Tommy's Mom

To her, it was a prerequisite for getting on with her life.

Chief McLaren was still holding her hand. She wanted to pull it away but found this stranger’s grip oddly comforting.

Never mind that what she knew about him wasn’t favorable. She had heard Thomas and his partner Al Sharp discuss the new chief hired three months ago after the sudden death of the former chief, Mal Kensington, from an unexpected heart attack. Nepotism, Thomas and Al had complained, since McLaren was a distant relation of the mayor’s. Sure, he had police administration experience, but he was too young to be seasoned. He had an attitude, made it clear he would run things his own way, never mind that things had run just fine under old Mal Kensington.

Chief McLaren continued to grip her hand, and his green eyes, beneath thick, unruly brows, bored into hers.

“Mrs. Poston,” he said, “I want you to know—”

“Hi, Tommy, my lad. And Holly. Chief McLaren, Mayor Sevvers… May I come in?”

Holly moved so she could see the anteroom’s doorway. Sheldon Sperling stood there.

Sheldon was one of Holly’s oldest friends. The pallor of his face nearly matched the whiteness of the sling he wore to support his right arm. He was only sixty-one years old, but the wrinkles around his eyes and the hollows in his soft cheeks had deepened over the past four days, making him appear a decade or more older. He had gone through a lot, poor man.

“Sure, come in, Sheldon,” Holly said uncertainly. She wasn’t sure where he would fit.

“I’ll talk to you later, Mrs. Poston,” Chief McLaren told her, releasing her hand. It felt suddenly empty.

Watch it! she admonished herself. She wasn’t going to be one of those widows who clutched at anyone and anything to avoid feeling alone. And certainly not a stranger.

“I’ll go with you, Gabe,” Evangeline said. “See you in a bit, Holly.”

As they left, Sheldon squeezed by them into the anteroom. He moved slowly, easing himself down on an upholstered chair facing the floral print sofa where Holly sat. He looked gaunt in his black suit.

She hadn’t much black in her own wardrobe, but she had put on the next best thing: a short charcoal skirt with a lace-trimmed blouse several shades lighter. She’d had to belt the outfit tightly at the waist. She had lost weight in the past few days. She hadn’t been able to eat.

“How are you feeling now, Sheldon?” Holly asked softly.

“Much better. The headaches are almost gone, and I can move my wrist a little now. And you? How are you two getting along?”

Terribly! Holly wanted to shout, but of course she couldn’t. Not with Tommy there. “Tommy has been a very good, very brave boy,” she said. “And he has been a real comfort to me.”

At least that wasn’t a lie. She wasn’t sure what she would have done without her son to keep her going. For despite all that had happened between Thomas and her, all the anger and bitterness and even indifference, she had never anticipated—had refused to anticipate, despite his being a cop—that she would finally lose him this way.

And that it would hurt so much.

“I’m sure Tommy has been a big help,” Sheldon agreed. “He certainly helped me.”

Holly shot a warning look toward Sheldon. She didn’t want to remind Tommy of that terrible morning any more than she had to, not right now.

Holly wasn’t sure how much Tommy had seen, and that frightened her even more. He hadn’t told her. He had been taken to the hospital that morning and examined, then released. Physically, he was fine. But after consulting with a child psychologist, she hadn’t allowed the police to interrogate him. Not yet. She had, however, permitted her husband’s partner Al, whom Tommy knew, to visit while off duty and ask a few simple questions. Tommy hadn’t answered.

Soon she would do everything necessary to get him to talk about what happened, for only then would her small son begin to heal. But for now, they had to get through Thomas’s funeral.

Sheldon nodded his understanding, just as the door opened once more. It was Evangeline. “I hate to bother you again, Holly, but there are so many people here who want to express condolences in person. I know it’s usually done after the service, but would you mind coming out for a little while?” Evangeline was engaging in her primary role in life: organizing, making certain things ran smoothly.

Holly hesitated. Maybe it would be better to get it over with. Yet if she greeted them now… She glanced down at Tommy.

Evangeline obviously got the message. “Do you know what?” she said brightly. “Edie’s out here, and she really wants to go for a walk. Do you think Tommy might want to keep her company? She doesn’t want to go by herself.”

“What do you think, Tommy?” Holly asked. “Can Aunt Edie take you for a walk?”

Edie Bryerly was Holly’s closest friend. A couple of years younger than Holly, she was the ultimate bohemian in this seaside town full of individualists, notwithstanding her mundane job at City Hall as a secretary in the Planning Department. She often baby-sat for Tommy.

Tommy turned on the floor and looked toward Holly, small brow furrowed as if he considered this request carefully—the fear caused by his terrible experience obviously outweighing everything else, even his love for Edie. When her son finally rose, Holly had her answer.

Evangeline ducked out of the small room, and in a minute Edie came in. She was very tall and very curvaceous. Today, she was clad conservatively, for her, in a leotard top and abbreviated green skirt. Though the short pixie style of her platinum hair emphasized that her nose was too large for the rest of her features, it somehow made her appear stunning.

“I hear I’ve got some good company in here ready to come for a walk with me,” Edie said. “Is it…Mr. Sperling?”

Tommy shook his head in the negative.

“Is it…Mommy?”

Again her son shook his head, and Holly smiled.

“Well, then, it must be Tommy!”

This time he nodded and smiled. But he still didn’t speak.

It’ll come in time, Holly told herself. She hoped.

“Please keep him in the garden,” she told Edie. The funeral home had a secluded garden for the family of the bereaved. Their privacy was maintained by high, thick hedges. No one would bother them there.

After Edie and Tommy went through the exit into the garden, Evangeline, at the doorway to the chapel, motioned to Holly.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to do this just because Evangeline told you to,” Sheldon whispered into her ear. “It’s not normal protocol. People will understand.” He probably hadn’t spoken aloud out of fear he’d be royally reprimanded by Her Honor, the Mayor.

But he had managed to contradict her nonetheless, and Holly smiled at him fondly. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. But thanks.” She felt the warmth and comfort of having friends around in this very difficult time. She appreciated them all. A lot.

Thomas’s parents had died years ago in a car accident. Her own family hadn’t come to the funeral. They lived a thousand miles away in Chicago. Her mother, recuperating from pneumonia, was too ill to travel. Her father had made appropriate noises about needing to stay home to take care of his ailing wife. Holly knew better. What her mother said—and didn’t say—made it clear her father, a long-time detective with the Chicago Police Department, hadn’t made time to come. He was on yet another big case. Holly wasn’t surprised by his absence, but it still hurt.

Holly figured she should muster her courage, square her shoulders and march into the chapel like a brave trooper. After all, most of the people out there who waited to greet her were troopers. Cops. As Thomas had been. As her father was.

But she wasn’t. Still, letting her overwrought emotions hang out like freshly washed underwear on a towel rack would only embarrass her in the long run. She was expected to take it.

For now, she would do what she could to meet those expectations.

After all, she was the widow of a cop.

“I CAN’T TELL YOU how sorry I am, Holly,” said Al Sharp. He was dressed in his blue uniform. Al was about forty years old, and he had an extra chin despite how lean his body remained. His hairline had receded, and what was left was cut into a stubble. He had delivered the news about Thomas’s death, for he had been his partner. He had also come to see her the next evening and talk to Tommy.

“I know, Al,” she said. She stood at the front of the large, high-ceilinged chapel, near where Thomas’s closed casket lay on a bower surrounded by huge flower arrangements. The luscious, vibrant aroma of once-living blossoms whose lives had been cut short to mourn her husband’s death wrapped around Holly and choked her. She wondered vaguely if she would ever be able to work in her own garden again.

Behind Al, other cops lined up to pay their respects to her. Lots of cops—men and women. Maybe hundreds, certainly more than the entire Naranja Beach force. Some stood in the chapel’s center aisle and others at the sides before the stained glass windows. She recognized a few, but most she didn’t. Some were in different uniforms, indicating they had come from other jurisdictions to salute a fallen comrade. Some wore suits, signifying they were detectives, not patrol officers.

No cameras, at least none that she could see. Maybe the reporters who had hounded her since Thomas’s death were somehow intimidated by such a large showing of law enforcement, but she doubted it. Wouldn’t it instead act as a magnet to them?