had a choice and held my breath while he grabbed me in a massive bear hug and put his lips to my cheek. He smelled like he had bathed in cologne. The stench, combined with the fact that his arms encircled me, made it so I could barely breathe. He finally let go and stepped back. “Enjoy the biscotti,” he said. “The best on Staten Island. Gianna made them.”
“I know, Peter,” I said, nodding. I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “Thank her for me.”
He threw his arms out wide. “And now, off to the links! What a glorious day.” He exited through the back door.
I stood in the kitchen until I heard the Mercedes pull away from the curb five minutes later, hearing the gravel spray onto my front lawn. I picked up the phone on the counter and listened for the dial tone.
It was back. I dialed a number I knew by heart.
Crawford put the girls on the train, walking them all the way down the platform and making sure they were in their seats and on their way to Greenwich before leaving. He watched their faces as the train pulled away and took some solace in the fact that Erin actually smiled at him and blew him a kiss. Meaghan was too busy fooling around with her iPod to notice that he was still there.
He stood on the platform until the train lights were out of sight. Every time they left was hard; it never got any easier. He had gotten used to the fact that they didn’t live together, but he wished there was more time to be together. Work had taken hold of his life and wouldn’t let go. He’d be interested to see how Fred would make it work once he was married. Crawford certainly hadn’t figured out how to balance on the high-wire act of life versus the “Job.”
He had just passed his sixteenth anniversary on the police department. Graduating from the academy just five months before his daughters were born, he felt like he had everything: the job he always wanted, a wife, and soon, a family. It all came very quickly, shortly after he had left college, but it was what he wanted. Nothing more. His father had fought him on joining the police department; Frank Crawford had spent twenty unhappy, tedious years as a beat cop, hating every minute, counting down the days until he retired. But Bobby saw it as his calling; his time on the Job would be different from Frank’s. He promised Frank that he would finish college at night, as soon as the twins were born and things settled down. Frank wasn’t stupid; he knew that that would never happen and it never did. Bobby had managed to eke out two full years of school, but never got his bachelor’s degree. A couple of courses at a community college got him his associate’s, but he had never found the time to make good on his promise to Frank.
Christine had been with him since high school. They had met in the neighborhood; her father owned a local bar and she worked there. She was inclined to agree with Frank—she saw Bobby in a different job but she accepted that police work appeared to be his calling. But she had supported them while he attended NYU, slaving away in her father’s bar, and she was tired. She wanted to go to college, too, but had sacrificed in order to make sure he got out of school first. The police department, to her, was her ticket out of drudgery. From what Crawford could tell, she never anticipated the strain it would put on their marriage.
He took the crosstown shuttle to Times Square and then the subway home to Ninety-seventh Street. He knew that Sunday night was Bea’s bingo night at the church, so he was safe. He walked in, no tiptoeing, and made his way up to his apartment at the top of the stairs.
Upon entering, he threw his keys onto the dining room table and checked his phone messages, his nightly ritual. The machine sat on the counter that separated the galley kitchen from the dining area. He went into the kitchen while the tape rewound and took a beer from the refrigerator.
“You have two new messages,” the disembodied voice announced. The first message clicked on, but nobody spoke. He could hear breathing on the other line and then silence as the line disconnected. The