Sketch of a Murder

Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The first thing Nita saw when she regained full consciousness was her mother's face. Worry lines creased the older woman's forehead. Deep brackets framed her generous mouth. Tears stood in hazel eyes that were a mirror image of Nita's.

Later she learned that the bullet had mushroomed and tumbled through her thigh. It had shattered the femur, ripped up several neural pathways, and blew a chunk from her leg, a scar she would always carry. It had only been Detective Albert's past experience as an army medic that had saved her life. Who knew the dandy was once a soldier? she had marveled more than once.

The evening finally arrived when the pain meds had been dialed down enough that she could hold a coherent conversation. Dawn, a constant presence at her bedside, excused herself so mother and daughter could talk.

For the first time since her father abandoned them shortly after her eleventh birthday, her mother talked about it. She talked about her life with her husband and the pain of discovering that his heart had never belonged to her. "Your father was bisexual. His first lover was his childhood friend, Ethan."

Nita winched her jaw off the floor as her mother continued. "Ethan committed suicide. Your father couldn't get over it." She shook her head sadly. "He loved me and he loved you. God knows he loved you. But Ethan...well, I suppose no one gets over their first real love. Your dad couldn't stay, not here in Seattle, not with us." Her mother sighed and glanced down at work-worn hands twisting a white handkerchief.

"But he never even wrote!" A child's hurt cried out in a woman's voice.

"I don't know why, honey. Maybe we reminded him of what he lost. Maybe he wondered if he'd embraced his own sexuality, if he had gone to Ethan, that the man he loved would not have died." She brushed away a tear with the edge of her forefinger. "No one can ever really know another person's heart."

"Why would you want to go through that again?" Nita whispered.

A smile broke the hard lines of worry and pain on her mother's face. "Andrew isn't your father." She took a deep breath. "I would not, even if I could, change the love and the time your father and I shared. But I'm a different woman now. Andrew is a different man from your father." She held up a forestalling hand. "No, that doesn't mean he is better. Just different. He suits the life I now live. And I want to openly live it with him." She leaned closer, folded roughened hands around her daughter's hand. She felt the calluses on her mother's palms scratch the back of her hand. "Life is short, too short to shut out love. Too short to pretend a relationship is something less than what it is. Do you understand?"

She stared into her mother's eyes and slowly nodded. "Yeah, Mom, maybe I do."

Her mother's long visit signaled some kind of turning point because afterwards the steady flow of traffic through her hospital room made her exceedingly grateful that Dawn had thought to bring her button-up shirts and her own robe.

During the second week of her stay she woke up to find Lieutenant Williams in the chair next to her bed. He sat with elbows on knees, head bent, back hunched. The picture of a man burdened by a deep sorrow.

She licked cracked lips and croaked, "Hey."

He lifted his face. Bloodshot eyes gazed into hers. Even though several smart aleck comments flashed through her mind, she found she didn't want to engage in a sniping battle. Still, she was surprised at the words that did rasp from her mouth. "Daniel told me about Amber."

"Yeah." He stopped and cleared his throat. "He told me he did."

"It's not your fault, Lieutenant. Not her death and not my injury. We both made our own choices." Her dry tongue touched her lips. "Any chance a woman could get something to drink around here?"