneezed, but you can never do that same one again even if you wanted to…”
He stopped as Ann started laughing. “You know I’m going to tell that to Paul,” she said between chuckles, “and he’s going to mention it to Bryce, and a few weeks from now Bryce is going to write on a chalkboard in front of a thousand people, Death is a sneeze, and have them in stitches. So, tell me, how much attribution would you like? I’ll go with your initials if you want to save yourself some humorous fame.”
“Anonymous might be best,” Gabriel replied with a grin. He turned his mug in his hand as he enjoyed her humor, then finished the thought. “We think about death, you and I, cops in general, more than most people. It helps to tame that monster down to size occasionally. I’m going to enjoy heaven. The weight on my shoulders that I’ll die in a work-related tragedy will one day be gone forever. That’s enough reason for faith right there. Alive forever with Jesus, death never again being something you have to think about…”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Ann said, getting up to pour herself more coffee and topping off his too. “When Evie talks about death, she’s remembering a lot of crime scenes. You can hear that reality in her voice. Similarly, when she says Jesus loves everyone, she’s got faces in mind-both those who have done horrific crimes and those of innocent victims. Her faith is part of her life. Evie’s an optimist about justice and life and things working out. Rob doesn’t seem to connect with that. He says the right words, but that’s all it is-words.”
“You sound worried.”
Ann lifted a shoulder. “I have a lot of friends, but female cop friends are a special lot. I like her personally. Professionally she’s simply a solid cop.” She stopped to smile. “No, let me rephrase that. She’s a solid detective. Evie doesn’t like being a cop in its broad definition. She doesn’t want to be the officer someone calls when the couple next door are fighting, or there’s a car crash, or someone is shooting up a store. She wants to be the one called when a car is stolen or someone is dead in an alley. She does the cop part when necessary so she can have the part she loves-being a detective.”
“She would hate being a sheriff. It’s ninety percent cop, ten percent detective.”
“Precisely,” Ann said. “What she enjoys is solving real-life puzzles.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Gabe’s hands circled his mug. “I’m enjoying the conversation, but you rarely take a turn like this by accident.”
“You’re going to be around Evie for a couple weeks,” Ann replied. “I want you to have a sense of her, and I want her to get a sense of you. You’re a cop and good in that role. If she marries Rob, leaves state investigations because of its travel demands, takes a job at the local police department, she’s going to get squeezed back into that cop role. I want her to be sure. If she quits entirely-Rob would prefer that, I’m sure-I don’t know what Evie does. In my case, I quit because I knew writing was as powerful a passion for me as being a detective, and there was a transition already in place. Evie doesn’t have that in mind, at least not yet.”
Gabriel drank the last of his coffee, thoughtful. “You worry Rob’s going to do a Christmas-party proposal in front of family and friends, and Evie’s going to say yes because she’s got a tender heart, didn’t say no before it reached that point, and doesn’t want to embarrass him or others present.”
“I am. Call it intuition, whatever. I can see a problem coming, and as her friend, I’m worried. I don’t want that to be the decision point for her, that path of least resistance. I want her to have a future with the right man, like I have with Paul.” She smiled. “Rob might turn out to be a fine husband, and I think anyone getting Evie will have a very good wife, so it’s not doom-and-gloom ahead. I’m just concerned about something less than I would hope for her.”
“I kind of doubt Evie gets pushed into something this big unless she wants that direction.” He turned to stir the logs in the fireplace, added another one. “Though this topic does make me curious-did you ever consider declining Paul’s proposal?”
Ann didn’t answer for a long moment. “I thought seriously about declining, yes.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that from this vantage point.”
“My caution wasn’t about Paul, but about the necessary accommodations-on both sides-that being married would require. I’ve always functioned best with significant blocks of solitude. Paul loves me enough to still give me that time. The hours alone in the plane for the flight here today, the flight home tomorrow, are as important to our marriage as the fact I shared an early breakfast with Paul before I left this morning, and will be back to have dinner with him tomorrow evening.”
“You are at your best, Ann, when you are alone with God. That’s probably true of every Christian to one degree or another.”
She nodded her appreciation of the simple but profound truth. “It’s a fundamental fact about me. Had Paul not seen it, understood, and accepted what it meant, our marriage wouldn’t have been able to flourish. I don’t draw energy from being married, I draw energy from being alone, which I can then feed into my marriage. Cut the solitude out of my routine and I’m in trouble. It’s not the same degree with everyone, but for me it was core.” Ann paused for a moment. “That’s what I worry about when I look at Evie, that Rob hasn’t grasped the critical few things that make her who she is. She’s going to marry him, then struggle to make life work. I don’t want that for her, Gabe.”
He got up and lifted the gallon of ice cream out of the refrigerator, scooped generously, set two bowls on the table, and slid the container back in the freezer. He sat back into his chair before he answered. “I rather doubt Evie’s blind to the concerns you’ve mentioned, Ann. And if she hasn’t seen all the ways a marriage can go wrong, she’s no doubt seen the majority of them during her first years being a uniform cop on patrol. Trust her judgment, is my advice. I doubt she got to this point in her career without being willing to do hard things. I’m sure she’ll tell Rob no to a marriage proposal if that’s what she decides is best.”