didn’t hesitate with having to work around all the weapons. She’d been a cop’s wife for a long time; it probably wasn’t the first time that she’d had to work around guns for a hug.
I did the only thing I could; I hugged her back, which made her hug me tighter. Talk about being punished for competency, but I ended up more holding her than hugging her. I realized that her legs were weak. I braced and held her up. The moment she felt my strength her legs collapsed. She had me by at least fifty pounds, probably closer to seventy, but lucky for both of us I didn’t have a problem supporting her. It was just sort of unexpected.
Nicky asked, ‘You need help?’
‘Not yet.’
She hadn’t exactly fainted, because she was still holding on, it was more like she was sinking in some emotional water I couldn’t see and she’d decided to hold on to me. To her I said, ‘Beatrice, Bea, can you hear me?’
Gonzales was there, sort of hovering. ‘Bea, you okay?’
She started to sag more, and I said, ‘Nicky, help me get her to a chair.’ I could support her weight, but a body isn’t balanced like a barbell. Bodies are much harder to lift, especially if you don’t want to accidentally hurt the person, or they’re wearing a dress, like Bea, and you don’t want to flash the room, which I didn’t.
A chair just suddenly appeared behind her with a uniformed officer holding it. Nicky and Gonzales both tried to help me ease her into it, so that it was too much help and we all got in each other’s way. She looked pale, her eyes not focusing.
I touched her face. She was clammy to the touch. ‘Bea, can you hear me?’
She blinked at me, gave a small nod, and said, ‘Yes.’ Her voice was hoarse.
‘When did you eat last?’
She couldn’t remember.
‘How much water have you had?’
She hadn’t had any today. Someone went to fetch her water, and another officer went for a candy machine. I knelt on one knee on the floor in front of her and let her hold my hand. I’d have said I was holding hers, but she seemed to need the touch.
We got some water into her, Gonzales holding the cup between sips. A candy bar put some color back into her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in a small, hoarse voice.
‘You have to take care of yourself better than this, Bea,’ I said.
‘I just want to spend as much time with them as I can.’
‘Them?’ I asked.
‘Rush and Micah.’
Rush I understood. ‘Micah will be back.’
‘But the two of them together, I won’t get to see that much longer,’ and she began to cry.
I patted her hand, and glared up at Gonzales. He gave me a what-did-I-do? look. When Bea seemed well enough to sit safely without falling over, I left the officer with the water by her side and walked Gonzales a little way from her. Nicky and Domino trailed after us.
‘How long have you been here with her?’ I asked.
‘Only a couple of hours,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know she hadn’t eaten or drunk something.’
‘Has Micah had anything?’
‘I don’t know, he’s in with Rush.’
‘Shit,’ I said.
I turned to the cops in the hallway. ‘Guys, really appreciate you being here like this.’
They all made noncommittal gestures of support.
‘But can you guys keep checking and making sure the family keeps hydrated and a little food in them?’
They looked at one another. It turned out that most of them had only just cycled back through to hospital duty, so they hadn’t known. ‘Sorry, Marshal, we’ll look after Mrs Callahan better from now on.’
I didn’t correct him that it was Mrs Morgan, but part of me wondered if the kids had hyphenated names. Probably not, or the secret would have been out years ago, but all the same they were a unit, a couple that happened to be three instead of two. I had a moment to wonder how Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel, and I would handle a commitment ceremony. For that matter, would Jean-Claude want to involve Asher? Did I want Nicky involved? It all seemed too complicated now, which meant that something about the last few minutes had hit an issue for me. I didn’t know exactly what issue had been hit, but it was something, because I was feeling less friendly about the whole idea of commitment anything.
I let the negative emotions sort of wash over me but didn’t let them