Since You Went Away - Chapter Thirteen: Pillow Talk
Title: Since You Went Away - Chapter Thirteen: Pillow Talk
Authors: i-must-go-first & UbiquitousMixie
Fandom: Brenda/Sharon, The Closer
Rating: PG-13 (Overall M)
Word Count: 6927
Disclaimer: Not ours. Please don’t sue.
Summary: A late-night craving and a coincidental meeting lead a certain deputy chief to discover that there’s much more to the inimitable Captain Raydor than meets the eye, and to realize that her mama was right: sometimes all a single woman really needs is a good girlfriend.
Trigger warning: This chapter contains emotional material pertaining to character death and the grieving process.
Authors’ Note: i-must-go-first here. UbiquitousMixie has been having a rough week (albeit not as rough as Sharon’s) -- it would be pretty amazing if y’all sent some feedback her way to let her know how much you appreciate all her hard work and mad writing skills. Thank you so much. Also, this chapter goes out to mosaicburst, who hasn’t had a stellar week either. I wish this chapter were a little cheerier for you, but maybe it will help anyway. All your comments and support keep us writing.
-
In this age of electronic communication, Brenda Leigh loved to get real mail. The only people who ever sent her any were her mama and, occasionally, her sister-in-law; but it was still always with an ounce of hopeful enthusiasm that she turned the tiny key in her mailbox and rooted through the bills, credit card offers, and delivery menus.
That evening she was in a hurry to get upstairs and see what new treasures (a dust bunny? a wine cork?) her as-yet-unnamed feline companion had discovered in her absence. Still, she paused when her fingertips brushed what was unmistakably a high-quality envelope, electric blue, shielding what felt like equally high-quality card stock. Shoving the rest of the detritus back into the box to be dealt with later, Brenda seized the envelope and started across the courtyard, examining her single proper piece of mail as she went.
Yes, those were her name and address written across the front in an unfamiliar looping hand -- although, who (outside her family) would be addressing her as Brenda Leigh Johnson? Puzzled and intrigued, she frowned at the return address, her eyes widening as she recognized what was a very tony neighborhood. She’d gotten lost there once, in the early days, and it had taken Gabriel forty-five minutes to find her. Thank heavens for GPS. She certainly didn’t know anyone who lived there.
She let herself into her apartment, employing the quick edge-in-sideways-and-slam-door process she’d developed to avoid having to chase her escape-artist cat around the building’s grounds for another twenty minutes like she’d done Sunday evening in a mild state of panic because darkness had been falling. She was greeted by a volume of meows emitted, incredibly, from the small creature rubbing enthusiastically at her ankles.
“I know, sugar,” she cooed, kneeling to stroke her new pet. “I know, sweetie. Are you starvin’? It’s dinner time.”
She left the envelope on the kitchen counter while she spooned half a can of the noxious-smelling concoction the cat coveted into her little dish and refilled her water bowl. Then she tore eagerly into the paper, belatedly noticing a small fleck of cat food marring the corner. Oh, well.
For a few seconds she was mystified. It was an invitation, certainly for a child’s party, with a professional drawing of a tempting birthday cake. “You’re invited!” it assured her.
“What in the wor --?” she asked, leaving the question unfinished as she read on.
Clarissa’s turning two! Help us celebrate.
She stared at the invitation, startled and flattered in equal measures. She checked the date and realized it was the following afternoon. Brenda bit her lip. When was the last time she’d checked her mail, anyway?
There was a phone number to RSVP (“Call Paul and Helen”), and the deputy chief rooted in her tote until she found her phone, but that wasn’t the number she dialed.
“Raydor,” a crisp voice answered on the third ring.
“Hey, you still at work?”
A sigh. “Yeah. What’s up? Did Kitty II escape again? You need baby gates, Brenda.”
“No, no. I just got an invitation. To a birthday party. Tomorrow,” she elaborated.
There was a pause. “Oh. Oh, yes, right.”
“It’s not too late for me to RSVP, is it?”
“What? No, of course not. Ridiculously pretentious invitations aside, it’s a kids’ party. Ice cream, cake, balloons.”
“Oh, good.” Brenda grinned and looked down at the cat, who was busily scarfing down her food. “Why didn’t you mention it? You didn’t have to go to the trouble of sendin’ me an invitation.”
“I didn’t invite you.”
It was Brenda’s turn to pause. “Oh.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, although it will be mostly family. Hang on.” There was a scraping sound, as if Sharon had muffled the receiver, and Brenda heard her say, “Thank you, Kate. Drop it in my in-box and get out of here; it’s Friday night.”
“Should I not go?” Brenda asked awkwardly, at a loss. “Would it make you uncomfortable?”
“No, of course not. Why on earth would it? Just don’t expect the social event of the season,” the captain cautioned.
“I bet it will be,” Brenda shot back. “What did you mean, you didn’t invite me?”
“Oh.” Sharon chuckled. “Helen called the other day and asked if I knew anyone named Brynna, or if Daniel did. You’re famous.”
Brenda blushed, absurdly pleased to know that she was memorable enough to have survived a toddler’s goldfish memory. “She really asked for me? Personally? I’m honored.”
The captain chuckled, and Brenda could hear the other woman smiling. “As well you should be. You made quite the impression on her.”
“I’m excited to see her again,” Brenda admitted, wondering if she’d have time to run out to the store to buy some sort of suitable gift for a two-year-old. “Now, stop me if I’m wrong here, but you don’t sound all that thrilled about this.”
The squeak of a chair let Brenda know that the captain had leaned back, perhaps after setting down her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m not.”
“‘Cause your ex is the one throwin’ the party?”
“It’s not that. We get along fine. It’s the whole thing: the family gathered together under one roof, all of us pointedly ignoring the glaringly obvious absence...” Her voice trailed off, broken momentarily by a sigh. “It’ll be a circus. Tensions will be running high...and you know what? Clarissa doesn’t need all of that. She doesn’t like crowds. She’d be perfectly content just having a tea party with The Last Unicorn playing in the background.”
Brenda was overcome by the overwhelming urge to reach across the phone line and squeeze the captain’s hand, and instead scratched behind the cat’s ears. She felt stupid for not having realized it before: it was Sharon’s granddaughter’s birthday, and her daughter wouldn’t be there to mark the occasion. Was the party meant to be some sort of consolation to make up for Vivien’s absence? From the less-than-enthused tone of Sharon’s voice, it sounded like it was meant to be more of a show for the adults than a celebration of the child’s birthday.
“Well, I’ll be there,” the blonde added, as if it were some grand consolation. “You won’t have to deal with any of that on your own.”
The captain snorted derisively. “I’d rather not deal with it at all, but alas, the show must go on. And a show it will be. I should warn you about what you’re getting yourself into...”
“Are the Tates a pack of barracudas or somethin’?”
Sharon chuckled. “Not quite.”
“Don’t you worry. I can handle myself. Besides, I’m very curious to see this ex-husband of yours.”
“Why? Are you going to interrogate him, learn all of my deep, dark secrets?”
“I wanna see the man who was crazy enough to let you go.” There was a pause and Brenda decided to change the subject before Sharon could respond or, worse, pick up on the fact that this was an issue that Brenda couldn’t let go. “So what should I bring? I’ll have to run back out and get her a present...and I suppose I’ll have to make it a good one since I’m her special guest.”
“Just don’t show up with a pony.”
“No... I wouldn’t want to get her the same thing you did.” Sharon laughed and the sound of it made Brenda smile. “Should I meet you there tomorrow?”
“I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
“I’m really lookin’ forward to it.”
Sharon hesitated for a moment. “Yes. Well, I should finish up here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before Brenda could say goodbye, the call was disconnected. She dropped her phone back in her purse and scooped up the cat that was rubbing its little head against her calf. “How was dinner, sugar? Yummy, huh?” The cat purred, tilting her head while Brenda scratched her neck. “Don’t you worry about Auntie Sharon. I’ll make sure she has a good time at this party.”
**
“There you are. Hiding?”
“Not at all, just taking a little break. I figured Cee had enough doting admirers without me, for once.”
“But you’re Grandpa Paul,” Sharon teased lightly, sitting down in one of the cedar gliders on Paul and Helen’s chic patio with the birthday girl in her lap. The little girl clutched a fistful of shiny gold wrapping paper to her chest and burrowed into her grandmother’s arms. “You’re indispensable.”
Sharon and her ex-husband sat quietly, watching the action further down on the sloping lawn. There was Helen’s niece with her son, a sturdy little boy of four who was busily playing with Clarissa’s new toys; Daniel, chatting politely with Helen while he ate more than his fair share of birthday cake; and, of course, Brenda, making time with one of the other partners at Paul’s firm.
“I think she had a good time,” Paul murmured, reaching over to stroke his sleepy granddaughter’s curls.
Sharon nodded and murmured an affirmative.
“Thanks for being a good sport, Shar.”
“For a good cause. And thank you for, ah --”
“Not letting Helen get completely carried away? She means well, but I didn’t want this day turned into a three-ring-circus any more than you did. It’s hard enough as it is.”
Rather than answering, Sharon just looked down at the child on her lap. “Two years old,” she said. “You’re getting to be such a big girl.”
“She looks just like Vivvy.”
“Yes.” The captain stroked one soft, rosy cheek. “Can we not do this today?”
Paul shrugged. “There’s not really a good time, is there?”
There wasn’t, of course. Sharon allowed her eyes to drift closed for a few seconds. “What was her favorite present, would you say?”
Her ex-husband chuckled. “There’s no contest, is there? She’s holding it.”
Sharon grinned. Like most two-year-olds, Clarissa was vastly more interested in the wrapping paper and boxes than in their contents, and the gold paper that had encased a little stuffed kitty given to her by her very special guest was a run-away hit. As if on cue, the toddler shifted, and the paper crinkled. “My little magpie.” Sharon looked back to Paul. “She’s exhausted. I’ll put her down.”
He stood as well. “Do you mind if I come too?”
Sharon blinked, surprised. “No, of course not. I’m sure she’d love to have Grandpa read The Three Little Kittens.”
“Read it? I can recite it.”
And recite it he did, although Clarissa was sound asleep long before he reached the last words. The pair stood looking down at her, at her peaceful, sturdy little body and the black eyelashes so long they drew shadows on her cheeks. The moment gave Sharon an oddly comforting sense of deja vu, only there was one baby rather than two, and both she and Paul were a lot older and, perhaps, a little wiser.
“I like Brenda,” he said suddenly. “I’ll admit I had some doubts when I realized she was the deputy chief who was Gavin’s client. I didn’t know the two of you were friends.”
“We weren’t,” Sharon replied simply.
“Is that why you didn’t tell her Gavin was a partner in my firm?” he asked, genuinely curious and tacking on a follow-up in true lawyer fashion.
The captain shrugged. “Part of the reason,” she admitted. “She was reluctant enough to hire an attorney. I didn’t want her antipathy toward me to color her judgment of the best the city has to offer.”
“The second best.”
Sharon smirked. “I was hardly going to suggest she hire you, Paul. Besides, she couldn’t afford you.”
“True enough,” he replied easily. “But I’m glad she came. God knows she and Gavin have been the life of the party today.”
“Let’s be honest: the rest of us set the bar pretty low.” Sharon tenderly smoothed a light blanket over Cee’s belly, and then couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Especially Daniel.”
A melancholy, contemplative silence stretched between them. “What are we going to do about him, Sharon?”
“He’s handling it the best he can.”
“By not handling it at all? Who does that sound like?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“None of this is fair. I never know from day to day when I talk to him if he’s going to act like everything’s perfectly fine, or if he’s going to be weeping and wailing.”
“If you’re suggesting our son is overly emotional, like some sort of homosexual stereotype --” she clipped out.
“Jesus, Sharon. Come on.” Paul ran his hand through his salt and pepper hair, a gesture still as familiar to Sharon as was her own reflection in the mirror. “What I’m suggesting is that if his mother didn’t encourage him --”
“I don’t,” she interrupted. “I don’t, Paul.”
“Okay. Okay, I know.” Her ex-husband sounded fatigued and resigned. He and the mother of his children had been apart as long as they’d been together, and the memory of the bitterness that had grown up between them was as distant as the memory of the first throes of passionate infatuation. Habitually now they spoke to one another in tones of an odd sort of mutually irritable affection. “But we’ve got to make him see that our girl isn’t coming back, that it isn’t going to happen. Christ, Sherry, every time he looks at me with those eyes full of hope, it rips me apart all over again, like it’s that first day --”
She looked down at her joined hands, twisting them together. It was Paul who had given her the news, looming suddenly in the doorway of her office and simply saying “Sherry” in a desiccated, papery voice that had instantly terrified her. Helen had been the one to answer the door to the crisply uniformed young men, Vivien’s little daughter perched on her hip. She was clutching the baby when Paul and Sharon had arrived. Paul had sat on the piano bench with his head in his hands. Sharon had gripped a richly embroidered throw pillow until she lost all feeling in her whitened fingers, and then she had excused herself and fumbled around in Paul and Helen’s sunny kitchen until she found what she needed to make green jasmine tea that no one would drink because she had a vague notion that it was what her own mother might have done under the circumstances.
Clarissa had slept peacefully on, oblivious to the tableau of silent agony.
Daniel had been in class. As with Clarissa, his parents had left him undisturbed as long as possible, but somehow he had known. Sharon’s phone had rung and his strained voice had asked, “Mom, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Sharon realized she had a thin sliver of a hangnail on her left pinky. “I’ve always been the bad cop,” she said, and before Paul could say anything else she added, “I’ll talk to him.” Automatically she glanced out the window and caught just a flash of coral: Brenda’s dress. “Please say goodbye to Helen for me. I’ll find Brenda and go.”
The blonde stood just beyond the porch in a patch of clear, warm sunshine, her head tilted back to absorb as many of the rays as possible. The leaves of the oak tree above cast dancing shadows on her closed eyelids and sharp little nose. She looked so peaceful that Sharon stopped short, quietly drawing the door closed behind her with a minimal snick.
Brenda’s eyes opened anyway, and she smiled when she saw Sharon on the porch -- so very much Sharon today in her blue dress and cheerful mustard-yellow cardigan, miles away from Captain Raydor. “Hey there,” she greeted the brunette. “How’s the birthday girl?”
“Fast asleep.”
Sharon thought her voice sounded perfectly normal, but Brenda’s brow wrinkled with her frown. “Is anythin’ wrong?”
“No. I was just talking to Paul.” She smoothed her hands over her hips and tripped lightly down the porch steps. “Are you ready to go?”
“Sure.” The chief cocked her head and studied her friend -- her best friend. “Are you sure nothin’s wrong?”
“We were discussing Daniel, that’s all.”
“It’s nice that the two of you get along so well.”
Sharon hummed, abstracted.
“And Helen seems nice.”
“Sometimes I think she forgets that Clarissa isn’t actually her baby, but yes,” Sharon agreed wryly, unlocking the car.
“Oh, please. That child’s a Raydor if ever I saw one.”
“And you’re an expert, are you?” But Sharon grinned with satisfaction as she backed down the sweeping driveway.
Brenda curled up, contented as a pussycat, in the passenger seat, resting her head against the window. She yawned. “I can’t believe you never told me your ex-husband is the chief partner in Gavin’s firm.”
Sharon smirked. “It never came up.”
“Uh-huh. Kinda makes me wonder what else has never come up, Captain.” She gazed suspiciously at the other woman, and then let her eyes close. “I don’t know about you,” she murmured, “but I’m crashing from all the empty carbs in that cake and those potato chips. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in gettin’ some real food?”
Sharon squinted over at her passenger before dropping her sunglasses into place. “Such as?”
Brenda Leigh cracked one dark eye open a fraction. “Pizza?” she asked hopefully.
Sharon threw back her head and laughed, wind whipping in from the partially open window and tossing her hair around her face. The younger woman was incorrigible, in some ways just a big kid herself. “You’re on,” the captain agreed. “My place or yours?”
“Yours,” Brenda decreed, and let her eyes close again, happy to nap while the other woman negotiated the Saturday afternoon traffic.
**
They stopped at a nearby pizza place, Brenda’s favorite in Sharon’s neighborhood. The blonde ordered and paid for their supper, choosing the other woman’s favorite toppings in the hope that it would help sway her into a lightened mood. Though Sharon insisted that she was fine, there was something heavy about her, something that darkened her eyes and clung about her like a raincloud. Brenda instinctively wanted to shield her from the full brunt of the melancholic mood that was threatening to overtake her and was glad, at least, that Sharon hadn’t simply dropped her off at home to stew in silence.
Both women were lethargic when they reached Sharon’s front door, and Brenda jovially regaled Sharon with anecdotes about Clarissa’s interest in her hair and her excellent taste in wrapping paper, things that the older woman clearly must have missed out on when she was hob-nobbing with the other adults.
Sharon issued a little sigh of relief when she was able to turn on the lights in her house, and Brenda knew how pleased she was to be home. She couldn’t blame her, recalling with shuddering clarity just how tiresome and tense her own family gatherings could be. She headed for the kitchen, anxious to set down the steaming pizza.
“Here kitty! Your mama’s home!” Brenda called out, looking around for a sign of the complacent gray cat.
“Unlike your cat, mine has a name,” Sharon replied. They entered the kitchen and while Brenda placed the pizza on the counter, Sharon shook a bag of cat treats. The one-eyed cat strutted lazily into the room, her limp barely noticeable, pausing midway to lick her paw.
“What’s her name again? Marzipan?”
Sharon rolled her eyes and set a treat on the floor. “Manzana.”
“Manzana,” Brenda repeated, her Southern twang squeezing out an extra syllable. “I don’t know how you came up with that, but it seems oddly appropriate.”
“Does it?” Sharon put the cat treats away rather than leave them out on the counter like Brenda did and busied herself with pouring them each a glass of wine.
“Of course. She’s the apple of your eye now, isn’t she?” Brenda eyes twinkled and she leaned down to stroke the cat’s fur, amazed at the change in the feline. Out of the shelter it thrived, clearly proving just what a good home and a loving owner could provide to an animal in need. She hoped that she’d been able to give the same to her own cat, though she knew that her kitten hadn’t come from such difficult circumstances like Sharon’s. “Aren’t you just the prettiest thing?”
“I am pretty fond of her,” Sharon agreed with a nod, regaining the same faraway expression. “She’s a good cat.” She took a long sip of her wine, staring off toward the window, and Brenda knew that she was a million miles away.
“Wanna eat?” Brenda asked brightly. She opened the pizza box, proudly displaying her pizza topping skills, watching Sharon’s face carefully for a reaction.
When it came, it wasn’t the one she’d expected. Sharon stared at their dinner, the color slowly draining from her face only to rush back to her cheeks. “Pepperoni, mushrooms, and green peppers,” she said faintly.
“And onion,” Brenda added conscientiously.
“And onion,” the other woman echoed. As Brenda watched her entire body seemed to tighten, drawing into a tense bow that would require years of yoga to unbend. She gripped the edge of the counter.
“Should I get plates?”
Sharon didn’t answer. Instinctively Brenda Leigh took a step back, giving her space but not too much space. The silence elongated, growing thin. Brenda gnawed away on her lower lip.
The taller woman’s shoulders heaved once, and then were still again. Brenda waited, barely breathing, as if waiting for a storm to break, the kind with heat lightning and lashing rains that the Georgia skies suddenly, spectacularly unfurled in July and August.
Sharon’s shoulders began to shake. From her vantage point, all Brenda could see was long dark hair and sharp shoulder blades jutting against the cardigan. The captain remained completely silent, frighteningly controlled.
“Sharon?” the blonde finally asked softly, her voice a whispered thread.
“I feel like an idiot, standing here crying over a pizza.” Frustrated, Sharon rested her palms on the edge of the counter and pushed herself back. She sniffled and unthinkingly swiped at her nose with the sleeve of her cardigan. Somehow it was that very un-Sharon gesture that finished breaking Brenda’s heart.
“It’s all right,” she said, drifting toward Sharon but stopping a few feet short, unsure of whether touching her would be an invasion.
Sharon met her eyes with a tiny, miserable smile. “No,” she said thickly, “it isn’t.”
“No, I know.” Brenda settled for placing her hand near the other woman’s on the counter, heartbroken and ashamed of her pitiful inadequacy and desperate to help. “But it’s okay to cry, Sharon.”
The captain’s eyes glittered with a combination of unshed tears and rage. “Hate to cry,” she muttered, clearly infuriated.
“Me too,” Brenda agreed, unsurprised. “But maybe you need to.”
“Paul thinks I’m refusing to deal with what happened to Vivien, and that it’s bad for Daniel. Is that what you mean?”
Brenda blinked. “No, Sharon. I think you’re dealin’ with it in your way. But I do think maybe you need someone to tell you it’s okay to be sad.”
Sharon swallowed hard, still staring at the pizza. ”This was her favorite. It was exactly the combination she always wanted from the time she was nine. She and Daniel used to fight because he always wanted to add pineapple.”
Brenda Leigh scrunched her nose up. “I’m with Vivien.”
“I was too.” Sharon attempted a faint smile. “You think the big things, the special occasions -- Christmas, birthdays -- will be the worst, but they’re not. It’s the little things you can’t anticipate that blindside you, like goddamn pizza toppings. And today... Cee was so happy. She’s such a happy, buoyant child, and that’s wonderful, but I can’t help thinking that not only will she never know her mother, but she’ll never even know what she’s missed.”
“Maybe not. I mean, you don’t know for sure that Vivien’s --”
Brenda broke off, arrested by the fierce, stricken expression on Sharon’s bloodless face.
“I know,” the older woman said. “I know, Brenda. Paul knows. Our baby girl is dead.”
“How do you know?” Brenda almost whispered, awed.
It should’ve been exactly the wrong thing to say, but the question seemed to make Sharon come back to herself. “I just... I just know, Brenda. I feel it in my bones.”
Brenda waited silently, trying to fathom what it was like for Sharon to harbor that quiet, grim certainty amid so much doubt. There was no body, no coffin, no funeral service; just a mother standing in her kitchen and saying “I know.”
“I’m not especially religious, but sometimes I pray they’ll find her body. For Daniel most of all. Just for that.”
Brenda blinked furiously to clear her own vision. Now was not the time for her to break down.
Sharon closed the pizza box, turned away, and disappeared down the darkened hallway. Brenda thought she’d probably gone into her bedroom.
The blonde stood in the kitchen, paralyzed by indecision. Should she go? She felt like an intruder, a voyeur; but she didn’t want to leave Sharon alone like this.
Her stomach rumbled and she blushed, foolishly embarrassed. She was still hungry, but didn’t dare eat the pizza. She nibbled thoughtfully at the corner of her thumbnail for a moment, and then began to move quietly around the kitchen, making herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
When Brenda had eaten her sandwich and drunk a glass of milk and watched the sun set completely and spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to get the kitchen faucet to stop dripping, and Sharon still hadn’t made a peep, the blonde quietly, hesitantly went in search of her. She moved cautiously, warier than she usually was when she searched an unfamiliar building for an armed suspect. Her CIA training stood her in good stead: not so much as a floorboard creaked under her weight.
Sharon lay on the bed on her side, her back to the doorway and her knees drawn to her chest, perfectly still save the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and shoulders in time with her breathing. Instinctively Brenda held her own breath, loathe to disturb a private moment, but Sharon sensed her presence.
“Brenda?” That low voice was thick and rough.
“Hey.” She leaned in the doorway, unsure whether or not she should advance.
“I wasn’t sure you were still here.”
“D’you want me to go?”
“No.” Sharon rolled to face her, dark hair slipping over her shoulder, and the younger woman saw that her cheeks were still wet from the tracks of her tears but her expression was more composed. “I’m glad you stayed.”
Hearing the words made Brenda feel instantly relieved and she gave a soft smile. “I wasn’t about to leave you alone,” she explained, making her way into the bedroom. She paused at the nightstand, pulling out a few kleenex from the box, and crawled onto the bed. She stretched out on the empty side of the bed (her own side, she noted to herself) and, settling her head against the pillow, she handed Sharon a tissue.
Sharon dabbed at her eyes and flicked her tongue against her lip. “You must think I’m neurotic.”
“For havin’ feelings? I think you’re a mother who misses her baby girl. I don’t think less of you for breakin’ down.” Brenda tentatively reached out and pushed back Sharon’s hair, leaving her pale face uncovered.
“I do.”
The blonde laughed incredulously. “I know you do. You’re too hard on yourself. You get mad at yourself for bein’ emotional and mad at yourself for bein’ distant. You try so damn hard to find the middle ground that you just miss it altogether.” When the older woman’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed, Brenda immediately back-pedaled. “I just mean that when you hold it in all the time, it’s gonna come rushin’ out all at once.”
“Daniel wants me to let it out. I think on some level he needs to see me break down, like my grief isn’t real unless I express it the way he does. He’s so in touch with his feelings...it’s that damn psychoanalytical way of thinking that he has. If I don’t cry, I don’t care...at least not as much as he does.”
“Oh Sharon...but you do care! Surely he knows that?”
Sharon sniffed, wiping her nose with the crumpled tissue she clutched in her hand. “I think he does. He’s just so fragile. I can’t imagine how hard this is for him...the connection he had with her...I don’t know what I’d do if--” She cut herself off, blinking back a new wave of fresh tears. “I know how strong the bond between twins is.” She looked up at the headboard, hoping to keep herself from crying, and finally rolled onto her back. “When they were young, they always knew when something was wrong. Danny broke his arm falling out of the tree house and Vivien ran all the way home from practice because she just knew. They’ve always been like that. They had their own special world that they lived in.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Brenda said quietly, giving her friend a chance to work through the thick current of emotion that had risen in her throat.
“You know he was sick when her plane went down?” Sharon asked, turning her head toward Brenda.
“Was he?”
“Horrible stomach pains. He thought it was a hangover; it was a few days before we were notified and he was so angry that he brushed it off...that he didn’t listen.” Sharon choked out a strangled sob. “As if he could’ve done something halfway across the world when she was dying.”
Brenda couldn’t help it; a stray tear rolled down her cheek.
“He won’t believe it now. He thinks she’s all right, that he just can’t sense her. He can’t accept what happened to her.” She covered her face with both of her hands and began to cry in earnest, her body shuddering under the weight of her own misery.
Brenda scooted closer and draped an arm across Sharon’s stomach, clutching her tightly as she rested her chin on Sharon’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” she lied, rubbing Sharon’s side. “It’s gonna be okay.”
She held Sharon until her tears began to subside. When the tension drained from her shoulders, Brenda carefully removed Sharon’s hands from her face, resting them on her stomach, and then began to wipe away the wet traces of sorrow that marred the other woman’s face with the spare tissue. Sharon lay still, allowing herself to be cleansed, watching the blonde’s face as it concentrated on her task.
“There now,” Brenda soothingly cooed. “Doesn’t it feel better to let go a little?”
“It feels like hell,” Sharon croaked, her voice raw and husky.
“I know...but it’ll get better. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it hasn’t been that long. We all deal with our grief in different ways and Daniel’s handlin’ it the only way he knows how. If he needs help, Sharon, you’ll know. He’s your baby.”
Sharon nodded solemnly, worrying her lip between her teeth.
“And Clarissa,” Brenda continued, motivated now to speak the words that filled her heart with whatever glimmer of hope she could cling to, “she may not know her mama the way a child should, but she will know her. She’ll get to know her through you and Danny and Paul, and she’ll know her mama died a hero serving her country. She’ll know how much her family loves her and how much her mama loved her. She’ll be proud of her. She’s gonna grow up so damn thankful to have Vivien Raydor Tate as her mama.”
Sharon bit her lip hard, tasting the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. She looked at Brenda in the darkness of her room, at her heartfelt expression, and felt the painful knot in her stomach begin to ease its grip. There was no way that Brenda could know what it felt like to carry the burden of her loss, of her guilt, the way that Sharon did. She’d kept it close to her for so long that it had become a part of her, something she had learned to integrate into her very being. Somehow, in a way that no one else had, Brenda had seen through it, had seen Sharon at her very core. Brenda Leigh Johnson, a woman she once despised, had somehow been able to say exactly what Sharon needed to hear--and not only did Brenda say it, she actually believed it.
The captain rolled onto her side, unsurprised when the blonde didn’t pull away. Brenda simply rested her hand along the curve of her waist, still gripping the sodden tissue. Sharon could see the tracks of Brenda’s own tears and felt something twist in her gut to know that Brenda had willingly shared in her pain, had taken some of it for her own so Sharon wouldn’t continue to buckle under the weight. She’d never allowed anyone else to do that for her. She’d never wanted to.
What was it about Brenda Leigh that was different from everyone else? What was it about this maddening, intelligent, beautiful woman that put her at ease and made her feel like her self-imposed solitude wasn’t what she really needed?
There was so much that Sharon wanted to say to her. The words were thick and ready on her tongue, but she knew the way she knew that her baby girl had died that there were no words to convey just what Sharon was feeling in that moment.
Instead, Sharon tossed aside her platitudes and her excuses and her fears and simply kissed her. Eyes open, the brunette pressed her lips against Brenda’s, tasting confusion and hesitance. The hand on her hip clutched at her in shock, the feel of those bruising fingers making Sharon feel alight with something she hadn’t felt in so long. Chocolate eyes widened momentarily before Brenda finally relaxed, pursed her lips, and kissed her back.
Sharon’s heart hammered painfully in her chest, blood roaring in her ears. As soon as she blinked it was over. She pulled away and licked her lips, her face flushing hotly. It was a soft kiss, a sweet kiss; it communicated so much more than the gratitude Sharon had felt and yet, it expressed more than Sharon could even begin to comprehend.
She blinked slowly. Brenda was staring at her, eyes impossibly wide. The younger woman waited for any hint of a reaction, eagerly watching to read Sharon’s features like the pages of a book. That knowledge calmed the captain; it gave her back a measure of control.
Sharon felt the skin around her eyes relax as she lay back, one hand finding Brenda’s and squeezing. “Thank you.” She felt soft palm and damp tissue and wrinkled her nose slightly.
Brenda smiled, her eyes very bright, and fisted her hand around the soggy Kleenex. “You’re welcome,” she said simply. “Any time.”
Any time, Sharon mentally echoed. I’ll hold your snotty tissues any time, or you can kiss me any time? She was too tired and too shell-shocked to wonder. She heard herself chuckle rustily, and Brenda looked taken aback, but then blinked a couple of times, quickly, and smiled again. Sharon wasn’t sure what Brenda Leigh meant, and wasn’t sure what she herself had meant -- only that she had meant, that it had been meaningful, and that she was so glad the other woman was there.
The older woman reached out and patted the younger woman’s upper arm, and it was a little too firm, a little awkward and stilted. Brenda patted back, equally clumsy.
“Would you like some tea?”
Sharon closed her eyes and breathed out in a whoosh. “That sounds wonderful.”
“You just stay there. I’ll be right back.” The mattress shifted as the blonde got to her feet, and if she was a little over eager to get out of the bedroom, Sharon couldn’t blame her.
The floor was cool beneath her bare feet as Brenda padded through Sharon’s house toward the kitchen. She started when Manzana leaped from the darkness, landing a few feet behind her with a soft thud and a feline trill. She automatically reached down to pet the cat, who looked up at her with that single crystal blue eye that she felt sure was inquisitive. “It’s okay,” Brenda assured in a low croon. “Your mama’s okay, kitty cat.”
With the cat at her heels, Brenda set about making the tea, busying herself with all the little steps of the mundane task and keeping up a constant stream of quiet, nervous chatter, ostensibly for the cat’s benefit. She rummaged in the cupboard, pulling down two yellow mugs, and selected loose-leaf ooh-long. She breathed deeply, allowing the earthy scent to fill her lungs, soothing her.
Her heart was beating too quickly, her chest tight. The tea would soothe Sharon too, she reassured herself.
When the tea had brewed, Brenda carefully carried the mugs back down the hall, Sharon’s feline protector now leading the way rather than following.
The dark-haired woman had crawled under the comforter and lay still, fast asleep. Like Clarissa’s, her long, dark eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks. The mustard hue of her cardigan showed brightly against the pale green sheets.
As quietly as she could, Brenda put one of the mugs down on the night stand and stood sipping from the remaining one, one ankle awkwardly tucked behind the other. She studied her friend intently, and then looked away, examining the walls and windows, when she again felt like a voyeur.
Manzana had no such qualms. She jumped onto the bed, seemingly not hampered at all by her weak leg, and curled herself into a ball at Sharon’s hip. The captain stirred, a hand reaching out from beneath the covers and absently stroking the cat’s head. “Oh, the tea,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. She pushed herself up against the pillows and shoved her hair back, and then lifted the mug. Her bleary eyes settled on Brenda.
“Come sit with me,” she invited quietly, patting the spot beside her on the bed. Her features were soft and open, and she looked surprisingly young -- young and vulnerable. Brenda immediately propped herself against the headboard, stretching her legs out and offering Sharon a small smile. She was careful not to touch her friend, but remained vitally aware of her warmth, the soft slurping of her lips against the edge of the mug as she drank the hot liquid, the most minute shifting of her legs under the comforter.
Brenda was just in time to grab Sharon’s mug from her nerveless fingers and prevent it from spilling all over the fine brocade comforter. Stretching as far as she possibly could, she just managed to twist the switch on the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. She eased very carefully back against the headboard, careful not to jar the bed’s other human occupant. If she got up she might wake Sharon, and she wanted to let her sleep. She’d wait there just a little while, just until she was sure the other woman was deeply asleep, before she went home.
Brenda shifted slightly and reached to stroke Manzana’s sleek gray fur. The cat rumbled out a purr, low and constant, communicating the contentment that the deputy chief seemed to feel rolling over her own body.
**
It was pitch black when Sharon awoke, and she felt the fuzzy twist of disorientation that always assaulted her when she fell asleep in her clothes or somewhere other than her own bed. This was her bed, though, the mattress solid but forgiving; and there was no compelling reason to get up and change her clothes. Stretching experimentally, she became aware of a warm, solid ball at the base of her spine, and her lips curved as she reached to stroke her cat’s soft fur. The apple of her eye, Brenda Leigh had said. Well, maybe so. Manzana knew how to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. And so did her human mama. The captain recognized a kindred spirit when she met one.
Sharon was startled for only a split second when her fingers made contact with both soft fur and warm, smooth skin. Brenda. Her eyes had begun to adjust slightly to the darkness, and when the captain gingerly rolled over, she could make out the vague contours of coral cotton against the fabric of the comforter. She had stayed. Of course she had stayed.
Sharon knew she should wake her. The younger woman would be far more comfortable in her own bed, or at the very least in Sharon’s guest room, rather than sprawled here atop the covers, her head lolling at a rather awkward angle.
The dark-haired woman considered, her sleepy thoughts turning over sluggishly. Manzana was pretty good company -- but Brenda was better. Also, it was two a.m. Surely a compromise was in order.
Slipping soundlessly from the bed, Sharon crossed the room and lifted a soft throw from the back of the armchair that stood in the window nook. Returning, she gently tucked it around the sleeping woman. Manzana’s eye glowed an unearthly shade as she fixed it upon her mistress. Sharon gave the feline a final pat and slid back under the thick, fluffy comforter. The last thing she heard before sleep again overtook her was the cat’s low, contented purr.
***
Authors: i-must-go-first & UbiquitousMixie
Fandom: Brenda/Sharon, The Closer
Rating: PG-13 (Overall M)
Word Count: 6927
Disclaimer: Not ours. Please don’t sue.
Summary: A late-night craving and a coincidental meeting lead a certain deputy chief to discover that there’s much more to the inimitable Captain Raydor than meets the eye, and to realize that her mama was right: sometimes all a single woman really needs is a good girlfriend.
Trigger warning: This chapter contains emotional material pertaining to character death and the grieving process.
Authors’ Note: i-must-go-first here. UbiquitousMixie has been having a rough week (albeit not as rough as Sharon’s) -- it would be pretty amazing if y’all sent some feedback her way to let her know how much you appreciate all her hard work and mad writing skills. Thank you so much. Also, this chapter goes out to mosaicburst, who hasn’t had a stellar week either. I wish this chapter were a little cheerier for you, but maybe it will help anyway. All your comments and support keep us writing.
-
In this age of electronic communication, Brenda Leigh loved to get real mail. The only people who ever sent her any were her mama and, occasionally, her sister-in-law; but it was still always with an ounce of hopeful enthusiasm that she turned the tiny key in her mailbox and rooted through the bills, credit card offers, and delivery menus.
That evening she was in a hurry to get upstairs and see what new treasures (a dust bunny? a wine cork?) her as-yet-unnamed feline companion had discovered in her absence. Still, she paused when her fingertips brushed what was unmistakably a high-quality envelope, electric blue, shielding what felt like equally high-quality card stock. Shoving the rest of the detritus back into the box to be dealt with later, Brenda seized the envelope and started across the courtyard, examining her single proper piece of mail as she went.
Yes, those were her name and address written across the front in an unfamiliar looping hand -- although, who (outside her family) would be addressing her as Brenda Leigh Johnson? Puzzled and intrigued, she frowned at the return address, her eyes widening as she recognized what was a very tony neighborhood. She’d gotten lost there once, in the early days, and it had taken Gabriel forty-five minutes to find her. Thank heavens for GPS. She certainly didn’t know anyone who lived there.
She let herself into her apartment, employing the quick edge-in-sideways-and-slam-door process she’d developed to avoid having to chase her escape-artist cat around the building’s grounds for another twenty minutes like she’d done Sunday evening in a mild state of panic because darkness had been falling. She was greeted by a volume of meows emitted, incredibly, from the small creature rubbing enthusiastically at her ankles.
“I know, sugar,” she cooed, kneeling to stroke her new pet. “I know, sweetie. Are you starvin’? It’s dinner time.”
She left the envelope on the kitchen counter while she spooned half a can of the noxious-smelling concoction the cat coveted into her little dish and refilled her water bowl. Then she tore eagerly into the paper, belatedly noticing a small fleck of cat food marring the corner. Oh, well.
For a few seconds she was mystified. It was an invitation, certainly for a child’s party, with a professional drawing of a tempting birthday cake. “You’re invited!” it assured her.
“What in the wor --?” she asked, leaving the question unfinished as she read on.
Clarissa’s turning two! Help us celebrate.
She stared at the invitation, startled and flattered in equal measures. She checked the date and realized it was the following afternoon. Brenda bit her lip. When was the last time she’d checked her mail, anyway?
There was a phone number to RSVP (“Call Paul and Helen”), and the deputy chief rooted in her tote until she found her phone, but that wasn’t the number she dialed.
“Raydor,” a crisp voice answered on the third ring.
“Hey, you still at work?”
A sigh. “Yeah. What’s up? Did Kitty II escape again? You need baby gates, Brenda.”
“No, no. I just got an invitation. To a birthday party. Tomorrow,” she elaborated.
There was a pause. “Oh. Oh, yes, right.”
“It’s not too late for me to RSVP, is it?”
“What? No, of course not. Ridiculously pretentious invitations aside, it’s a kids’ party. Ice cream, cake, balloons.”
“Oh, good.” Brenda grinned and looked down at the cat, who was busily scarfing down her food. “Why didn’t you mention it? You didn’t have to go to the trouble of sendin’ me an invitation.”
“I didn’t invite you.”
It was Brenda’s turn to pause. “Oh.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, although it will be mostly family. Hang on.” There was a scraping sound, as if Sharon had muffled the receiver, and Brenda heard her say, “Thank you, Kate. Drop it in my in-box and get out of here; it’s Friday night.”
“Should I not go?” Brenda asked awkwardly, at a loss. “Would it make you uncomfortable?”
“No, of course not. Why on earth would it? Just don’t expect the social event of the season,” the captain cautioned.
“I bet it will be,” Brenda shot back. “What did you mean, you didn’t invite me?”
“Oh.” Sharon chuckled. “Helen called the other day and asked if I knew anyone named Brynna, or if Daniel did. You’re famous.”
Brenda blushed, absurdly pleased to know that she was memorable enough to have survived a toddler’s goldfish memory. “She really asked for me? Personally? I’m honored.”
The captain chuckled, and Brenda could hear the other woman smiling. “As well you should be. You made quite the impression on her.”
“I’m excited to see her again,” Brenda admitted, wondering if she’d have time to run out to the store to buy some sort of suitable gift for a two-year-old. “Now, stop me if I’m wrong here, but you don’t sound all that thrilled about this.”
The squeak of a chair let Brenda know that the captain had leaned back, perhaps after setting down her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m not.”
“‘Cause your ex is the one throwin’ the party?”
“It’s not that. We get along fine. It’s the whole thing: the family gathered together under one roof, all of us pointedly ignoring the glaringly obvious absence...” Her voice trailed off, broken momentarily by a sigh. “It’ll be a circus. Tensions will be running high...and you know what? Clarissa doesn’t need all of that. She doesn’t like crowds. She’d be perfectly content just having a tea party with The Last Unicorn playing in the background.”
Brenda was overcome by the overwhelming urge to reach across the phone line and squeeze the captain’s hand, and instead scratched behind the cat’s ears. She felt stupid for not having realized it before: it was Sharon’s granddaughter’s birthday, and her daughter wouldn’t be there to mark the occasion. Was the party meant to be some sort of consolation to make up for Vivien’s absence? From the less-than-enthused tone of Sharon’s voice, it sounded like it was meant to be more of a show for the adults than a celebration of the child’s birthday.
“Well, I’ll be there,” the blonde added, as if it were some grand consolation. “You won’t have to deal with any of that on your own.”
The captain snorted derisively. “I’d rather not deal with it at all, but alas, the show must go on. And a show it will be. I should warn you about what you’re getting yourself into...”
“Are the Tates a pack of barracudas or somethin’?”
Sharon chuckled. “Not quite.”
“Don’t you worry. I can handle myself. Besides, I’m very curious to see this ex-husband of yours.”
“Why? Are you going to interrogate him, learn all of my deep, dark secrets?”
“I wanna see the man who was crazy enough to let you go.” There was a pause and Brenda decided to change the subject before Sharon could respond or, worse, pick up on the fact that this was an issue that Brenda couldn’t let go. “So what should I bring? I’ll have to run back out and get her a present...and I suppose I’ll have to make it a good one since I’m her special guest.”
“Just don’t show up with a pony.”
“No... I wouldn’t want to get her the same thing you did.” Sharon laughed and the sound of it made Brenda smile. “Should I meet you there tomorrow?”
“I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
“I’m really lookin’ forward to it.”
Sharon hesitated for a moment. “Yes. Well, I should finish up here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before Brenda could say goodbye, the call was disconnected. She dropped her phone back in her purse and scooped up the cat that was rubbing its little head against her calf. “How was dinner, sugar? Yummy, huh?” The cat purred, tilting her head while Brenda scratched her neck. “Don’t you worry about Auntie Sharon. I’ll make sure she has a good time at this party.”
**
“There you are. Hiding?”
“Not at all, just taking a little break. I figured Cee had enough doting admirers without me, for once.”
“But you’re Grandpa Paul,” Sharon teased lightly, sitting down in one of the cedar gliders on Paul and Helen’s chic patio with the birthday girl in her lap. The little girl clutched a fistful of shiny gold wrapping paper to her chest and burrowed into her grandmother’s arms. “You’re indispensable.”
Sharon and her ex-husband sat quietly, watching the action further down on the sloping lawn. There was Helen’s niece with her son, a sturdy little boy of four who was busily playing with Clarissa’s new toys; Daniel, chatting politely with Helen while he ate more than his fair share of birthday cake; and, of course, Brenda, making time with one of the other partners at Paul’s firm.
“I think she had a good time,” Paul murmured, reaching over to stroke his sleepy granddaughter’s curls.
Sharon nodded and murmured an affirmative.
“Thanks for being a good sport, Shar.”
“For a good cause. And thank you for, ah --”
“Not letting Helen get completely carried away? She means well, but I didn’t want this day turned into a three-ring-circus any more than you did. It’s hard enough as it is.”
Rather than answering, Sharon just looked down at the child on her lap. “Two years old,” she said. “You’re getting to be such a big girl.”
“She looks just like Vivvy.”
“Yes.” The captain stroked one soft, rosy cheek. “Can we not do this today?”
Paul shrugged. “There’s not really a good time, is there?”
There wasn’t, of course. Sharon allowed her eyes to drift closed for a few seconds. “What was her favorite present, would you say?”
Her ex-husband chuckled. “There’s no contest, is there? She’s holding it.”
Sharon grinned. Like most two-year-olds, Clarissa was vastly more interested in the wrapping paper and boxes than in their contents, and the gold paper that had encased a little stuffed kitty given to her by her very special guest was a run-away hit. As if on cue, the toddler shifted, and the paper crinkled. “My little magpie.” Sharon looked back to Paul. “She’s exhausted. I’ll put her down.”
He stood as well. “Do you mind if I come too?”
Sharon blinked, surprised. “No, of course not. I’m sure she’d love to have Grandpa read The Three Little Kittens.”
“Read it? I can recite it.”
And recite it he did, although Clarissa was sound asleep long before he reached the last words. The pair stood looking down at her, at her peaceful, sturdy little body and the black eyelashes so long they drew shadows on her cheeks. The moment gave Sharon an oddly comforting sense of deja vu, only there was one baby rather than two, and both she and Paul were a lot older and, perhaps, a little wiser.
“I like Brenda,” he said suddenly. “I’ll admit I had some doubts when I realized she was the deputy chief who was Gavin’s client. I didn’t know the two of you were friends.”
“We weren’t,” Sharon replied simply.
“Is that why you didn’t tell her Gavin was a partner in my firm?” he asked, genuinely curious and tacking on a follow-up in true lawyer fashion.
The captain shrugged. “Part of the reason,” she admitted. “She was reluctant enough to hire an attorney. I didn’t want her antipathy toward me to color her judgment of the best the city has to offer.”
“The second best.”
Sharon smirked. “I was hardly going to suggest she hire you, Paul. Besides, she couldn’t afford you.”
“True enough,” he replied easily. “But I’m glad she came. God knows she and Gavin have been the life of the party today.”
“Let’s be honest: the rest of us set the bar pretty low.” Sharon tenderly smoothed a light blanket over Cee’s belly, and then couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Especially Daniel.”
A melancholy, contemplative silence stretched between them. “What are we going to do about him, Sharon?”
“He’s handling it the best he can.”
“By not handling it at all? Who does that sound like?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“None of this is fair. I never know from day to day when I talk to him if he’s going to act like everything’s perfectly fine, or if he’s going to be weeping and wailing.”
“If you’re suggesting our son is overly emotional, like some sort of homosexual stereotype --” she clipped out.
“Jesus, Sharon. Come on.” Paul ran his hand through his salt and pepper hair, a gesture still as familiar to Sharon as was her own reflection in the mirror. “What I’m suggesting is that if his mother didn’t encourage him --”
“I don’t,” she interrupted. “I don’t, Paul.”
“Okay. Okay, I know.” Her ex-husband sounded fatigued and resigned. He and the mother of his children had been apart as long as they’d been together, and the memory of the bitterness that had grown up between them was as distant as the memory of the first throes of passionate infatuation. Habitually now they spoke to one another in tones of an odd sort of mutually irritable affection. “But we’ve got to make him see that our girl isn’t coming back, that it isn’t going to happen. Christ, Sherry, every time he looks at me with those eyes full of hope, it rips me apart all over again, like it’s that first day --”
She looked down at her joined hands, twisting them together. It was Paul who had given her the news, looming suddenly in the doorway of her office and simply saying “Sherry” in a desiccated, papery voice that had instantly terrified her. Helen had been the one to answer the door to the crisply uniformed young men, Vivien’s little daughter perched on her hip. She was clutching the baby when Paul and Sharon had arrived. Paul had sat on the piano bench with his head in his hands. Sharon had gripped a richly embroidered throw pillow until she lost all feeling in her whitened fingers, and then she had excused herself and fumbled around in Paul and Helen’s sunny kitchen until she found what she needed to make green jasmine tea that no one would drink because she had a vague notion that it was what her own mother might have done under the circumstances.
Clarissa had slept peacefully on, oblivious to the tableau of silent agony.
Daniel had been in class. As with Clarissa, his parents had left him undisturbed as long as possible, but somehow he had known. Sharon’s phone had rung and his strained voice had asked, “Mom, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Sharon realized she had a thin sliver of a hangnail on her left pinky. “I’ve always been the bad cop,” she said, and before Paul could say anything else she added, “I’ll talk to him.” Automatically she glanced out the window and caught just a flash of coral: Brenda’s dress. “Please say goodbye to Helen for me. I’ll find Brenda and go.”
The blonde stood just beyond the porch in a patch of clear, warm sunshine, her head tilted back to absorb as many of the rays as possible. The leaves of the oak tree above cast dancing shadows on her closed eyelids and sharp little nose. She looked so peaceful that Sharon stopped short, quietly drawing the door closed behind her with a minimal snick.
Brenda’s eyes opened anyway, and she smiled when she saw Sharon on the porch -- so very much Sharon today in her blue dress and cheerful mustard-yellow cardigan, miles away from Captain Raydor. “Hey there,” she greeted the brunette. “How’s the birthday girl?”
“Fast asleep.”
Sharon thought her voice sounded perfectly normal, but Brenda’s brow wrinkled with her frown. “Is anythin’ wrong?”
“No. I was just talking to Paul.” She smoothed her hands over her hips and tripped lightly down the porch steps. “Are you ready to go?”
“Sure.” The chief cocked her head and studied her friend -- her best friend. “Are you sure nothin’s wrong?”
“We were discussing Daniel, that’s all.”
“It’s nice that the two of you get along so well.”
Sharon hummed, abstracted.
“And Helen seems nice.”
“Sometimes I think she forgets that Clarissa isn’t actually her baby, but yes,” Sharon agreed wryly, unlocking the car.
“Oh, please. That child’s a Raydor if ever I saw one.”
“And you’re an expert, are you?” But Sharon grinned with satisfaction as she backed down the sweeping driveway.
Brenda curled up, contented as a pussycat, in the passenger seat, resting her head against the window. She yawned. “I can’t believe you never told me your ex-husband is the chief partner in Gavin’s firm.”
Sharon smirked. “It never came up.”
“Uh-huh. Kinda makes me wonder what else has never come up, Captain.” She gazed suspiciously at the other woman, and then let her eyes close. “I don’t know about you,” she murmured, “but I’m crashing from all the empty carbs in that cake and those potato chips. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in gettin’ some real food?”
Sharon squinted over at her passenger before dropping her sunglasses into place. “Such as?”
Brenda Leigh cracked one dark eye open a fraction. “Pizza?” she asked hopefully.
Sharon threw back her head and laughed, wind whipping in from the partially open window and tossing her hair around her face. The younger woman was incorrigible, in some ways just a big kid herself. “You’re on,” the captain agreed. “My place or yours?”
“Yours,” Brenda decreed, and let her eyes close again, happy to nap while the other woman negotiated the Saturday afternoon traffic.
**
They stopped at a nearby pizza place, Brenda’s favorite in Sharon’s neighborhood. The blonde ordered and paid for their supper, choosing the other woman’s favorite toppings in the hope that it would help sway her into a lightened mood. Though Sharon insisted that she was fine, there was something heavy about her, something that darkened her eyes and clung about her like a raincloud. Brenda instinctively wanted to shield her from the full brunt of the melancholic mood that was threatening to overtake her and was glad, at least, that Sharon hadn’t simply dropped her off at home to stew in silence.
Both women were lethargic when they reached Sharon’s front door, and Brenda jovially regaled Sharon with anecdotes about Clarissa’s interest in her hair and her excellent taste in wrapping paper, things that the older woman clearly must have missed out on when she was hob-nobbing with the other adults.
Sharon issued a little sigh of relief when she was able to turn on the lights in her house, and Brenda knew how pleased she was to be home. She couldn’t blame her, recalling with shuddering clarity just how tiresome and tense her own family gatherings could be. She headed for the kitchen, anxious to set down the steaming pizza.
“Here kitty! Your mama’s home!” Brenda called out, looking around for a sign of the complacent gray cat.
“Unlike your cat, mine has a name,” Sharon replied. They entered the kitchen and while Brenda placed the pizza on the counter, Sharon shook a bag of cat treats. The one-eyed cat strutted lazily into the room, her limp barely noticeable, pausing midway to lick her paw.
“What’s her name again? Marzipan?”
Sharon rolled her eyes and set a treat on the floor. “Manzana.”
“Manzana,” Brenda repeated, her Southern twang squeezing out an extra syllable. “I don’t know how you came up with that, but it seems oddly appropriate.”
“Does it?” Sharon put the cat treats away rather than leave them out on the counter like Brenda did and busied herself with pouring them each a glass of wine.
“Of course. She’s the apple of your eye now, isn’t she?” Brenda eyes twinkled and she leaned down to stroke the cat’s fur, amazed at the change in the feline. Out of the shelter it thrived, clearly proving just what a good home and a loving owner could provide to an animal in need. She hoped that she’d been able to give the same to her own cat, though she knew that her kitten hadn’t come from such difficult circumstances like Sharon’s. “Aren’t you just the prettiest thing?”
“I am pretty fond of her,” Sharon agreed with a nod, regaining the same faraway expression. “She’s a good cat.” She took a long sip of her wine, staring off toward the window, and Brenda knew that she was a million miles away.
“Wanna eat?” Brenda asked brightly. She opened the pizza box, proudly displaying her pizza topping skills, watching Sharon’s face carefully for a reaction.
When it came, it wasn’t the one she’d expected. Sharon stared at their dinner, the color slowly draining from her face only to rush back to her cheeks. “Pepperoni, mushrooms, and green peppers,” she said faintly.
“And onion,” Brenda added conscientiously.
“And onion,” the other woman echoed. As Brenda watched her entire body seemed to tighten, drawing into a tense bow that would require years of yoga to unbend. She gripped the edge of the counter.
“Should I get plates?”
Sharon didn’t answer. Instinctively Brenda Leigh took a step back, giving her space but not too much space. The silence elongated, growing thin. Brenda gnawed away on her lower lip.
The taller woman’s shoulders heaved once, and then were still again. Brenda waited, barely breathing, as if waiting for a storm to break, the kind with heat lightning and lashing rains that the Georgia skies suddenly, spectacularly unfurled in July and August.
Sharon’s shoulders began to shake. From her vantage point, all Brenda could see was long dark hair and sharp shoulder blades jutting against the cardigan. The captain remained completely silent, frighteningly controlled.
“Sharon?” the blonde finally asked softly, her voice a whispered thread.
“I feel like an idiot, standing here crying over a pizza.” Frustrated, Sharon rested her palms on the edge of the counter and pushed herself back. She sniffled and unthinkingly swiped at her nose with the sleeve of her cardigan. Somehow it was that very un-Sharon gesture that finished breaking Brenda’s heart.
“It’s all right,” she said, drifting toward Sharon but stopping a few feet short, unsure of whether touching her would be an invasion.
Sharon met her eyes with a tiny, miserable smile. “No,” she said thickly, “it isn’t.”
“No, I know.” Brenda settled for placing her hand near the other woman’s on the counter, heartbroken and ashamed of her pitiful inadequacy and desperate to help. “But it’s okay to cry, Sharon.”
The captain’s eyes glittered with a combination of unshed tears and rage. “Hate to cry,” she muttered, clearly infuriated.
“Me too,” Brenda agreed, unsurprised. “But maybe you need to.”
“Paul thinks I’m refusing to deal with what happened to Vivien, and that it’s bad for Daniel. Is that what you mean?”
Brenda blinked. “No, Sharon. I think you’re dealin’ with it in your way. But I do think maybe you need someone to tell you it’s okay to be sad.”
Sharon swallowed hard, still staring at the pizza. ”This was her favorite. It was exactly the combination she always wanted from the time she was nine. She and Daniel used to fight because he always wanted to add pineapple.”
Brenda Leigh scrunched her nose up. “I’m with Vivien.”
“I was too.” Sharon attempted a faint smile. “You think the big things, the special occasions -- Christmas, birthdays -- will be the worst, but they’re not. It’s the little things you can’t anticipate that blindside you, like goddamn pizza toppings. And today... Cee was so happy. She’s such a happy, buoyant child, and that’s wonderful, but I can’t help thinking that not only will she never know her mother, but she’ll never even know what she’s missed.”
“Maybe not. I mean, you don’t know for sure that Vivien’s --”
Brenda broke off, arrested by the fierce, stricken expression on Sharon’s bloodless face.
“I know,” the older woman said. “I know, Brenda. Paul knows. Our baby girl is dead.”
“How do you know?” Brenda almost whispered, awed.
It should’ve been exactly the wrong thing to say, but the question seemed to make Sharon come back to herself. “I just... I just know, Brenda. I feel it in my bones.”
Brenda waited silently, trying to fathom what it was like for Sharon to harbor that quiet, grim certainty amid so much doubt. There was no body, no coffin, no funeral service; just a mother standing in her kitchen and saying “I know.”
“I’m not especially religious, but sometimes I pray they’ll find her body. For Daniel most of all. Just for that.”
Brenda blinked furiously to clear her own vision. Now was not the time for her to break down.
Sharon closed the pizza box, turned away, and disappeared down the darkened hallway. Brenda thought she’d probably gone into her bedroom.
The blonde stood in the kitchen, paralyzed by indecision. Should she go? She felt like an intruder, a voyeur; but she didn’t want to leave Sharon alone like this.
Her stomach rumbled and she blushed, foolishly embarrassed. She was still hungry, but didn’t dare eat the pizza. She nibbled thoughtfully at the corner of her thumbnail for a moment, and then began to move quietly around the kitchen, making herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
When Brenda had eaten her sandwich and drunk a glass of milk and watched the sun set completely and spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to get the kitchen faucet to stop dripping, and Sharon still hadn’t made a peep, the blonde quietly, hesitantly went in search of her. She moved cautiously, warier than she usually was when she searched an unfamiliar building for an armed suspect. Her CIA training stood her in good stead: not so much as a floorboard creaked under her weight.
Sharon lay on the bed on her side, her back to the doorway and her knees drawn to her chest, perfectly still save the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and shoulders in time with her breathing. Instinctively Brenda held her own breath, loathe to disturb a private moment, but Sharon sensed her presence.
“Brenda?” That low voice was thick and rough.
“Hey.” She leaned in the doorway, unsure whether or not she should advance.
“I wasn’t sure you were still here.”
“D’you want me to go?”
“No.” Sharon rolled to face her, dark hair slipping over her shoulder, and the younger woman saw that her cheeks were still wet from the tracks of her tears but her expression was more composed. “I’m glad you stayed.”
Hearing the words made Brenda feel instantly relieved and she gave a soft smile. “I wasn’t about to leave you alone,” she explained, making her way into the bedroom. She paused at the nightstand, pulling out a few kleenex from the box, and crawled onto the bed. She stretched out on the empty side of the bed (her own side, she noted to herself) and, settling her head against the pillow, she handed Sharon a tissue.
Sharon dabbed at her eyes and flicked her tongue against her lip. “You must think I’m neurotic.”
“For havin’ feelings? I think you’re a mother who misses her baby girl. I don’t think less of you for breakin’ down.” Brenda tentatively reached out and pushed back Sharon’s hair, leaving her pale face uncovered.
“I do.”
The blonde laughed incredulously. “I know you do. You’re too hard on yourself. You get mad at yourself for bein’ emotional and mad at yourself for bein’ distant. You try so damn hard to find the middle ground that you just miss it altogether.” When the older woman’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed, Brenda immediately back-pedaled. “I just mean that when you hold it in all the time, it’s gonna come rushin’ out all at once.”
“Daniel wants me to let it out. I think on some level he needs to see me break down, like my grief isn’t real unless I express it the way he does. He’s so in touch with his feelings...it’s that damn psychoanalytical way of thinking that he has. If I don’t cry, I don’t care...at least not as much as he does.”
“Oh Sharon...but you do care! Surely he knows that?”
Sharon sniffed, wiping her nose with the crumpled tissue she clutched in her hand. “I think he does. He’s just so fragile. I can’t imagine how hard this is for him...the connection he had with her...I don’t know what I’d do if--” She cut herself off, blinking back a new wave of fresh tears. “I know how strong the bond between twins is.” She looked up at the headboard, hoping to keep herself from crying, and finally rolled onto her back. “When they were young, they always knew when something was wrong. Danny broke his arm falling out of the tree house and Vivien ran all the way home from practice because she just knew. They’ve always been like that. They had their own special world that they lived in.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Brenda said quietly, giving her friend a chance to work through the thick current of emotion that had risen in her throat.
“You know he was sick when her plane went down?” Sharon asked, turning her head toward Brenda.
“Was he?”
“Horrible stomach pains. He thought it was a hangover; it was a few days before we were notified and he was so angry that he brushed it off...that he didn’t listen.” Sharon choked out a strangled sob. “As if he could’ve done something halfway across the world when she was dying.”
Brenda couldn’t help it; a stray tear rolled down her cheek.
“He won’t believe it now. He thinks she’s all right, that he just can’t sense her. He can’t accept what happened to her.” She covered her face with both of her hands and began to cry in earnest, her body shuddering under the weight of her own misery.
Brenda scooted closer and draped an arm across Sharon’s stomach, clutching her tightly as she rested her chin on Sharon’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” she lied, rubbing Sharon’s side. “It’s gonna be okay.”
She held Sharon until her tears began to subside. When the tension drained from her shoulders, Brenda carefully removed Sharon’s hands from her face, resting them on her stomach, and then began to wipe away the wet traces of sorrow that marred the other woman’s face with the spare tissue. Sharon lay still, allowing herself to be cleansed, watching the blonde’s face as it concentrated on her task.
“There now,” Brenda soothingly cooed. “Doesn’t it feel better to let go a little?”
“It feels like hell,” Sharon croaked, her voice raw and husky.
“I know...but it’ll get better. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it hasn’t been that long. We all deal with our grief in different ways and Daniel’s handlin’ it the only way he knows how. If he needs help, Sharon, you’ll know. He’s your baby.”
Sharon nodded solemnly, worrying her lip between her teeth.
“And Clarissa,” Brenda continued, motivated now to speak the words that filled her heart with whatever glimmer of hope she could cling to, “she may not know her mama the way a child should, but she will know her. She’ll get to know her through you and Danny and Paul, and she’ll know her mama died a hero serving her country. She’ll know how much her family loves her and how much her mama loved her. She’ll be proud of her. She’s gonna grow up so damn thankful to have Vivien Raydor Tate as her mama.”
Sharon bit her lip hard, tasting the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. She looked at Brenda in the darkness of her room, at her heartfelt expression, and felt the painful knot in her stomach begin to ease its grip. There was no way that Brenda could know what it felt like to carry the burden of her loss, of her guilt, the way that Sharon did. She’d kept it close to her for so long that it had become a part of her, something she had learned to integrate into her very being. Somehow, in a way that no one else had, Brenda had seen through it, had seen Sharon at her very core. Brenda Leigh Johnson, a woman she once despised, had somehow been able to say exactly what Sharon needed to hear--and not only did Brenda say it, she actually believed it.
The captain rolled onto her side, unsurprised when the blonde didn’t pull away. Brenda simply rested her hand along the curve of her waist, still gripping the sodden tissue. Sharon could see the tracks of Brenda’s own tears and felt something twist in her gut to know that Brenda had willingly shared in her pain, had taken some of it for her own so Sharon wouldn’t continue to buckle under the weight. She’d never allowed anyone else to do that for her. She’d never wanted to.
What was it about Brenda Leigh that was different from everyone else? What was it about this maddening, intelligent, beautiful woman that put her at ease and made her feel like her self-imposed solitude wasn’t what she really needed?
There was so much that Sharon wanted to say to her. The words were thick and ready on her tongue, but she knew the way she knew that her baby girl had died that there were no words to convey just what Sharon was feeling in that moment.
Instead, Sharon tossed aside her platitudes and her excuses and her fears and simply kissed her. Eyes open, the brunette pressed her lips against Brenda’s, tasting confusion and hesitance. The hand on her hip clutched at her in shock, the feel of those bruising fingers making Sharon feel alight with something she hadn’t felt in so long. Chocolate eyes widened momentarily before Brenda finally relaxed, pursed her lips, and kissed her back.
Sharon’s heart hammered painfully in her chest, blood roaring in her ears. As soon as she blinked it was over. She pulled away and licked her lips, her face flushing hotly. It was a soft kiss, a sweet kiss; it communicated so much more than the gratitude Sharon had felt and yet, it expressed more than Sharon could even begin to comprehend.
She blinked slowly. Brenda was staring at her, eyes impossibly wide. The younger woman waited for any hint of a reaction, eagerly watching to read Sharon’s features like the pages of a book. That knowledge calmed the captain; it gave her back a measure of control.
Sharon felt the skin around her eyes relax as she lay back, one hand finding Brenda’s and squeezing. “Thank you.” She felt soft palm and damp tissue and wrinkled her nose slightly.
Brenda smiled, her eyes very bright, and fisted her hand around the soggy Kleenex. “You’re welcome,” she said simply. “Any time.”
Any time, Sharon mentally echoed. I’ll hold your snotty tissues any time, or you can kiss me any time? She was too tired and too shell-shocked to wonder. She heard herself chuckle rustily, and Brenda looked taken aback, but then blinked a couple of times, quickly, and smiled again. Sharon wasn’t sure what Brenda Leigh meant, and wasn’t sure what she herself had meant -- only that she had meant, that it had been meaningful, and that she was so glad the other woman was there.
The older woman reached out and patted the younger woman’s upper arm, and it was a little too firm, a little awkward and stilted. Brenda patted back, equally clumsy.
“Would you like some tea?”
Sharon closed her eyes and breathed out in a whoosh. “That sounds wonderful.”
“You just stay there. I’ll be right back.” The mattress shifted as the blonde got to her feet, and if she was a little over eager to get out of the bedroom, Sharon couldn’t blame her.
The floor was cool beneath her bare feet as Brenda padded through Sharon’s house toward the kitchen. She started when Manzana leaped from the darkness, landing a few feet behind her with a soft thud and a feline trill. She automatically reached down to pet the cat, who looked up at her with that single crystal blue eye that she felt sure was inquisitive. “It’s okay,” Brenda assured in a low croon. “Your mama’s okay, kitty cat.”
With the cat at her heels, Brenda set about making the tea, busying herself with all the little steps of the mundane task and keeping up a constant stream of quiet, nervous chatter, ostensibly for the cat’s benefit. She rummaged in the cupboard, pulling down two yellow mugs, and selected loose-leaf ooh-long. She breathed deeply, allowing the earthy scent to fill her lungs, soothing her.
Her heart was beating too quickly, her chest tight. The tea would soothe Sharon too, she reassured herself.
When the tea had brewed, Brenda carefully carried the mugs back down the hall, Sharon’s feline protector now leading the way rather than following.
The dark-haired woman had crawled under the comforter and lay still, fast asleep. Like Clarissa’s, her long, dark eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks. The mustard hue of her cardigan showed brightly against the pale green sheets.
As quietly as she could, Brenda put one of the mugs down on the night stand and stood sipping from the remaining one, one ankle awkwardly tucked behind the other. She studied her friend intently, and then looked away, examining the walls and windows, when she again felt like a voyeur.
Manzana had no such qualms. She jumped onto the bed, seemingly not hampered at all by her weak leg, and curled herself into a ball at Sharon’s hip. The captain stirred, a hand reaching out from beneath the covers and absently stroking the cat’s head. “Oh, the tea,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. She pushed herself up against the pillows and shoved her hair back, and then lifted the mug. Her bleary eyes settled on Brenda.
“Come sit with me,” she invited quietly, patting the spot beside her on the bed. Her features were soft and open, and she looked surprisingly young -- young and vulnerable. Brenda immediately propped herself against the headboard, stretching her legs out and offering Sharon a small smile. She was careful not to touch her friend, but remained vitally aware of her warmth, the soft slurping of her lips against the edge of the mug as she drank the hot liquid, the most minute shifting of her legs under the comforter.
Brenda was just in time to grab Sharon’s mug from her nerveless fingers and prevent it from spilling all over the fine brocade comforter. Stretching as far as she possibly could, she just managed to twist the switch on the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. She eased very carefully back against the headboard, careful not to jar the bed’s other human occupant. If she got up she might wake Sharon, and she wanted to let her sleep. She’d wait there just a little while, just until she was sure the other woman was deeply asleep, before she went home.
Brenda shifted slightly and reached to stroke Manzana’s sleek gray fur. The cat rumbled out a purr, low and constant, communicating the contentment that the deputy chief seemed to feel rolling over her own body.
**
It was pitch black when Sharon awoke, and she felt the fuzzy twist of disorientation that always assaulted her when she fell asleep in her clothes or somewhere other than her own bed. This was her bed, though, the mattress solid but forgiving; and there was no compelling reason to get up and change her clothes. Stretching experimentally, she became aware of a warm, solid ball at the base of her spine, and her lips curved as she reached to stroke her cat’s soft fur. The apple of her eye, Brenda Leigh had said. Well, maybe so. Manzana knew how to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. And so did her human mama. The captain recognized a kindred spirit when she met one.
Sharon was startled for only a split second when her fingers made contact with both soft fur and warm, smooth skin. Brenda. Her eyes had begun to adjust slightly to the darkness, and when the captain gingerly rolled over, she could make out the vague contours of coral cotton against the fabric of the comforter. She had stayed. Of course she had stayed.
Sharon knew she should wake her. The younger woman would be far more comfortable in her own bed, or at the very least in Sharon’s guest room, rather than sprawled here atop the covers, her head lolling at a rather awkward angle.
The dark-haired woman considered, her sleepy thoughts turning over sluggishly. Manzana was pretty good company -- but Brenda was better. Also, it was two a.m. Surely a compromise was in order.
Slipping soundlessly from the bed, Sharon crossed the room and lifted a soft throw from the back of the armchair that stood in the window nook. Returning, she gently tucked it around the sleeping woman. Manzana’s eye glowed an unearthly shade as she fixed it upon her mistress. Sharon gave the feline a final pat and slid back under the thick, fluffy comforter. The last thing she heard before sleep again overtook her was the cat’s low, contented purr.
***