The Face of Death

For now I was going to continue with the current plan. I was going to pack Matt and Alexa away. Gone but not forgotten. We'll see what things look like after that.

I didn't feel stressed by the need to decide. I had choices. Choices meant future. Future here, future in Quantico, it was all forward motion, and motion was life. All of that was better than six months ago. You keep telling yourself that. But it's not that simple, and you know it. Something's hiding behind that indifference, something dark and nasty and fang-ful.

Fang-ful isn't even a real word, I reply to myself, scornful. I put all of this out of my mind (or try to) and snuggle closer, let ting Saturday be Saturday again.

'Cartoons rock, don't they, babe?'

Bonnie nods without looking away from the TV.

Yes, she agrees. They do.

Not fang-ful at all.

4

'DON'T YOU BOTH LOOK LAZY AND PLEASED ABOUT IT,' CALLIE says.

She stands in the kitchen, posed. Burgandy-painted fingernails tap the black granite countertop of the kitchen island. Her copper hair contrasts with the white-oak cabinets behind her. She arches a single perfect, disapproving eyebrow.

Bonnie and I grin at each other.

If there was a patron saint of irreverence, it would be Callie. She is crass, sharp tongued, and has a habit of calling everyone 'honey-love.'

Rumor says that she has a written reprimand on file for calling the Director of the FBI 'honey-love.' I don't doubt it; it is Callie to the core.

She is also beautiful in a way that the twentysomethings envy, because it is a permanent beauty, a movie- star beauty, undeterred by age. I have seen pictures of Callie at twenty, and I can honestly say that she is more beautiful now at thirty-eight. She has flaming red hair, full lips, long legs--she could have been a model. But instead of packing a hairbrush, she packs a gun. I think one of the things that makes her even more beautiful--if that's possible--is her absolute disinterest in her own physical perfection. It's not that she has a poor self-image (far, far from it), it's that her beauty isn't a meaningful trait to her. Callie is hard as nails, smarter than the scientists at NASA, and the most loyal friend a person could ever hope to have. None of this is self-evident. Callie is not a touchy-feely girl. I've never gotten a greeting card or a birthday present from her. Her love shines through her actions.

It was Callie who found me in the aftermath of Joseph Sands. Callie who took my gun away from me, even as I pointed it at her, and pulled the trigger, firing on empty, click-click-click. Callie is a member of my team; we have worked together for ten years. She has a master's degree in forensics to go along with a mind made for what we do. Callie has a certain brutality to her when it comes to investigative work. Evidence and truth are her higher power. If the evidence points to you, she'll turn on you and devour you, regardless of how well you got along before that point. She won't feel guilty about it either. The simplest solution: Don't be a criminal and you'll get along with her just fine.

Callie isn't perfect, she just wears her bruises better than the rest of us. She'd gotten pregnant at fifteen and had been forced by her parents to give up the child for adoption. Callie had kept this a secret from everyone, including me, until six months ago. A killer had forced it into the open. People could envy her beauty, but she'd fought and suffered to become the person she is.

'We are pleased,' I say, smiling. 'Thanks for coming.'

She waves her hand in a gesture of dismissal. 'I'm here for the free food.' She gives me a stern look. 'There will be free food, won't there?'

Bonnie answers for me. She goes over to the refrigerator, opens the door, and comes back holding a Callie favorite: a box of chocolate donuts.

Callie mimes wiping away a tear. 'Bless you.' She smiles down at Bonnie. 'Want to help me polish off a few?'

Bonnie smiles back, more sun and roses. They get milk, an important ingredient. I watch them down some donuts and I reflect on the fact that this, this simple minute, brings to me a burst of happiness that is almost a perfect thing. Friends and donuts and smiling daughters, the elixir of laughter and life.

'No, honey-love,' I hear Callie say. 'Never eat without dunking first. Unless no milk is available, of course, because that's the first rule of life, and never forget it: The donut always trumps the milk. '

I stare at my friend in wonder. She's unaware of it, engrossed in doling out her donut-lore. This is one of the things that makes Callie one of my favorite people. Her willingness to have fun. To grab, guiltless, at the low- hanging fruit of happiness.

'I'll be back in a minute,' I say.

I pad up carpet-covered stairs to my bedroom and look around. It's a good-sized master. Plantation shutters on the front wall can be configured to let the sunshine in by increments, or in force. The walls are painted in off- whites, the bed coverings are a bright splash of light-blue color. The bed dominates the room, four-poster, king- sized, top-of-the-line, heaven-sent mattress. Heaps of pillows, mountains of pillows. I love pillows.

There are two matching chests of drawers, one for Matt and one for me, all in dark-colored cherrywood. A ceiling fan churns away, quiet, its low-slung hum my longtime sleep companion. I sit down on the bed and look around, taking it in as a whole. I need a moment, before it all starts. A moment to see it for what it was, not what it's going to become.

Great things and terrible things and things banal, all happened here, on this bed. They run through me like raindrops through tree leaves. A quiet thundering on the roof of my world.

Memories eventually lose their sharp edges and stop drawing blood. They quit cutting you and start stirring you. That's what my memories of my family have become, and I'm pretty happy about that. There was a time when a thought of Matt or Alexa would double me over in pain. Now I can remember and smile.

Progress, babe, progress.

Matt still talks to me from time to time. He was my best friend; I'm not ready to stop hearing his voice in my head.

I close my eyes and remember moving this bed into this room, after Matt and I bought it at some mom-and- pop furniture store. This was our first home, purchased by cleaning out our bank accounts for a down payment and praying for an understanding lender. We bought a home in an up-and-coming area of Pasadena, a newer two-story (no way could we afford one of the hundred-year-old Craftsman homes, though we eyed them wistfully). It wasn't so close to work, but neither of us wanted to live in LA proper. We wanted a family. Pasadena was safer. The house looked like every other one around it, yes, it lacked identity, true--but it was ours.

'This is a home,' Matt had said to me in the front yard, hugging me from behind as we both looked up at the house. 'We're going to make a life here. I think a new bed fits that. It's symbolic.'

It was silly and sappy, of course. And I agreed, of course. So we bought the bed, and struggled it up the stairs ourselves. We broke a happy sweat assembling the headboard and frame and baseboard, grunted getting the box spring and mattress on. We sat on the floor of the bedroom, panting.

Matt had looked over at me and smiled. He'd bobbed his eyebrows up and down. 'Whatcha say we slap some sheets on the bed and engage in some horizontal mambo?'

I had giggled at his crudity. 'You sure know how to charm a girl.'

His face had grown mock-serious. He'd placed a hand on his heart, while raising the other. 'My father taught me the rules of bedding a wench. I promise, as always, to live by them.'

'What are they again?'

'Never wear your socks during sex. Know the location of the clitoris. Cuddle her to sleep before falling asleep yourself. No farting in bed.'

I nod, solemn. 'Your father was a wise man. I agree to your terms.'

We mamboed all afternoon, and into the dusk.