He drank down the rest of his coffee the same way an alcoholic slammed down a drink minutes before last call.
“Enough about that. We’ve already committed too much of our time to unpleasant topics. Let’s talk about something else.”
I let him change the topic of conversation. It was clear he was tired of talking about it. Instead, he started telling me about his recent plans for his partner to move in with him. Roland’s partner lived in Maryland, and they had been doing the long-distance thing for a while but were finally making plans to move in together. It was at least a conversation I could participate in, since I knew the havoc that distance could wreak on a relationship.
Distance was one of the main reasons my marriage fell through. Distance and the fact that we grew apart as people. I didn’t tell Roland that, though. My divorce was no one else’s business. Maybe one day, I would feel comfortable enough to discuss such things with my coworkers, but for now my private life would stay private.
Still, I congratulated Roland for managing to take a step forward, and we spent a few more casual minutes discussing his trials when it came to rearranging his apartment in preparation.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one who struggled with Ikea furniture.
The man in our interview room was eventually hauled off to a cell for a temporary hold while we gathered our evidence. Then Roland and I spent the rest of the day trying to track down security footage from the public pool. This ended up taking a lot longer than expected because there had been no arrest in the original incident, so the records of it were incomplete. It took usan hour just to figure out which pool the man was kicked out of, and then another two hours narrowing down specifically what day the incident occupied. Then the rest of our day was spent scrubbing through grainy security footage.
By the end of the day, my eyes ached within their sockets, and it felt like my eyelids creaked every time I blinked, but we found what we were looking for. Undeniable video footage of our target going into the woman’s changing room and harassing the young girls when their parents weren’t around. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it was enough that the man in our jail cell would have a hard time arguing innocent intent.
By the end of the day, I really wanted to just go back to my apartment and collapse on my couch. Maybe pick up some take out, watch a bit of mindless television, and go to bed early. That sounded like a perfect end to the day but tonight was one of the nights I was scheduled to read at the hospital.
As I got behind the wheel of my car, a slippery little voice whispered in the back of my mind that there would be no harm skipping out just this once. I’d already volunteered so many of my evenings at the hospital. Surely, the kids would survive without a bedtime story one night, and the John Doe I visited when I was there wasn’t even conscious. He’d have no idea if I showed up or not. It was all the same to him.
The street for my apartment approached. My hands felt like lead on the steering wheel. I was so tempted to change my path and just head home.
In my rearview mirror, I caught sight of the bag of books sitting in my back seat, waiting for me.
No. I’d made a promise. Even if that promise was only to a bunch of kids and an unconscious man, I had to keep it. I didn’t have much in this world, but I did have my word, and that counted for something.
Stepping down on the accelerator, I left the turn for my apartment behind and headed for the hospital.
The good thing about doubts is that they know their place. My moment of weakness, where I almost went back on my word, was a thought that existed only in my head, and no one would ever need to know about it so long as I said nothing. To the kids at the hospital, there was no difference between this visit and any other time I came to read to them. The result was still the same. They picked out a book, I read to them, and everyone was happy.
Afterward, when all the kids had been shuffled off to bed, I visited the John Doe patient. The man was still lying in his bed, just as he always was, with the many machines proving that he was still alive despite his lack of movement. His bandages had recently been changed and showed not even a speck of dust. Surrounded by several pillows and blankets, he looked almost comfortable.
A chair waited in the corner near the bed. It was a recent addition to the otherwise sparkly furnished room. The nurses in the long-term care ward got tired of having to hunt down a chair for me every time I visited, so they started keeping one in the John Doe’s room full time. It was always there waiting for me.
If I hadn’t shown up today, the chair would still be waiting. Empty and forgotten.
I brought the chair closer to the bed, careful not to let its legs drag against the floor.
At first, I pulled out a book of fairy tales, just like I had on my previous visits, intending to pick up right where I’d left off. Yet, as I flipped through the book, looking through the many different stories, I couldn’t bring myself to choose any of them. None of the titles, neither the familiar nor the unfamiliar ones, seemed right.
After a few minutes of fruitless silence, I set the book aside with a sigh.
“You know, I almost didn’t come today.”
The kids couldn’t tell any difference if I was excited to visit or if I had to drag myself here, but for some reason I didn’t want to lie to the John Doe on the bed.
“Not because of you,” I said. Just in case he was able to hear me, I didn’t want him to think that my bad mood was in any way his fault. “I love coming here and reading to the kids and visiting you. I just… had a long day at work.”
The life-giving machines on the wall continued to beep. If I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes, I could almost pretend that their rhythm was the other half of a conversation.
“Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve told you about my work, or anything about me at all, have I?”
One of the machines gave a long hiss of air, almost like it was saying, “Well, what took you so long?”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “I’m not very good at talking about myself. But, since I’ve been coming here for a while, I guess you deserve to know who keeps taking up space in your room.”
That evening, instead of reading to the John Doe, I simply told him about myself. At first, it was a rambling list of basic information. I’d recently retired from the military. I was divorced. I’d moved to Baton Rouge to be closer to my family and spend more time with my daughter. However, the longer I talked, the easier the words flowed, and soon, I found myself divulging things I hadn’t told anyone.
I appreciated my job as a detective at the FPA, but most days I felt like a fraud. Yes, I’d gone through all the necessary training, but in my mind, I still saw myself as a soldier. I wasn’t a detective. I was the person who followed orders. I didn’t solve crimes, uphold the law, and comfort victims.