J. Jance - Edge of Evil

She was so distressed on the way back to Sedona that listening to Samantha screeching from the back-seat was a welcome diversion. Once back at the house, Ali stowed Samantha’s cat carrier in the corner of the living room and the litter box next to the washing machine in the laundry room. She filled the water dish and put that and the food dish on the kitchen floor. Leaving the door to the cat carrier open, Ali went to her computer.

For a long time, she sat with her fingers poised over the keyboard. There was a part of her that wanted to go off and lob incendiary bombs in Howie Bernard’s direction. But there was enough old-fashioned journalism still flowing in Ali’s veins that she couldn’t rant about something that was nothing really but unsubstantiated rumor, especially since it made no difference.

Finally, mastering her emotions, she forced herself to write something else.

cutlooseblog.com

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

My friend is dead. Two young children have lost their mother forever. Their lives are in total disarray. The children are with their grandparents who don’t even live in the same town. They’ve been pulled away from school, from their friends, and from everything familiar to wait for a funeral that will happen eventually, but at some unspecified time and place. (Funeral arrangements can’t be made until the medical examiner releases the body, and he has yet to say when that will happen.) In the meantime, their cat is here with me.

I don’t like cats. Never have. The idea of what I’m going to have to do with the litter box that is even now lurking in my laundry room is more than I want to consider-and probably way more information than you want to have, either. But the truth is, there wasn’t any choice. Sam (short for Samantha) had nowhere else to go. With their father preoccupied, the children needed to know that someone would look after their beloved pet. Since the kids are with their grandparents and since their grandfather turns out to be highly allergic to cats, that job fell to me.

Sam is not a beautiful animal. She’s huge. She’s missing an eye and a big part of one ear. (I would have thought that male cats did more fighting than female ones do, but maybe that’s the reality behind what men like to refer to as “cat fights.”) Even though I left the carrier door open, she’s still inside it and glaring at me through that one good eye. I don’t think she likes me any more than I like her, and I’m afraid once she leaves the carrier, she’ll disappear somewhere here in the house and I’ll never be able to find her again.

The kids had warned me in advance that Sam hated riding in cars. Now I believe it. The drive back to Sedona from Reenie’s place in Flagstaff only takes half an hour, but it felt much longer with Sam in the car because she cried the whole way. Make that SCREAMED!! AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS! It made me wonder how fifteen or so pounds of cat could make that much of a racket. I was afraid people in other cars could hear her, too.

I keep reminding myself that I came here to help. For today, taking care of Sam is what needed doing for Reenie and for her family. So, uneasy though Sam and I may be with our current arrangement, the cat is here.

My life is in almost as much turmoil at the moment as Sam’s. I seem to be getting a divorce, not because I necessarily wanted one but because I have it on good authority that my husband has not one but two girlfriends. Two! Maybe he picked them up at Costco. Isn’t that where you always have to take two of everything, whether you need two or not?

That would be his case-he didn’t really need them. Considering he already had a wife, me, I should have thought he didn’t need any girlfriends at all. But it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. For him.

It’s not a good idea for me, however, so I’m telling myself it’s probably time for me to move on. One of the two girlfriends is evidently busy telling everyone who gets near her about her plans to marry the man who is currently my husband. That being the case, I’ve decided to take the hint, get a move on, and let her have him. I’m not interested in sharing him and I certainly don’t want him back. If she does marry him, she’ll know in advance that he’ll be as likely to cheat on her as he did on me.

But at least I can move on. For me moving on is possible. With any kind of luck, I’ll be able to pick myself up (again), dust myself off (again), and see where the road of life will take me. My friend Reenie can’t do that. I don’t know everything that was going on in her life. I know she was having health issues. There could have been other stresses at work in her life as well. If there were, she didn’t mention them to me.

The general consensus, however, is that, for whatever reason, the burden of living had become too much for her. The authorities continue to search for a suicide note. As much as I don’t want to believe that my friend took her own life, I’m more than half hoping such a note will be found. I’m hoping that whatever is written there will offer both answers and closure for the people who are grieving her loss. That it will put an end to the speculation and help us understand why Reenie might make the choices she did-why she might choose to be gone when the rest of us weren’t nearly ready to let her go.

But I’m not at all sure closure exists. Everybody talks about it, but maybe they’re all pretending. Maybe closure is no more a reality than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Still we all maintain that once the remains of a loved one are put to rest or once the criminal is sentenced in a court of law or a murderer is put to death that there’s “closure” for the grieving survivors. I’m worried that it’s a fabrication-an emotional crutch we all cling to in hopes that some day we’ll feel better than we do right now. And I suppose that, as far as Reenie Bernard is concerned, that’s the only hope we have.

As for me? I think it’s time I gave myself a swift kick in my self-pitying butt. Reenie Bernard has lost everything. So have her children. Compared to them, I’m a wimp.

Posted: 2:20 P.M. by AliR

For a while Ali read through the surprising number of comment e-mails that had come in since Chris had posted the notice about The Forum. She read through them, posting them as she went.

Don’t be so selfish. Your friend didn’t abandon you. She spared her family and you from having to see her go through what was coming. I have ALS, too. It’s not that bad yet, but I know it will be. I don’t have the same kind of courage your friend had. I would never be brave enough to drive myself off the edge of a cliff. Instead, I’ve saved up some sleeping pills, enough, I hope, to do the job.

The trick will be knowing when to take them. Swallowing is already getting difficult. I’d like to live long enough to see my daughter graduate from high school next spring, but I know that if I wait too long, I won’t be able to take the pills on my own and I’ll lose the ability to have my own say in the matter.

Please give your friend credit for leaving on her own terms. It was her choice.

Anna

Ms. Reynolds,

Suicide is a mortal sin. It is wrong. No matter what! Your friend is going to hell. I’m sorry.

Midge Carson

The next comments referred to Ali’s absence from the newsroom:

Dear Ali Reynolds,

Please come home. The kid they have sitting in your spot at the news desk needs a high chair. And a haircut. She looks like she’s fresh out of high school and just stuck her finger in an electrical outlet. I’m writing to the station saying that they need to take you back. If not, I’ll watch my news somewhere else.

Bob Preston

Dear Ali,

If they were going to fire someone, why not that tedious windbag with the dreadful toupee? When you get hired on another station, please let me know where. I hope it’ll be one of the stations from around here so I can still see you from time to time. You are the best thing that ever happened to the Evening News.