backyard drooped under the weight of that vertical river, their longest
trailers touching the ground.
She was relieved she wouldn't be on the freeways later in the day,
commuting home from work. Due to a lack of regular experience,
Californians weren't good at driving in rain, they either slowed to a
crawl and took such extreme precautions that they halted traffic, or
they proceeded in their usual gonzo fashion and careened into one
another with a recklessness approaching enthusiasm. Later, a lot of
people would find their usual hour-long evening commute stretching into
a two-and-a-half-hour ordeal.
There was, after all, a bright side to being unemployed. She just
hadn't been looking hard enough for it. No doubt, if she put her mind
to it, she'd think of a long list of other benefits. Like not having
to buy any new clothes for work. Look how much she had saved right
there. Didn't have to worry about the stability of the bank in which
they had their savings account, either, because at the rate they were
going, they wouldn't have a savings account in a few months, not on
just Jack's salary, since the city's latest financial crisis had
required him to take a pay cut. Taxes had gone up again too, both
state and federal, so she was saving all the money that the government
would have taken and squandered in her name if she'd been on someone's
payroll. Gosh, when you really thought about it, being laid off after
ten years at IBM wasn't a tragedy, not even a crisis, but a virtual
festival of life-enhancing change.
'Give it a rest, Heather,' she warned herself, closing up the carton of
sherbet and returning it to the freezer.
Jack, ever the grinning optimist, said nothing could be gained by
dwelling on bad news, and he was right, of course. His upbeat nature,
genial personality, and resilient heart had made it possible for him to
endure a nightmarish childhood and adolescence that would have broken
many people.
More recently, his philosophy had served him well as he'd struggled
through the worst year of his career with the Department. After almost
a decade together on the streets, he and Tommy Fernandez had been as
close as brothers. Tommy had been dead more than eleven months now,
but at least one night a week Jack woke from vivid dreams in which his
partner and friend was dying again. He always slipped from bed and
went to the kitchen for a post-midnight beer or to the living room just
to sit alone in the darkness awhile, unaware that Heather had been
awakened by the soft cries that escaped him in his sleep. On other
nights, months ago, she had learned that she could neither do nor say
anything to help him, he needed to be by himself. After he left the
room, she often reached out beneath the covers to put her hand on the
sheets, which were still warm with his body heat and damp with the
perspiration wrung out of him by anguish.
In spite of everything, Jack remained a walking advertisement for the
power of positive thinking. Heather was determined to match his
cheerful disposition and his capacity for hope.
At the sink, she rinsed the residue of sherbet off the scoop.
