To Keep Her Safe is All I Know

Chapter 3

Melanie speeds to Chris' house. She had a last minute body come in and had to perform the autopsy for it. It didn't take long to find out that the body belonged to a drowning victim though. Now they just had to identify who exactly who the body was and who her family was so that they could do an identification. Someone else could take care of that though, or it could be done tomorrow. Melanie hated being late to pick Sadie up from school and always felt bad when she ended up with Chris considering how busy Chris usually was. Melanie knew Chris never minded, but he did have is own life to live. Melanie dreaded him leaving for tour.    

There was a late-pickup program at Sadie's school so that when Chris did leave for tour, Sadie could just stay at school until Melanie could come get her. Sadie seemed to dislike this idea, though they didn't really have much of a choice. Melanie didn't like the idea of John seeing Sadie more than the custody agreement allowed. Chris never had to start picking up Sadie from school whenever Melanie couldn't; he just sort of volunteered. Sadie's school let out at three o'clock, and Chris had told Sadie that if Melanie wasn't there by 3:20 that Sadie was to call him so that he could come get her. Before the divorce, John's work hours were based around his own schedule due to the fact that he worked as an independent therapist, so he was usually able to pick Sadie up whenever Melanie couldn't. They had a system and it worked.   

Now, however, whenever it wasn't Wednesday, Melanie sometimes had difficulty picking Sadie up on time, especially if Melanie was examining a difficult body. Her job was to perform autopsies on the deceased and sometimes was in the morgue during consultations and identifications in which supposed family members of the deceased would to come look at the body to see if it belonged to someone they knew. It was an amazing job that Melanie loved and it made excellent money, but it was definitely emotionally draining and time consuming.

Melanie arrives at Chris' house. It was the beginning of October, so the weather wasn't terribly cold yet, but the temperatures were starting to cool down quite a bit. Chris and Sadie were out in front of the house on the sidewalk. Sadie stood on a skateboard and held both of Chris' hands as he pulled her along the sidewalk. Sadie's laughs fill the air and a light breeze blew through the pink dress she had chosen to wear today.

Melanie gets out of her car, "Hey, you two."

"Mommy, look! Chris is teaching me how to skateboard!" Sadie exclaims, happily.

Melanie smiles, "I see that, sweetie."

Chris smiles as well and looks to Sadie, "You ready to try by yourself?"

"Yeah!"

"Please be careful." Melanie says.

Chris releases Sadie and she gets a determined look on her face. She kicks off, makes it a few feet, then stumbles and almost falls, but Chris catches her and scoops her up.

"Okay, let's maybe take a break from skateboarding for a little bit." Chris says, setting her down.

Sadie starts bouncing in excitement, "Did you see me, Mommy?! Did you see?!"

"I saw you almost fall."

"Yeah, almost. Fortunately, I was able to successfully catch her because I have cat-like reflexes. You're welcome." Chris states.

"Cat-like reflexes? Then how do you explain all those times you've fallen off stage or hit your interviewers' microphones?" Melanie taunts.

Chris thinks, "I do do that a lot..."

"Uh huh. You're kind of a clutz, Cerulli."

Chris sticks his tongue out at Melanie. She does it back.