When I first brought Mia home fromthe hospital, I took as much time as I could off work in order to get him settled into my apartment, but that could only last for so long. Soon, I needed to return to my regular shift.
I scheduled with Chantal to take Mia out shopping on my first day back to work. As I sat at my desk, trying to plow through the mountain of emails and paperwork that had piled up while I’d been gone, I felt some assurance knowing that Mia wasn’t sitting around alone at the apartment. He was probably having a perfectly fine day out with Chantal and Mia. I’d gotten no phone calls or text messages saying that there’d been any problems.
Still, I couldn’t help worrying.
What if he got overwhelmed out in the crowded city?
What if someone mocked him for the bandages he still had to wear on some of his skin grafts?
What if Chantal was distracted by Melody at some point and Mia accidentally wondered off and got lost?
His lack of memories meant that everything seemed new to him, and he didn’t always have the same life skills and self-preservation that would be expected of an adult.
Did he even know how to safely cross a busy street on his own?
I’d never bothered to check.
“Shit,” I mumbled to myself as I looked down at the form in front of me. I’d been so distracted by my worries about Mia that I’d spelled my own name wrong. It wouldn’t have mattered on a digital file, but this was one of the physical paper forms that had to be filled out by hand. And I’d been writing with a pen, which meant I couldn’t erase it. My only option was to print it out again and start all over.
Cursing again, I trudged over to the office’s printer.
Cop shows always made detective work look like non-stop action. They never showed how much desk work it took to uphold the law.
The copy machine was just warming up when Roland’s voice called out behind me.
“Hey, Auggie, you’re finally back. Just in time, I want you to meet someone.”
Turning away from the copy machine, which was growling at me like a cornered predator, I found my office mate quickly making his way over to me as he dragged another man across the office. I didn’t even need the introduction. I could tell from the way that Roland held the other man’s hand as he moved that this was thelong-distance partner he’d told me so much about. Yet, I held my tongue as I we were formally introduced.
“Tyler, this is Augustine Conway,” Roland said as he still refused to let go of the other man’s hand. “He’s the rookie I told you about that’s been a big help on some difficult cases.”
It had taken me some time to get used to Roland’s persistently high energy, but Tyler didn’t seem fazed by it at all. The man had a steady presence, like a tall tree with deeply buried roots. If Roland was a human hurricane, then Tyler was built to weather the storm.
With a laugh on his lips, Tyler held out a hand to me. “Roland said you usually go by Auggie, right? I hope you’re settling in here all right and that this one isn’t giving you too much trouble.”
As he shook my hand, he gave Roland an intimate squeeze with his other hand. It was nothing explicit, just a one-armed side hug that couples often exchanged when they were comfortable with each other. Yet, the sight of it still caused a hitch in my throat.
How long had it been since I was that comfortable with someone?
Since casual intimacy came that naturally?
I honestly couldn’t remember. At least since my divorce, and probably long before that.
Roland elbowed his partner in the ribs but didn’t pull away. “Hey, don’t talk about me like I’m some misbehaving pet. I’ve been showing Auggie the ropes of the job.”
Jumping at the excuse to give up on my paperwork for now, I stepped out with the two of them to the break room to get toknow Roland’s partner. Tyler attended school in Maryland but was visiting for spring break and was eager to see where Roland worked and meet the man’s coworkers. Tyler’s words were always polite, but I could tell I was being scoped out with the same critical eye as a recruitment officer scouting new talent for the army. It was understandable. While Tyler was on the other side of the country, his partner was here hunting down criminals and getting himself into dangerous situations. Tyler no doubt wanted to make sure I was the kind of person he could trust to watch his partner’s back while he was gone.
So, I straightened my spine and took the conversation seriously. We inevitably ended up talking about my recent absence from work, which led me to explain about Mia. I tried to keep the explanation as simple as possible, but as soon as people heard words likefireandcomathey immediately wanted to know all the details.
“And you say he can’t remember anything from before the fire?” Tyler asked as he stirred a cup of mediocre coffee that we’d prepared in the break room.
I leaned my hip against the counter, sipping from the protein drink I’d brought from home, since I knew better than to trust anything the break room provided. “He can remember some things, but it’s fragmented. Like random puzzle pieces that don’t fit together. If I had all the pieces of his past, it would probably make a cohesive image, but right now I don’t have enough to identify him.”
I’d forgotten that Tyler was a criminology major until I saw his eyes light up at the mystery of Mia’s identity. Maybe it was a bad idea to mention Mia to him. I barely knew the guy, and I was starting to realize that he was probably just as persistent as Roland, just in a different way. However, there was no takingthe words back now that I’d said them. Pandora’s box had been opened, and Tyler’s interest had been piqued. I would just have to deal with the fallout as it came.
“So, if his memory is that unreliable, are you certain his name is Mia?” Tyler continued to ask. “That’s an unusual name for a man.”
I could already follow his line of thinking. It was the same line I’d followed when I was first trying to identify Mia.