Darkness My Old Friend

Her phone issued a single buzz. She pulled it from her pocket.

YOU’RE AVOIDING ME, his text message accused.

“Oh, Ray,” she said out loud, though there was no one there to hear her. “You never could take a hint.”

Then he was on her porch, his authoritative knock causing the panes to rattle. She went to the door and looked at him through the glass.

“I’ve got nothing for you, Ray,” she said. She didn’t move to let him in.

“Okay,” he said. He gazed off to the side of the house. He did that a lot, talked to her but looked elsewhere. He did it with everyone, as though he were always scanning the area for threats or problems. “I get it. How about a coffee? You got that for me?”

She felt the smile bubble up from inside her. It was rare for her, a true smile, true affection for another. She and Ray had worked together for a long, long time. He was the closest thing she had to a friend.

She gave him a scowl that she knew neither fooled nor daunted him and let him in. His energy was big, caused her to back up and bow her head. His size-six-four and, he claimed, 210, but she knew better-dwarfed her. His aroma-stale cigar, though he promised to quit-overwhelmed her. And rain. Beneath the smoke he smelled like rain, something pure and fresh from the air. He was losing his hair, a spreading shine on the back of his head, a retreat at the widow’s peak. But somehow he was handsomer, more virile than the day they’d met, many years ago. The deep lines around his eyes, the gray in his stubble, only served him. She, on the other hand, had withered and dried, looked ten years older than she was. She knew this because the mirror didn’t lie and photos didn’t even bother to be kind about it.

Ray wanted to talk. By the time she followed him to the kitchen, he was already in her cupboards, pulling down the coffee can and filters.

She pulled up a chair at the kitchen table and sat. She traced the grain of the wood with her finger. She still wore her wedding and engagement rings, though her husband was long, long gone. She was glad she’d remembered to put her prescription bottles away in the cabinet over the sink. If she’d left them out, Ray would have noticed them, because he never missed anything. And that was a conversation she didn’t want to have, not tonight.

Ray made a lot of noise-banging mugs, turning on the faucet full blast to fill the pot, slamming the refrigerator door. That was his way. He was physical, expressing his frustrations through movement. He was also prone to bear hugs and big gestures with his hands. Beside him she felt small and unnaturally reserved, like a plain wooden shack weathering his storm.

“I told you I’d call if anything,” she said. “By now you should know how it works.”

He stopped moving for a second to look at her pointedly. “I don’t know how it works, and neither do you.”

“Well,” she said. She raised her palms in surrender. “We both know that stalking and nagging don’t help.”

He grunted and pushed the button on the ancient Mr. Coffee. “Get a new machine, Eloise.”

“It still works,” she said. “Why should I replace it?” The pot gurgled its agreement.

“Because your coffee tastes like axle grease.”

“I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that you were not invited for coffee.”

He sat at the table, across from her, the chair whining beneath his weight. Then he took a tin of breath mints from his pocket and popped one into his mouth, rattled the box at her. She lifted a hand to decline.

“Seems like 1987 was a hundred years ago,” she said.

“Not to our client. To him it was yesterday.”

Ray slid forward on his elbows, frowned at her. He thought she’d grown jaded, cold. No, she wasn’t that. He stood up quickly then, banged around in the kitchen some more, and then came back to the table with two mugs.

The coffee smelled rank-bitter and acidic. It reminded her she hadn’t smelled anything that even remotely stimulated her appetite. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been hungry.

“You used to care,” he said. He put the cups on the table, sat down again heavily.

“I still do.”

She wanted to explain to him the difference between apathy and acceptance. She, unlike most, no longer labored under the delusion of control. She had released most of her attachments. And in doing so she had found, if not peace exactly, then at least calm. To others, still grappling with their misconceptions about the world, their relationships, their lives, this could look like depraved indifference. They still suffered. She did not.

“I have nothing for you, Ray.” She looked down at the second cup of coffee poured for her today that she had no intention of drinking.

“You’re not trying,” he said. “You’re all wrapped up in this Jones Cooper thing.”

“I went to see him.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Really? You told him?”

She recounted the conversation for him.

Ray shook his head. “That guy is a closed door.”

“Yes and no.”

“Well, good. Maybe that’s what you needed to do. Maybe it will free you up.”

“That’s my hope. You’re not the only person who wants something from me.” She found herself staring at the kitty door, willing Oliver to squeeze himself through, mewing for dinner. The sun was getting low. Where was that stupid cat?

When she glanced up at Ray again, he looked chastened. “I’m sorry, Eloise.”

“I know you are, Ray.”

He reached across the table and touched her hand. And that’s when she saw it: a flash of light, a breathless run through dead leaves, a spinning fall, then a night sky above the trees. Then there was only the fading wallpaper of her own kitchen, Ray looking at her intently.

“What is it? What did you see?” he asked. His eagerness exhausted her.

“Someone running…” She couldn’t say more. It just wasn’t clear.

“Where?”

She shook her head, her heart still racing. “I don’t know.”

“But that’s good, right? It means you’re clearing up.”

“I suppose I am.”

He was the first one to do that to her, to touch her and make her see. Before him it had always been scattershot-dreams, day visions, breaks in her consciousness. Not all her life. She did not descend from a long line of witches and seers. She was not one of a clan of aunts and sisters, mothers and grandmothers who mixed purple potions and sprinkled stardust spells for love.

No, it was an accident. A terrible car accident that had taken her husband and one of her children, left her in a coma for five weeks, left her with… what? On the bad days-and there were so many really, truly bad days-it was a curse. On the good days, it was a gift. For a while she thought she’d lost her mind. And then she’d found Ray.

“Has it occurred to you that I’m a nutcase?” she asked. “That all these years you’ve been running around according to the rantings of a madwoman?”

Ray gave a little laugh. “So many years and more than twenty cases solved that no one else could have solved. Not crazy. Troubled, maybe.”

He smiled at her, warm and sad. Years ago that smile would have had them upstairs tearing at each other’s clothes. But that appetite, too, had waned to nothing. If she didn’t have to eat to survive, she wouldn’t.

He got up, brought the cups to the kitchen, and rinsed them in the sink.

“Call me if you dream tonight,” said Ray.

“I will,” she said. She felt a weariness settle into her body. “You know I will.”

She stood up to gaze out the window and saw Oliver making his way up the yard. She felt a surprisingly strong wave of relief. So she hadn’t given up all her attachments. Animals were easy to love, to live with. They wanted so little… just a bowl of food and a warm body to sit on, to sleep with, and they were forever loyal. That was about all she had to give.