The Darker Side

smell of something yummy would be in the air. Matt was a fabulous cook. If there was a cookbook for it, he could make it happen. He'd always come to greet me when I got home. This is something that never changed, not after years and years and years of marriage. It didn't matter if we were fighting or loving each other. Welcome back, traveler, he'd always say. That was our phrase, as necessary and natural as the sun or the rain. In the days before Alexa was born, he'd feed me some good food and maybe a small glass of wine and he'd listen to me bitch and moan about my day and then I'd listen to him bitch and moan about his and we might watch some TV together. We'd usually end up having sex before falling asleep. We had a lot of sex in those early times. Good sex, okay sex, even some bad sex (though, as Matt pointed out, there was really no such thing as a bad orgasm).

As the marriage progressed, the frequency of the sex changed, but the great thing about being married to Matt was that the marriage progressed, it never wore on. We stopped being novelties to each other, but we never really lost our wonder.

Alexa was born and that added a new dimension to coming home. When she was younger, I came to her. As she grew older, she came to me. She picked up her father's phrase, and I would hear it in stereo sometimes.

Welcome back, traveler, kick off your boots, the weather outside may be fair to partly crappy, but in here it's all sun all the time. The cliche becomes a cliche because it was true enough to be repeated often enough: there's a difference between a house and a home.

Things are not the same now. When I walk in, the lights are off. The place is a little bit chilly. No food smells dancing around. No TV

noises, no stereo playing.

The other thing missing is the plants. Matt maintained a small indoor jungle. Me? I am death on plants. I don't just kill them, they commit suicide in my presence. They slash their little planty wrists the moment they find themselves under my care.

Welcome back, traveler.

But it's not the same.

I remember what Rosario said to me in the car, about this place being where I had my roots, and I wonder at the truth of that. I've moved on, but will I ever really let go of the past, living in this home?

I close the door behind me and move through the living room and into the kitchen, flipping on lights and the TV as I pass. A news anchor chatters away and fills the emptiness a little. I pop some macaroni and cheese into the microwave. This is another difficult area for me--I can't cook. I could burn water.

I pour myself a glass of wine and grab my mac and cheese when it's done and I take them with me to the couch. Matt always insisted we eat at the dinner table like a civilized family. Then change it, dummy. You have Bonnie now. You have Tommy. Start eating at the dinner table. Hell, put the TV on a timer if you like so you have some noise to come home to.

My spirits lift a little. Pragmatism has always been my strength. I like to fix things when they break. Crying in my beer (or wine, as the case may be) goes against my grain. I've spent more than enough time weeping in the last few years. Less tears, more sweat. Giddyup. Good idea, Mrs. Barrett, I say to myself. Hear, hear. I giggle at this internal interchange. I no longer worry about being crazy because of it. I figure this either means I've changed for the better or really have gone crazy. I watch the news as I polish off the pseudo-food. Nothing new; civilization continues to teeter on the precipice, as it has been doing since the reporting of news began. There's no mention of Lisa Reid yet.

When the knock comes, a tingly little happiness jolts through me. I dump the empty macaroni and cheese container into the trash and find myself hurrying to the door.

I open it and smile at the man in my life. He's wearing a dark jacket and slacks, and a white shirt with no tie. His hair is a little rumpled, but he looks, as always, like a very edible million bucks.

'Hey,' he says, one word suffused with warmth and backed with a big smile. He's as happy to see me as I am to see him. I angle my head up for a kiss and he gives me a long one.

'Welcome back, traveler,' I murmur.

He raises an eyebrow. 'I think I should be telling you that.' He smiles. He comes in and flops down on the couch. 'You've been a busy lady.'

I sit down next to him and put my feet on his lap. It's an unspoken demand for a massage. Tommy complies, and I almost arch my back as those strong hands begin rubbing the tension away.

'Yeah,' I reply. 'Too bad you can't get frequent flier miles on a private jet. Jesus, that feels good.'

'You want to talk about it?'

It occurs to me that this is one of the big differences between the relationship I have with Tommy and the one I had with Matt. I didn't talk with Matt about my cases, not often. I kept that out of my home, away from him and Alexa. Tommy is different. He understands death and murder, and, like me, he's killed people. I can talk with him about my work and it won't damage him, because, well, that damage has already been done.

'Sure,' I say, 'as long as you don't stop giving me those foot orgasms.'

I give him a lengthy recap of the last day and a half. He listens, nodding at spots, without ever once missing a beat on the massage.

'Wow,' he says when I'm done. 'Complicated.'

'No kidding.' I count off on my fingers. 'Let's see: I have the transsexual daughter of a congressman--said congressman also happens to be a favored presidential hopeful--murdered mid-flight, pulling me and my team out of our usual jurisdiction and onto a political minefield. I have a born-again ex-addict-hooker-porn girl killed back here. Both of them had crosses stuffed into their bodies by the killer, and the numbers on the crosses are in the one hundreds--

which, by the way, I don't think is symbolic at all. I have no leads to speak of yet. In the middle of it all, Callie is getting married, and James dropped the bombshell that he's gay.' I run a hand through my hair. 'Craziness.' I force a smile. 'At least it's not boring.'

He smiles back but it's a smile with a quality to it that I can't quite place. His massage of my feet has become automatic, almost absentminded. Nervous, I realize. Mr. Stoic is nervous.

I pull my feet away. 'Something you want to tell me?'

Silence. He leans back, looks at the ceiling and sighs. 'Yeah.'

'Well? You're starting to give me the jitters.'

He gives me a very, very speculative gaze. It does nothing to alleviate my nervousness.

'You know that I have a little integrity problem, right?' he asks.

'Is that a joke? You're a total Boy Scout. You don't even curse.'

'Yeah, well. That's what I'm talking about. I understand compromise, okay? It's a part of living, and it's for sure a part of living with someone. My problem is, when it comes to integrity, I can't compromise. Not even a little, not ever. It's created real problems for me in the past. There were times in the Service when people wanted me to see a little more gray, a little less black and white.'

'I'm sure, but I think that's a good quality.'

He smiles and shakes his head. 'We'll see about that. I realized a few days ago that there's something I need to say to you. That I have to say to you. It might not be the best time to say it, compromise might be the better part of valor, and so on, but--' He shrugs. 'It's a point of integrity.'

My stomach is a gold-medal gymnast, flip flip flip flip flip.

'What I said earlier? About making me nervous?' I punch his arm.

'We're heading toward terrified here.'

'Then I'll just say it.' He takes a deep breath and looks me right in the eyes. 'I'm in love with you, Smoky. I told you a couple years back that I knew it would happen, and that I'd let you know when it did. Well, it has. I've fallen in love with you. The moment I was sure, I realized I had to tell you.' Another shrug, a little weaker this time. 'One of those integrity things.'

I am speechless.

He loves me.

Wow.

He loves me?

Say something, stupid. But try not to say something stupid. I clear my throat. It comes out in a stammer. 'I--I--wow, I'm not sure what to say.'