Shadow Man

'That you either come back fixed, or you stay the fuck away. If you try to come back still screwed up, I'm going straight to AD Jones, and I'll just keep climbing until someone listens to me and puts you out to pasture.'

The fury in me is white hot. 'You are some arrogant prick.'

He's unmoved. 'This is the way it is, Smoky. I trust you. If you give me your word, then I know you'll keep it. That's what I want. Come back fixed, or don't come back at all. It's nonnegotiable.'

I stare at him. I don't see judgment or pity.

He's really not asking much, I realize. What he's saying is reasonable. I hate him anyway.

'I give you my word. Now get the fuck out of here.'

He gets up and leaves without looking back.

21

WE LEFT IN the early morning, and the flight back was a silent one. Bonnie sat next to me, holding my hand and staring off into the distance. Callie spoke once to let me know that two agents would be posted at my home until I said otherwise. I didn't think he would be back now that he'd tipped his hand, but I was more than happy to have the protection. She also told me that AFIS had come up empty. Oh, happy day.

I am boiling over inside, a big mess of harm and confusion lit by little starbursts of panic. It is not the emotion overwhelming me, it is the reality. The reality of Bonnie. I glance at her. She unsettles me even more, responds by turning her head to give me a full, frank look. She regards me for a moment, and then goes back to her stillness and that thousand-yard stare.

I clench a fist and close my eyes. Those little panic starbursts glitter and burst and crack.

Motherhood terrifies me. Because that's what we're talking about here, plain and simple. I am all she has, and there are many, many miles to go. Miles filled with school days, Christmas mornings, booster shots, eat your vegetables, learn to drive, home by ten, on and on and on. All the banalities, big and small and wonderful, that go into being responsible for another life. I used to have a system for this. The thing was, it wasn't just called motherhood. It was called parenthood. I had Matt. We bounced things off each other, argued about what was best for Alexa, loved her together. A large part of being a parent is a constant near certainty that you are screwing it up, and it is comforting to be able to spread the blame around. Bonnie has me. Just me. Screwup me, towing a freight train of baggage while she tows a freight train of horror and a future of . . . what?

Will she ever speak again? Will she have friends? Boyfriends? Will she be happy?

I realize as my panic builds that I know nothing about this little girl. I don't know if she's good in school. I don't know what TV shows she likes to watch, or what she expects to eat for breakfast in the morning. I know nothing.

The terror of it grows and grows, and I am babbling to myself inside and I just want to open the hatch on the side of the plane and jump out screaming into the open air, cackling and weeping and--

And there's Matt's voice again, inside my head. Soft and low and soothing.

Shhhh, babe. Relax. First things first, and you have the most important one out of the way already.

What's that? I whimper back to him in my mind.

I feel his smile. You've taken her on. She's yours. Whatever else happens, however hard it is, you've taken her on, and you'll never take that back. That's the First Rule of Mom, and you did it. The rest will fall into place. My heart clenches at this, and I want to gasp.

The First Rule of Mom . . .

Alexa had her problems; she wasn't a perfect child. She needed a lot of reassurance, sometimes, that she was loved. In those times, I would always tell her the same thing. I would cuddle her in my arms, and put my lips in her hair and whisper to her.

'You know what the First Rule of Mom is, honey?' I would say. She did, but she always answered the same way:

'What, Mommy? What's the First Rule of Mom?'

'That you're mine, and I'll never take that back. No matter what, no matter how hard things are, no matter if--'

'--the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, and the stars stop burning,' she'd say, completing the ritual.

It was all I had to do, and she'd relax and be certain. My heart unclenches.

The First Rule of Mom.

I could start with that.

The starbursts stop glittering inside me.

For now.

We all get off the plane. I walk away without saying anything, Bonnie in tow.

The agents in question accompany us home, driving behind us the whole way. The air outside is chilly, just a little foggy. The freeway has only started getting busy, not quite up to speed yet, like a hill of sluggish ants waiting for the sun to warm them up. The inside of the car is quiet the whole way home. Bonnie isn't talking, and I am too busy thinking, feeling, fretting. Thinking a lot about Alexa. It had not occurred to me until yesterday how little I have thought about her since her death. She's been . . . vague. A blurred face in the distance. I realize now that she was the shadowy figure in my dream about Sands. The letter from Jack Jr., and remembering, has brought her crashing into focus. Now she is a vivid, blinding, painful beauty. Memories of her are a symphony turned up too loud. My ears hurt, but I can't stop listening. The symphony of motherhood, it's about loving with absolute abandon, loving without regard for self, loving with a near totality of being. It's about a passion that could outburn the sun with its brightness. About a depthless hope and a fierce, rending joy. God, I loved her. So much. More than I loved myself, more than I loved Matt.

I know why her face has been so blurred for me. Because a world without her, it is-- unbearable.

But here I am, bearing it. That breaks something inside me, something that will never heal. I'm glad.

Because I want this to hurt, forever.

*

*

*

When we get to the house twenty minutes later, the agents don't speak, just give me a nod. Letting me know they're on the job.

'Wait here a sec, honey,' I tell Bonnie.

I walk over to the car. The window on the driver's side rolls down, and I smile as I recognize one of the agents. Dick Keenan. He had been a trainer at Quantico while I was going through the academy. Heading into his fifties, he decided he wanted to finish out on the 'streets.' He's a solid man, very old-school FBI, crew cut and all. He is also a practical joker and a marksman.

'How'd you get this detail, Dick?' I ask him.

He smiles. 'AD Jones.'

I nod. Of course. 'Who's that with you?'

The other agent is younger, younger than me. Brand-new and still excited about being an FBI agent. Looking forward to the prospect of sitting in a car doing nothing for days at a time.

'Hannibal Shantz,' he says, sticking his hand out the window for me to shake.

'Hannibal, huh?' I grin.

He shrugs. He's one of those good-natured guys, I can tell. It's impossible to get under his skin, impossible not to like him.

'You up to speed on everything, Dick?'

His nod is terse. 'You. The little girl. And, yeah, I know how she came to be with you.'

'Good. Let me be clear on something: She's your principal. Understand? If it comes down to a choice between shadowing her or me, I want you to keep an eye on her.'

'You got it.'