Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

Just before the Lord’s Prayer, she announced to everyone that the location of the Meeting would have to be changed. She said that Bumble would let them know and gave no explanation.

Everyone filed out.

Bumble was stacking his last chair—the only one that remained vacant during the Meeting. He picked up the pamphlet resting there and handed it to his Porter. Annie no longer knew if it was meant for the enigma that called itself Honeychile. She’d written Winston on the cover, with a gold star dotting the i . Alongside, she’d whimsically written a word to personalize it (as she had with Lydia’s unicorn), though she didn’t know what it meant:

1.

After his heart-to-heart with Owen, he would have preferred going home, but the couple insisted he crash in the guest room. Adelaide said, “It’ll give us a reason to unbox one of our magic Internet mattresses—otherwise, it might sit there for months.” He was brutally fatigued and it made perfect sense to him to pass out on a Casper because he felt like a baby ghost himself. For the first time in weeks, his sleep was dreamless.

Willow awakened late in the afternoon, mulling over the eerie circumstances that brought him to the house in Armada. He patted himself on the back—if he couldn’t, who could?—marveling at the ingenuity of his spontaneous amends. Got myself out of some serious shit right there. An unfortunate side effect of his actions was that he was forced to make amends to Adelaide as well.

That was tough but he took one for the team.

He splashed water on his face and thought about taking a shower, but that just didn’t feel right. Addie must have heard the flush. She tapped on the door and said, “Soup’s on!”

Willow let her serve him. It was the most marvelous thing in the world to feel zero acrimony toward this woman, almost like a complete absence of personal history. It was a turn-on. He may as well have been an exhausted firefighter being served by a MILF whose house he’d helped save.

“Pace knows you’re here?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“But she gave you our address—which is fine , by the way…”

“She didn’t.”

“Okay,” said Adelaide skeptically. “Then how—”

“I can find stuff out. I’m a detective, remember?” he said impishly. “Was a detective, anyway. Who’s about to be one again. Allegedly.”

“Kind of amazing, huh?”

“And hey—thank you, Adelaide.”

“For?”

“I’m assuming the whole Cold Case thing wasn’t Owen’s idea.”

“That’s one hundred percent not true.”

“So you didn’t plant a seed that became a mighty oak?”

“I’m all thumbs. And they ain’t green, my friend.”

“Well, thank you anyway. It’s coming at a good time for me, Addie. I mean, a not-so-good time that might have a shot at becoming a good one again.”

“I’m so glad about that, Willow. I really am. You know, I always wanted the best for you. Contrary to your beliefs.”

“Sorry I was such an asshole, kid.”

“Can you stop with the amends already?” After a moment, she said, “But Jesus, you were .” She laughed, a little too long. The laugh that was once so sexy to him.

Still was…

He got shy, clammed up and ate his eggs. She nibbled on some fruit and they sat awhile, enjoying the anomalous company. Willow thought: This is what it would look like if we were still together. A sleepy kitchen morning.

“How’s work?” he said.

“Great! I kind of run oncology now.”

“Pace mentioned that.”

“I know more than the doctors,” she said pridefully. “At least that’s what the doctors tell me.”

“Got ’em wrapped around your un-green thumb, huh?”

“That’s me, Dub. I just stick it out like a hitchhiker and bam .” She watched him finish his meal, noting a daintiness, which touched her. The moment and certainly all the years had humbled him. “Guess you’ll be looking for a place in Macomb?”

“I’ll find something online,” he said.

“I can help with that if you need me to.”

“I think I can manage. I’m the bachelor-apartment king.”

“You oughta see if our old place in the Falls is available,” she said with a smirk. She’d meant it to be funny but realized it wasn’t. “Mount Clemens might make the most sense. That’s where your office will be, no?”

“Yeah. We’ll see—maybe someplace by the lake. And, Addie… I’d prefer you didn’t mention any of this to Pace—the job opportunity or my little drive-by this morning. Not just yet. Okay?”

“You got it, Dub. Seen our grandchild lately?”

“Just a few weeks ago. He’s a kick and a half.”

“They haven’t been here in a month and I’m jonesing for my Larkin. Might have to bushwhack ’em.”

It was clear that Pace hadn’t told her about the boy’s condition. After all the hospitality and goodwill, Willow had mixed emotions about withholding the news, but in the end convinced himself it wasn’t his information to give. It was their daughter’s.

He got his things together and she walked him to the car.

“Guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” he said drolly. “You know—extended family dinners, Sunday brunches. Watching Game of Thrones and Super Bowls, that sort of thing.”

“For sure . Don’t forget the extended family vacations! And I’m not a Thrones gal, I’m a Homeland gal. It makes me so tense I almost throw up.”

“You always liked negative excitement.”

They hugged, heartfelt. She stopped herself from saying, All this could have been yours —another attempt at humor that would have laid an egg. She watched him pull away.

“Hey!” shouted Adelaide, running after him. He stopped and rolled down the window. “I’m going to get you a Casper for your new digs! Easy and great, right? My housewarming gift.”

2.

He found a little place for $775 a month on Craigslist, an apartment on Beech Drive in Sterling Heights with a “terrace” off the dining room big enough to wedge yourself in for a smoke. (Though Miranda the bodyworker might have a problem.) It was a twenty-minute drive from Mount Clemens.

The weekend before he moved, Willow organized the Port Hope trailer and scoured it clean. He wasn’t ready to sell; there wouldn’t be any takers anyway. It wasn’t so much a teardown as a blow-away. Down on his knees at 2:00 A.M., the gusts off Lake Huron shimmying the walls, he took a Brillo Pad and scrub-a-dubbed the kitchen floor, cackling to himself that it was just the kind of OCD ritual folks were known to engage in pre-suicide. At least he could laugh. Whistling along with the wind while he worked, he ruminated on his ex…

They met in the early eighties when he was a rookie cop in Chicago. Addie was a waitress, with that Jewish/Italian thing that always made him hard. She was funny too—she was biting , another thing that got Willow off. He was all about waitresses and changed coffee shops whenever the affairs blew up, which they inevitably did. But it was different with Adelaide. They knew what they had but tried to keep it light. They didn’t even move in together until she was pregnant. Didn’t get married either, not until a couple of years after Pace was born.