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November 13th, 2002 NORTH PASADENA CALIFORNIA
The rain stops almost to the second that his hand twists the keys from the ignition.
A silence befalls the world beyond the rain splattered windows. As silent as it could be, given that the primary colours ricocheting around the slumbered houses seemed to be as loud as sirens. He almost wished they were in place instead of these lights. His eyes go up to the bedroom window. He hoped she would at least sleep through it until they left.
He steps out into the early AM. The damp earth is fresh and renewed with life and the irony of that makes his stomach churn with bile. The officers in the driveway turn their heads in synchronicity when they hear the driver side door clip shut.
He trails up the grass and the driveway, rain slick pavement clomping under soles. Fingertips wrangle some sort of ID from his wallet. It probably wasn't necessary. He shows it anyway. The officer peers at it, then to a list, then waves him on.
'How is she?'
The officer grimaces at him. Anexpression that were thoroughly adjusted to these sorts of ordeals that never got any easier to witness. He nods and starts up the front steps.
Her beautiful house was a gallery with sculptures on display. Agents and officers and detectives so hushed in their conversations that it were as though they were completely still. They look at him in a far more discreet manner, almost fearful. He cannot blame a single one of them. The scenes he'd imagined in picturesque detail surge past his mind like a loud truck on a highway. Did one go before the other? Did the car roll and swerve for a length of time that felt endless? He speeds up the pace to the kitchen as if striding away from his thoughts would diminish them forever.
A detective finally looks him in the eye from the kitchen bench. A gloved hand solemnly extends to a point. 'She's in there.'
He nods in appreciation.
The entire drive here had been fixated on the state he might find her in. Would she be an inconsolable puddle now one with the floorboards? Would she have put herself to sleep and demanded to be left alone? Would she be furious beyond the human condition, yelling and screaming?
He finds her at the dining table. Spotless from the dinner that had taken place hours before it. Back to the door. It is neither of the arrays he imagined. Still and unmoving. His foot traces onto the carpet.
