End of Watch

Buddha, Allah, the London Bridge—whatever floats your boat. Just take one step toward God and he'll take five to you.'

I said she makes it sound so simple and she countered that it is—I’m just making it harder than it has to be. Said Tm creating 'paralysis by analysis.' Told me to stop thinking about what God is and just hang with the idea that God is.

Smart ass that I am, I had to say, 'So I could use the Empire State Building as my God?'

'Absolutely,' she says—got a fucking answer for everything. A friend of hers who's been sober nineteen years walks the Golden Gate Bridge every morning because that's where she feels closest to God. Says it doesn't matter who we send our prayers to because they all go to the same address.

I said, 'Like all those letters the post office gets for Santa Claus.'

She laughed and said, 'Yeah, but those don't get returned. Our prayers do. Not always the way we want them or expect them, but God always gives us what we need.'

'Always?' I asked.

'Always,' she answered. 'Like it or not.'

She said she thinks of God as a good parent. We're the kids always asking for something—the new toy, a candy bar, day off from school—and does a good parent give her kid everything she asks for? Hell, no. The kid would be sick as a dog if you let her eat everything she wanted. The kid can't understand that, of course, and gets frustrated, but the parent is taking good care of her by not indulging her every wish. A good parent is concerned with her kid's long-term health, not her immediate gratification for things she doesn't need. Mary thinks that's how God is. Might not always give us what we want but we always get what we need. Didn't Mick Jagger say that? Damn, maybe he's god. That'd work for me.

So I'm trying to be open-minded about this thing. Willing. I’m willing to be willing.

Think I’d be more willing if I hadn't watched my father bleed to death or my mom go crazy or Maggie drown in a sucking chest wound. Or Noah. Christ. Barely forty and his sternum gets crushed against a steering wheel, so three more kids grow up without a dad. What's that about? Kind of begs the question what kind of a heartless bastard would let this shit happen, but hey, what the fuck do I know? I was the one eating a nine mil, right?

And I can't ever get away from Marguerite James and Darcy and all that weirdness with Mother Love. No explaining that away. Definitely beyond mere coincidence there.

Shit. Feel like Thelma and Louise. The FBI’s behind me, wanting to throw my ass in jail, and in front of me, just a huge leap of faith. We don't know that they died, right? Like Butch and Sundance leaping over the cliff. Maybe they lived, right? Who knows? Skedaddled off to a quiet little corner of the globe and started new lives.

But first they had to jump.

CHAPTER 29

Monday morning the sun shone pale but sweet. Perching her long frame against a headstone Frank faced east, absorbing what she could of the far candescence. It occurred to her in that moment of calm that she'd gotten sidetracked from the point of her trip. She'd come to apologize to her mother, yet in all this time she hadn't looked twice at her mother's grave.

A stone rolled into Frank's chest and settled under her heart. A sigh did nothing to move it. From a couple yards away she studied her mother's grave. She scanned the cemetery. It was deserted. She stepped the few feet to the grave. Considered the packed snow a moment. Squatted on her heels.

She squinted at surrounding stones, the hazy sky, crows squabbling on bare branches. She looked at everything but the granite slab in front of her. The flowers she'd left on her first visit were gone. Manny and Robert must have thrown them away. She was ashamed she didn't have an offering, some token of reconciliation.

'But you're dead,' Frank said to the block of stone. 'Dead people don't need flowers, right? Don't need anything. Not even apologies from daughters who let them freeze to death.'

She winced. She sounded like a promo for the Jerry Springer show. She stood up, giving the stone her back. Under the delicate sun the snow had turned into a field of gems—fiery rubies and glinting emeralds, flashing sapphires and glowing amber, filaments of gold and silver. Frank closed her eyes against the twinkling beauty.

Her mother had loved the snow. She'd bundle Frank into layers of clothes and they'd run to the park to make snowmen and snow angels. Frank flashed on lying in the snow against her mother's chest, both of them panting after making a choir of snow angels. Her mother's arms were so tight around her that Frank could barely breathe. Smothering her in a flurry of kisses, her mother had whispered fiercely, 'I love you so much. You're my very own snow angel that I get to keep forever and ever. You'll never melt or leave me in the spring.'

Frank bit her lip. The snow jewels blurred and her throat ached. She looked up to the sky. 'Why?' she asked, her voice a harsh whisper. 'Why all this waste? Why me running and you dying? Crazy out of your fuckin' mind. God, you scumbag cock-sucker, can you explain that? Huh? You got a goddamned point or do you just groove on suffering? Some sorta sick fuck or what?' She glared at the benevolent sky. 'Fucking asshole,' she growled. 'What is your goddamned point? Crazy goddamned idiot. Can't even run a fucking planet.'

Her rage degraded into sorrow, crumbled into the loss she could never admit, could never allow. She bowed her head. Great, fat tears melted through the snow.

'Jesus fucking Christ,' she whispered.

Over and over she swore, the curse becoming a mantra. Crouched at her mother's stone, Frank felt the smooth granite, letting the hate drain from her. Sorrow and ruin and loss poured from her in twin rivulets, coursing down her cheeks, steaming through the snow to touch the ground at her feet, the ground that surrounded and cradled her mother, and through her tears Frank was connected to her.

A single cloud covered the sun and wandered on.

Trucks bleated backup warnings. A siren rose and fell.

Two women talked outside the cemetery, their words a steady purr as they passed.

Pigeons waddled and cooed. Crows fought over an empty potato chip bag.

Frank traced her mother's name. Bent her head to the flat rock.

At last she stood, palming her face dry. The cemetery was still empty. The sun had angled higher and Frank glanced at her watch. She rested a hand upon the granite, receiving the stone's cool touch as benediction.

CHAPTER 30

Frank sat in the Nova with a warm cup of coffee. When her phone rang she answered without looking at who the call was from.

'Hi,' Gail said. 'How are you?'

'Funny you should ask.' Frank thought a minute, deciding she couldn't articulate an answer. Didn't want to. 'What are you up to?'

'I just got out of a meeting and I'm walking back to the office. It's a beautiful day. I was thinking about you in the cold and the ice and snow. How are you?'

Damnably on the verge of tears again Frank sat up straight. She squinted into the snow. 'Oh,' she said, fighting to keep the quaver from her voice. 'I'm a lot of things. Mostly right now I'm awful damn glad to hear your voice.'

'Are you crying?'

Frank swallowed hard. 'Not yet. But I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Weirdest thing. Just about anything can set me off. Hold on.'

Grabbing a napkin from under the seat, Frank blew her nose. She gave her cheek a not so gentle slap.

'There we go,' she said into the phone. 'All better. Christ. My cheeks are gettin' raw from all the salt on 'em lately. But I guess it's good. S'all good to the gracious.'

'Is this LA Franco I'm talking to? The Lucifera Angelina Franco?'

'Hey, come on.' Frank kidded. 'This isn't a secure line. You swore to secrecy about my name. So no, it's not LA Franco you're talking to.'