Afraid of the Dark - James Grippando [33]
“Are you coming to bed?” asked Alicia.
It was almost eleven, and he was seated in a rocking chair on the screened-in porch, facing their backyard. Crickets made their music in the bushes. Water gurgled from the fountain in the garden. Vince was on his third beer since the Miami Heat had fallen hopelessly behind in the third quarter of the LeBron James show.
“In a little while,” he said.
His wife waited, and he sensed her concern. Finally, her footsteps trailed away to the kitchen, and Vince returned to his thoughts.
Actually, when Vince was a little boy, it wasn’t just Sunday nights that he’d hated. Bedtime in general was a problem. Vince was afraid of the dark. He would lay awake for the longest time—for hours, it seemed, the covers pulled over his head, too scared to make a move. “Just close your eyes and go to sleep,” his mother would say. But Vince couldn’t do it. The Scooby-Doo night-light was of some comfort. But closing his eyes would have meant total darkness, and it was in that black, empty world that monsters prowled.
Ironic, he thought, that he now lived in that world—and that it was indeed a monster who had put him there.
Over the past three years Vince had tried not to think about the day he’d lost his sight, or at least not to dwell on it. Hindsight could eat you up, even on the small stuff. Going blind was definitely not small stuff. How many people could say, If only I hadn’t opened that door, I would never have lost my eyesight? Of those, how many could actually live with the result—truly live with it, as in live a happy life. Vince was determined to be one of those people.
There had been major adjustments, to be sure. For a time, he’d given up active duty completely to teach hostage negotiation at the police academy. Of all the skills that made a talented negotiator, sight was not chief among them. He was still a good listener, with sharp instincts, common sense, and street smarts. He could still intuit things from a hostage taker’s tone of voice over the phone, or from a mere pause in the conversation. In fact, losing his sight had seemed to strengthen those other, more important skills. Proof of that had come just a few months after his return to work, when, in his first job as a blind negotiator, he’d talked down a homeless guy from a bridge. That feat paled in comparison to the subsequent crisis that had put him in the national spotlight. A delusional and well-armed gunman took four people hostage in a motel and demanded to speak with the mayor’s daughter. One of those hostages was Theo Knight—Jack Swyteck’s best friend. And now Swyteck was returning the favor by defending Jamal Wakefield.
You’re welcome, asshole.
Alicia came up behind him and slid her arms around his shoulders. “Why are you so quiet tonight?”
He took a long pull from his beer bottle, as if to tell her that he was in no mood to talk.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.
“I’ll get a couple more beers,” she said.
“I’m good,” he said.
“Then I’ll get one for myself,” she said as she started toward the kitchen.
It was hard for Vince to imagine life without Alicia, even if he had broken off their relationship after the accident. They’d reunited and then married only after Vince was convinced that there was no pity in those beautiful eyes he could no longer look into. At the first sign that she had stood by him out of sympathy, he would relieve her of that obligation and move on with his life. And he would be happy. That was a solid place to be, emotionally, and it had taken him many months—years—to get there.
The apprehension of Jamal Wakefield had sent him tumbling back to square one.
“I brought you a frosted mug,” she said.
“I said I was good,” he told her.
He heard Alicia put the mug on the coffee table and settle into the rocking chair beside him. “Knock the Biggest Loser–sized chip off your shoulder, Vince.”
She was right, and he knew it. “Sorry.”
“Apology