ONE SMALL VICTORY (2 page)

“Oh, God...” Carol’s voice brought Jenny back
to the present. “I’d do anything...”

“I know.” Jenny kept her voice soft in an
attempt to hold her friend’s emotions at bay. Grief hung like a
pall throughout the house, crowding out any other feeling; and
Jenny was sure one more tear would break her fragile hold on
sanity.

Carol wiped the smear of moisture from her
face. “I hope you don’t mind that I just walked in?”

“Of course not. Mi Casa your casa.”

Carol forced a small smile. “Someday we’re
going to have to learn that other Spanish word.”

Jenny tried to match the smile but was afraid
her face would crack under the effort.

“Some of the neighbors have called...to help.
Bring food. Whatever...” Carol seemed to have trouble
finishing.

Jenny’s instincts rebelled. Not now. She
couldn’t see people. Talk to people. Not until she figured out how
she was expected to act. Thank God, Mitchell hadn’t asked too many
questions when she’d called to tell him the shop would be closed
today. After she’d told him why, there was an abrupt silence on the
other end of the phone. Then a cough and his voice assuring her
that he would help in any way. She knew she could count on him or
Jeffrey, didn’t she?

Jenny looked at her watch. Just after
eight-thirty. “Later,” she said. “Could they come later? I’m just
not...”

“Sure.” Carol hesitated a moment. “You want
anything? Or I could just go. Or I could fix some coffee.”

Jenny rubbed her throbbing temples. It was
too much. Too fast.

Almost as if she sensed this, Carol asked,
“You want me to leave?”

Jenny shook her head. “I just need to be
alone for a moment.”

“Okay.” Carol touched Jenny’s shoulder in a
small gesture of understanding. “I’ll go see if the kids want
anything.”

The slight woman strode toward the hallway,
purpose straightening her spine.

If only it could be that easy for me. Find
something to do and everything’ll be okay. Jenny looked around the
living room. The laundry she hadn’t finished folding was strewn in
a jumbled mess across the overstuffed sofa. The coffee table
overflowed with a scattering of magazines and notebook paper from
someone’s forgotten homework. A week’s worth of newspapers made a
haphazard pile on the floor next to the recliner.

If people were coming over, she should try
for some semblance of order. She picked up the newspapers and, for
one crazy moment, had no idea of what to do with them.

The shrill ring of the phone made her heart
thump and her arms weak. She dropped the papers and stood inert;
amazed that the simple act of answering her own phone terrified
her. She stared at the instrument on the little side-table. It
isn’t a monster. Just go pick up the receiver.

On the sixth ring, she did.

“Mrs. Jasik?” a pleasant male voice inquired.
“This is Fred Hobkins with Canfield & Sons Funeral Services.
The hospital called us.”

In the midst of all the horror that had been
last night, Jenny vaguely recalled the decisions she’d been asked
to make when she couldn’t even think. She’d told the nurse who was
filling out the paperwork to just pick a funeral parlor, and have
them contact her. But she didn’t expect the call so soon.

“First,” the man said, “let me offer my
sincere condolences for your loss.”

Jenny assumed she was to insert some word of
thanks into his silence, but she’d rather scream. She clamped her
lips against the urge.

“Unfortunately, we do need to take care of
some details.”Again he paused and Jenny knew she should say
something. Anything. But her mouth refused to obey. She heard him
clear his throat, then speak again. “I wondered when would be a
good time to come over and make arrangements.”

“I don’t know.” Her throat was so tight she
could hardly push the words out.

“Well,” Hobkins continued in that soft,
well-modulated tone. “There’s never a good time. Perhaps we could
try in, say, an hour?”

“Fine.”

Jenny replaced the receiver and stood
immobile. God. How am I going to do this?

Carol walked in, one arm draped over a still
drowsy Alicia. Scott trailed behind.

“It was a man from the funeral parlor,” Jenny
said in response to the question on her friend’s face.

“Oh, Mommy!” Alicia broke from Carol’s side
and ran to her mother’s arms. Jenny held her tight, burying her
face in her daughter’s long hair that carried the sweet little-girl
smell of sleep.

“It’s okay,” Jenny murmured. “We’re going to
get through this.”

“Is he coming over?” Carol asked.

Jenny looked over the top of Alicia’s head
and nodded. “In about an hour.”

“Well, you, uh, go get yourself ready,” Carol
said. “I’ll fix something for the kids to eat.”

Jenny released her daughter and wiped the
tears from the girl’s flushed cheeks. “You okay?”

Alicia gave a slight nod, belying the sadness
brimming in her amber eyes. Such a unique color. In Jenny’s
estimation the only good thing that her ex-husband had left her.
That’s not true. He left you three children, and like it or not,
there’s a piece of him in each of them.

Jenny gave Alicia a kiss. “You go on with
Aunt Carol. I’ll be out in a jiff.”

Carol put her arm around the girl and reached
for Scott, but he pulled back from the contact. Jenny understood.
Touching might break the fragile wall of strength.

In her room, Jenny was struck by the
absurdity of what she was doing. Choosing an outfit to meet with
the man who would bury her son. Does one dress up or down for an
occasion like this? Make-up? Jewelry?

Sudden, manic laughter overtook her.

“You’re crazy,” she told her ravaged
reflection in the mirror. “Fuckin’ certifiable.”

Jenny’s laughter turned to tears as she
remembered yelling at Michael to watch his mouth the first time
he’d said that.

It happened last fall, a month after his
eighteenth birthday, and Michael had been testing new waters. It
was like he was saying, ‘I’m an adult now. Let’s see how much I can
get away with.’ He’d told her about this goofy old man who yelled
and screamed about his pizza order getting screwed up. “He was the
one who was screwed up,” Michael had said. “He was crazy. Fuckin’
certifiable.”

Jenny could still feel the hesitation before
Michael said the last two words, could still see the question in
his eyes. ‘Am I going to get away with this?’

And she could still remember the immediate
regret at reacting too much like a mother, not realizing what it
meant for him.

“Mom! I’m not a kid anymore,” Michael had
protested, the force of his words stopping her mother instinct long
enough to see that he was right.

With another stab of agony, Jenny realized it
wasn’t just her child she’d lost last night. She’d lost his whole
future. There would be no daughter-in-law from him. Or
grandchildren.

She sank to the edge of her bed, the pain
threatening to drag her into the dark abyss. Her blood pounded so
loud in her ears it took a minute to realize someone was knocking
on the door.

“Mom?” Scott’s voice called from the hallway.
“Can I come in?”

Jenny took a deep breath, then rose and
opened the door.

“I was wondering...uh,” Scott’s eyes had
difficulty resting on hers. “Has Dad called back yet?”

She shook her head.

“Well, uh...do you want me to call him?”

Again, she shook her head. “It’s something I
should do. I’ll try again as soon as I’m finished here.”

Scott hesitated a moment more, then backed
out of the doorway. Jenny quickly closed the door. Better that he
not see the flush of anger that warmed her cheeks. She’d tried to
call Ralph last night, sometime during those hours of agony between
leaving the hospital and finally collapsing for a brief period of
fitful sleep, but there’d been no answer.

Last night she’d been too numb to care. It
was just so typical. He had never been there for her or the kids.
Not while they were married, and not in the years since he’d left.
Most of the time she just accepted it and tried to ease the
disappointment for the kids as much as possible, but even though
little was said, the message was clear. Ralph wasn’t involved with
the kids. Not like a father should be.

His excuse for missing Michael’s first
football game had been a project for work. The excuses were always
something to do with work. He justified his decisions with the
standard, “This is what the man does. He provides for the family.”
But she’d always sensed that he welcomed the excuse for not being
there because even when he was home, he really wasn’t.

And Jenny often wondered why it had taken her
so long to see that. It wasn’t until after Alicia was born that she
faced it square. After she’d been home for a week with their baby
she had to ask him if he wanted to hold his daughter.

So it wasn’t such a big shock to either of
them when their marriage ended in divorce court. It was
particularly painful for the kids for the first year, but life
became easier after he moved to California. Then she didn’t have to
deal with the shattered hopes that this year he would show up for a
birthday, or Christmas, or just because he missed seeing the kids.
Distance became an acceptable excuse for his absence because the
truth was too harsh to face.

But the truth was like a kick in the gut this
morning.

“You stupid, sorry, son of a bitch,” Jenny
said, running a brush through her dark hair with quick, angry
strokes. “Why should I care how you find out? I should just clip
the obituary and send it to you.”

It gave her a perverse rush of pleasure to
consider doing that, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Out of respect
for the fact that he was Michael’s father, she would call
again.

Jenny crossed the room and picked up the
phone on her bedside table. Still no answer after ten rings, and
she started to worry. Maybe it wasn’t even his number anymore. He
had a penchant for moving and not getting around to giving them the
new number for weeks. She could try him at work later, but she
wasn’t even sure that number was current.

Longevity, either professional or personal,
was never one of his strong suits.

She slammed the phone down. “Couldn’t you be
there for me? Just once?”

CHAPTER TWO

Lieutenant Steve Morrity pulled the report
from his printer, the force of his anger almost causing it to rip.
The emotion was a holdover from last night when he’d been called to
an accident scene after drugs had been found. Two young men. Kids
really. One dead and the other barely hanging on. When was the
nightmare ever going to end?

“You talked to the parents yet?”

The question belonged to Linda Winfield who
stood in the open doorway of Steve’s office. He was always
surprised at how unlike a cop she looked. Tall and lithe, with a
face that could have been carved out of fine porcelain, she should
have been a model or an actress.

Today, that perfection was ravaged.

The residual effects last night’s ordeal of
extricating what was left of two victims from a tangle of wreckage
were evident in the grim set of her mouth and the tightness around
her blue eyes. It brought to mind painful pictures of his first
accident scene as a rookie patrol officer ten years ago. A mangled
car. A young mother almost cut in half by the dashboard. The
husband in the driver’s seat, flattened like some bloody paper
doll. And the baby in back... God, he didn’t want to remember the
baby in back.

He shook his head to chase away the images
and asked, “What brings you in on your day off?”

Linda shrugged and stepped into the office.
“Couldn’t get it out of my mind.”

Steve understood. He’d noticed the signs of
distress last night after the winch had pulled the car out of the
culvert and they’d had their first glimpse of the horror inside.
But she’d appeared to steel herself and concentrate on the details
of the job. Her ability to flip that switch had impressed him.
There were times he still had difficulty doing that, and when he
did, the emotions always caught up with him later. He wished he
could tell her it would get easier.

Horrible, bloody accidents with bodies as
twisted and bent as the steel that trapped them were the hardest,
especially when they involved kids. And Steve could never decide if
the deaths were more senseless when it was just a case of
recklessness, as they’d first assumed last night, or when the
accident was tied to booze or dope.

“Can I do anything?” Linda asked, leaning a
blue-jeaned hip against his cluttered desk.

“You want to follow up with the driver? Go by
the hospital and find out if he’s able to talk?”

Linda nodded.

“Then you could check with McKinney and
Lewisville. See if they have anything on him. Check the sheets on
the Jasik kid, too.”

“Was the Brennan boy dealing?”

“Possibly. There’d been some suspicion when
he was in school. But if he was, he was slick enough not to get
caught. Then he disappeared for a while. Franks has been watching
him since he came back but hasn’t been able to get anything on
him.”

“You think the other boy was doing it
too?”

Steve shrugged. “Won’t know till we get the
results of the tox screen.”

Linda slid off the desk and rolled her
shoulders. Steve heard a vertebrae snap. He eyed her. “You sure you
want to do this?” he asked. “You look like you need the closest
bed.”

“I tried that.” A flicker of a smile touched
her face, then was gone. “It didn’t work.”

He laughed and waved her off, turning back to
the mess littering his desk. He had to get the paperwork in gear
for the toxicology lab in Dallas. Put a hold on the body at the
hospital morgue. Make sure all the reports were signed.

The endless paperwork. Should have been a
freakin’ office clerk.