Beyond the Blue, page 28
“For me? Definitely. But for you? Absolutely not.” Peering up, Morgan found Gilland’s normally pinched features gazing at her openly. “This isn’t you. You love love, Lieutenant. You’re a complete sap, there’s no two ways about it.”
“Geez, c’mon, kicking me when I’m down?”
“These are not insults, these are facts. You’re a loving person who enjoys loving others. It’s part of what makes you an excellent detective. You just…get people. And people are so drawn to you, you don’t even see it.” Gilland sat up straight. “Everywhere you go, you leave a place better than you found it. I’m sure that’s fucking exhausting and I do think you deserve a break once in a while. But not like this. You’re too good for this.”
Firmly put into her place, Morgan sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Was ‘reading me the riot act’ on the schedule?”
Gilland smiled. “No, but I can pencil it in.”
“That’s all right, you’ve made your point.” Breathing out hard, Morgan screwed her eyes shut and attempted to ingest what Gilland told her. She was right about all of it, annoyingly enough. Keeping these walls up exhausted her. The waitress arrived with her beer, setting it down gently on the table. “Sorry, miss, would you mind taking this back? I’ll pay for it. In fact, I’d love to buy a round for the staff, if that’s possible. And instead, may I have one of those amazing fig and goat cheese flatbread pizzas?”
Perplexed but compliant, the waitress shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Can I get you something else to drink?”
“A water would be amazing, thank you.” Morgan paused. “Is the blue-raspberry lemonade only for children?”
The waitress laughed, shaking her head. “I’m sure I can sneak one out for you.”
“You’re a legend,” Morgan replied, grinning back. As the waitress left with the beer, Gilland gave her a nudge under the table. “I’ll try not to be so sad all the time. I just miss her.”
“Well,” Gilland started, turning the schedule around and pushing it toward Morgan. “She is doing a panel at four.”
And there it was, in plain black ink on soft white paper: DR. MEI SHARPE—THE EVOLVING SCIENCE REGARDING TIME OF DEATH ANALYSIS
“Anyway, I’m not saying storm into that panel in some gross romantic gesture. However, if you wanted to see her? Maybe…test the waters of how it makes you feel? Could be worth it.”
“Plus, this panel is sure to be the best one of them all,” Morgan replied, shrugging. “Worth it just for the knowledge, to be fair.”
“Yes, dork, it’s also worth it for the knowledge.”
Skulking in a crowded hallway, Morgan waited until a large group of people entered the conference room before she followed suit. Taking a seat in the back, she waited with restless energy for the talk to start. The conversation around her mostly centered on other panels, but a few people spoke on their excitement for hearing Mei speak. It warmed her heart and made her proud, despite having no claim to Mei’s intelligence or success. Mei deserved these accolades, even if she didn’t think so.
A fellow medical examiner from Quantico introduced Mei, listing her impressive credentials and other papers Mei wrote on several key elements of forensic examination. When she walked in stage, Morgan held her breath. She looked tired. Stunning, of course, gorgeous and poised, dressed in a casual, black suit with a baby blue button-down shirt. A vibrant color for Mei, she thought affectionately, remembering her closet of neutrals. But, despite that, she looked tired. Her posture held weight to it, her voice not its usual bell-perfect tone. Who cared for her, now that Morgan could not? Who looked her in the eyes and told her to get some sleep, and really meant it?
See how it makes you feel, Gilland had said. How did she feel? Like she had an ache in her bones; like the night before you come down with the flu and just existing costs energy. Did Mei feel that way too? Did she miss Morgan in the same full-body way Morgan missed her?
Morgan had a lot of questions and none of them appropriate for the half-hour Q and A following the talk. No cool way to ask, “Hey, are you still in love with me?” in the middle of a professional conference, though the sap in her considered it. Instead, she watched Mei hastily make for the exit with her papers tucked into a slim briefcase.
She toyed with the idea of trying to find Mei in the hallways but decided against it. Seeing Mei fatigued her, and now all she wanted to do was sink into her hotel bed and shut the world off for a while. She didn’t expect all her feelings to rush back at her at once in overwhelming waves of longing and affection. But there they were, these feelings she’d buried, bursting out of their graves like malcontent zombies.
Back in her room, Morgan sunk into her pillow and conjured Mei in her mind. She imagined meeting eyes with her in the conference; would she get that look in her eyes that she used to get when spotting Morgan across the room? Like she’d finally found what she’d been searching for? Or would she be angry? Or worse, disinterested? Sniffling, Morgan let hot tears roll off her cheeks and onto the pillow, soaking into the starchy white cotton.
Morgan didn’t like to cry. As a child, her mother detested her crying and would often dole out a punishment to get her to stop. When she was good, smiling and happy and nice, her mother lavished her with attention. So she internalized early on that crying got you nothing, but kindness could get you attention. And, sometimes if you were really lucky, kindness got you love.
But she deserved this cry. Suddenly, the tears became less about Mei and more about everything else. Her mother, her father, Gemma, the thought of leaving Ruiz and Reyna and moving away…misery compounding misery until she ran out of tears.
She didn’t look up when the door opened and closed, just peered out of the corner of her eye. Gilland strolled in, staring down at her paper. “So that’s all the panels for today. Do you want to get dinner? There’s a place nearby that—” She looked up, stopping short. “Oh, shit.”
“Sorry,” Morgan said, rubbing her face. “I sort of started letting it all out.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” Gilland tossed the paper on a desk in the corner. “I’ll order us dinner into the room tonight. Shitty Italian or shitty Mexican? Or, halfway decent diner breakfast-for-dinner? Capital of the damn country, you’d think the dining might be better than what I used to eat in Nowheresville, Ohio.”
“You’re from Ohio?”
“Yeah, don’t spread that around. People either hate Ohio or start talking to me about football, and in both instances I’d rather cut off my own foot,” Gilland replied, perusing the takeout menus the hotel provided. “I’ll try to find the least offensive cuisine.”
“Thanks.” Sniffling, Morgan grabbed a towel and a robe. “I’m gonna finish this cry in the shower.”
“Good call.”
Morgan heard a knock on the door over the sound of her shower. Dinner, she thought hopefully, and she quickly rinsed out the hotel conditioner. Wrapped in a robe, she emerged into their room, ready to pig out. But instead of finding delicious food, she found only Gilland on the floor doing push-ups in sweatpants and a loose-fitting T-shirt.
“Dang, that wasn’t the food?”
“No, that was Mei.”
Morgan paused. “I’m sorry, that was what?”
“Dr. Mei Sharpe.”
“And you…” Swiveling her head back and forth between the door and Gilland, she nearly yelled, “And you didn’t let her in?”
“She didn’t want to come in!” Pushing off the floor, Gilland stood up and shrugged. “She asked where you were, I said you were in the shower. She thanked me and she left.”
If not firmly attached by her optic nerve, Morgan’s eyes might’ve shot straight across the room. “What? You answered the door looking like that, and told her I was in the shower? Oh my god.”
“What?” Gilland looked at herself, trying to see what Morgan saw. “I was doing my bodyweight circuits, is that a crime?”
Shoving on her hotel-issued slippers, Morgan wrapped her robe tighter around her waist. “No, Gilland, it looks like we had sex. You’re sweaty and basically in loungewear and I was in the shower.”
“Ew, gross. I’m not even your type. I was born way after Desert Storm.” Gilland snickered to herself until finally Morgan’s unrelenting look of ire made her clamp up. “Shit, sorry. Uh, you can probably catch her? She literally just left.”
“Jesus, lead with that next time!”
Sprinting out of the room, she headed straight for the elevator and smashed the button. A glance up revealed it was in the lobby, and Morgan did not have the patience to wait for this ancient elevator to rise again. Bursting through the stairwell door, Morgan padded down four flights of stairs as quickly as she could without wiping out in her slippers, which severely lacked tread.
Outside, Morgan flinched at the humid swamp heat. Near the curb stood a slender woman in a black suit with her back turned, her cocoa hair pinned up into a bun, rolling a suitcase behind her with a briefcase strapped to the top. Morgan’s belly swooped.
“Hey, Mei! Wait up!” Sweating and breathing heavily, Morgan nabbed her elbow and turned her around. “Mei, hey! Uh-oh.”
“Can I help you?” the woman, not Mei, asked in a clipped voice.
“Oh, geez, I’m so sorry. You looked…” Morgan withdrew her death grip on the woman’s elbow. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Someone else you were going to accost in your bathrobe?”
Ducking her head sheepishly, Morgan had no response as the woman huffed and turned, getting into her taxi with more haste. As the door closed and the taxi pulled away, Morgan’s heart dropped. She’d missed her. Mei came to see her and they missed each other.
Then, Morgan heard her name. Looking up like a dog who’d heard a whistle, she glanced around and spotted Mei halfway in a taxi, three cars down from where she stood. “Morgan?”
“Mei!” Jogging over to her, Morgan breathlessly stopped in front of Mei and her taxi. “Hey, wait, don’t go. It’s not…it’s not what you think.”
“Morgan, you’re in a robe.”
“The shower is not a sex thing,” she blurted out, panting.
Mei froze. “What?”
“It’s not a sex thing. It’s not like a ‘we had sex so I’m taking a shower’ thing. I was in the shower because I was crying,” Morgan explained in a rush.
“Oh. That’s fine. You have a life to live. I didn’t leave because I thought you—I’m not here to police what you do with your body. It’s—”
“I’m not sleeping with Gilland, nor with anyone else,” Morgan interrupted in a soft voice. “You didn’t have to leave.”
“Well, I did. I have a flight to catch.”
The taxi driver shouted at them to hurry up and Morgan scowled in his direction, taking Mei’s suitcase out of the trunk and slamming it closed. Holding the handle of the rolling suitcase, Morgan impatiently asked, “Why are you here?”
“I was invited to speak at a panel,” Mei replied stiffly.
“I know. I was there.”
“You were?”
“Yeah,” Morgan admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “I snuck in and sat in the back. It was a great talk.”
“Thank you,” Mei replied, lifting a small smile.
“Anyway, I meant more…why did you come to see me?”
Mei stubbed the ground with the toe of her shoe. “I wanted to see how you were.”
“As you can tell by my crying in the shower, I’m great.” Morgan scoffed.
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to see me and I don’t blame you for that. You don’t owe me anything.”
“No, I don’t.” Morgan’s voice was stern. “I hope you aren’t here to ask to be friends.”
Mei chuckled feebly. “Oh, god no. I think it’s well established we make good friends, but we are inevitably much, much more than that.”
“Yeah.” Crossing her arms over her chest protectively, Morgan shrugged. “So, what do you want?”
“I—” Whatever words were coming to Mei, they ultimately failed her. Morgan’s hope began to deflate. “I don’t know.”
Morgan sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. “Right. So, you came to tell me nothing changed.”
“No, I—”
“You what? Nothing’s changed, Mei. You don’t know what you want, or you do and you’re too scared to admit it.” Wearily, Morgan held back tears, managing to hold on to her composure by the tips of her fingers. “I started seeing a therapist a few weeks ago, before I got the call about the interview. I’ve been…I’ve been drinking a lot and I caught myself contemplating suicide and realized I need to change before I end up like my mother and blow my brains out.”
“Oh, Morgan.” What Morgan wouldn’t have given to give in to Mei’s comfort, to let her wrap her arms around her and tell her it was okay.
“That’s obviously not your fault, so don’t think this is me blaming you for that. I just never got that close before, and it was scary.”
“I’m sure.”
“Part of my therapy is coming to terms with…who I am, and who my mother was, and why she—why she killed herself. Why she left me. Well, not that, not really, but I’m starting to understand it’s not my fault.” Morgan didn’t quite believe that yet, but she was getting there. Clearing her throat, she moved on. “But, uh, the rest of it is you know, me talking about my other fun trauma or how I’m pretty bad at loving myself. Some of it is about you.”
“I talk about you with my therapist too,” Mei said softly.
Morgan’s eyes widened in surprise. “Good for you. I mean, for seeking help, not for talking about me.”
“Yes, well, she told me not to do this. Not to see you, to jeopardize the progress I’m making, but I—I couldn’t stop myself. I have to apologize to you. I’m so sorry for what happened. I’m sorry I ever made you feel like you weren’t loved. Because you were. You are.” Tears slipped down Morgan’s face, and she glanced away from Mei. “I need you in my life, and I guess I came here hoping you want me in your life too.”
Agonizing silence followed, punctuated only by insistent taxi honking. Wiping her tears on her sleeve, Morgan let out a sad laugh. “That’s the only thing I ever wanted.”
Hope passed through Mei’s eyes like sand through outstretched fingers. “But?”
“But you’re not ready yet. I can see you’re still scared.” As usual, Mei appeared to take this as an affront, as she often did when Morgan presumed to know how she felt. “What we have is…it’s extraordinary. Looking at you now, Mei, it’s like no time has passed at all. It’s taking everything within me not to kiss you right here and start all over again. That’s crazy, isn’t it? That’s…love is wild.”
“It is ‘wild,’” Mei agreed, attempting to smile. “Ruiz called it an inevitable love. For a supposedly hard-ass detective, she is quite soft.”
At this Morgan genuinely laughed. “That’s because you missed all her Spanglish rants about what she was going to do to you after I told her what happened. It was like listening to a very aggressive, homicidal Ricky Ricardo.”
Taking a small step forward, Mei touched the hand Morgan had on her suitcase. “I’m not giving up on us, not as long as you don’t want me to.”
“I’ll be ready when you are.” Morgan shivered despite the intense heat outside and nudged the suitcase toward Mei. “I should go in before I get arrested for flashing our nation’s capital. Have a safe flight home.”
“You too, darling.” Flustered, Mei blushed. “Oh, dear. That’s a reflex. I’m so—”
“Don’t apologize,” Morgan pleaded. “I missed hearing it.”
Smiling softly, Mei nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon.”
Chapter Twenty
Like a lot of widowed spouses, Mei went through the motions after Allan died. Most do, as many pamphlets explained, and it was a natural part of the grieving process. As Mei described it to her therapist, it was like floating underwater. And when you’re suspended in the water, not drowning and not swimming, it’s easy to see the others floating alongside you. Some struggle to reach the surface, the fighters who refuse to drown. Others, like Mei, content to swim down. The water carried them along and the movement mimicked living. And while existential and metaphorical, Mei also understood the science. We do not measure life in movement; even the most desolate, barren planets spin on their axes and orbit a star. They move, but they do not live, nor contain life. Life is measured in energy, in combustion, in change. Life is moving, not being moved.
Now, at this juncture in time, Mei was being moved again. She took off her shoes at the security check, placed her items in a plastic bin. She stood while a machine puffed air into her clothes as a woman waved a wand over her outfit. She gathered her things from the bin and returned them to her person. She waited. She boarded her flight. She sat in her assigned seat. She ate a complimentary bag of pretzels and drank a ginger ale. She thanked the flight attendant. She stared out the window of a taxi. She unpacked, started her laundry, made something resembling dinner, and ate it in her bedroom in front of the television.
Then, on Monday morning, she called out sick for the first time in years. After requesting the week off, Mei put down her phone and didn’t look at it again. Approved or not, she intended on staying away from her office. She had work to do, but not the kind for which she’d need a lab coat and a scalpel.
This time, Mei fought the current. She breached the surface and breathed deeply.
With fresh eyes, Mei wandered through all the rooms of her house. Her home had become a museum to a life she no longer lived. Allan’s office left untouched, even the glasses he refused to wear sat on his desk waiting for him to pick them back up. His side of the closet remained packed with clothes. The old, ratty sneakers he used for lawn care sat parked by the front door, tremendous in size. Mei and Allan were frozen in this home. Except Allan didn’t know and couldn’t change it. But Mei could.
“Geez, c’mon, kicking me when I’m down?”
“These are not insults, these are facts. You’re a loving person who enjoys loving others. It’s part of what makes you an excellent detective. You just…get people. And people are so drawn to you, you don’t even see it.” Gilland sat up straight. “Everywhere you go, you leave a place better than you found it. I’m sure that’s fucking exhausting and I do think you deserve a break once in a while. But not like this. You’re too good for this.”
Firmly put into her place, Morgan sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Was ‘reading me the riot act’ on the schedule?”
Gilland smiled. “No, but I can pencil it in.”
“That’s all right, you’ve made your point.” Breathing out hard, Morgan screwed her eyes shut and attempted to ingest what Gilland told her. She was right about all of it, annoyingly enough. Keeping these walls up exhausted her. The waitress arrived with her beer, setting it down gently on the table. “Sorry, miss, would you mind taking this back? I’ll pay for it. In fact, I’d love to buy a round for the staff, if that’s possible. And instead, may I have one of those amazing fig and goat cheese flatbread pizzas?”
Perplexed but compliant, the waitress shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Can I get you something else to drink?”
“A water would be amazing, thank you.” Morgan paused. “Is the blue-raspberry lemonade only for children?”
The waitress laughed, shaking her head. “I’m sure I can sneak one out for you.”
“You’re a legend,” Morgan replied, grinning back. As the waitress left with the beer, Gilland gave her a nudge under the table. “I’ll try not to be so sad all the time. I just miss her.”
“Well,” Gilland started, turning the schedule around and pushing it toward Morgan. “She is doing a panel at four.”
And there it was, in plain black ink on soft white paper: DR. MEI SHARPE—THE EVOLVING SCIENCE REGARDING TIME OF DEATH ANALYSIS
“Anyway, I’m not saying storm into that panel in some gross romantic gesture. However, if you wanted to see her? Maybe…test the waters of how it makes you feel? Could be worth it.”
“Plus, this panel is sure to be the best one of them all,” Morgan replied, shrugging. “Worth it just for the knowledge, to be fair.”
“Yes, dork, it’s also worth it for the knowledge.”
Skulking in a crowded hallway, Morgan waited until a large group of people entered the conference room before she followed suit. Taking a seat in the back, she waited with restless energy for the talk to start. The conversation around her mostly centered on other panels, but a few people spoke on their excitement for hearing Mei speak. It warmed her heart and made her proud, despite having no claim to Mei’s intelligence or success. Mei deserved these accolades, even if she didn’t think so.
A fellow medical examiner from Quantico introduced Mei, listing her impressive credentials and other papers Mei wrote on several key elements of forensic examination. When she walked in stage, Morgan held her breath. She looked tired. Stunning, of course, gorgeous and poised, dressed in a casual, black suit with a baby blue button-down shirt. A vibrant color for Mei, she thought affectionately, remembering her closet of neutrals. But, despite that, she looked tired. Her posture held weight to it, her voice not its usual bell-perfect tone. Who cared for her, now that Morgan could not? Who looked her in the eyes and told her to get some sleep, and really meant it?
See how it makes you feel, Gilland had said. How did she feel? Like she had an ache in her bones; like the night before you come down with the flu and just existing costs energy. Did Mei feel that way too? Did she miss Morgan in the same full-body way Morgan missed her?
Morgan had a lot of questions and none of them appropriate for the half-hour Q and A following the talk. No cool way to ask, “Hey, are you still in love with me?” in the middle of a professional conference, though the sap in her considered it. Instead, she watched Mei hastily make for the exit with her papers tucked into a slim briefcase.
She toyed with the idea of trying to find Mei in the hallways but decided against it. Seeing Mei fatigued her, and now all she wanted to do was sink into her hotel bed and shut the world off for a while. She didn’t expect all her feelings to rush back at her at once in overwhelming waves of longing and affection. But there they were, these feelings she’d buried, bursting out of their graves like malcontent zombies.
Back in her room, Morgan sunk into her pillow and conjured Mei in her mind. She imagined meeting eyes with her in the conference; would she get that look in her eyes that she used to get when spotting Morgan across the room? Like she’d finally found what she’d been searching for? Or would she be angry? Or worse, disinterested? Sniffling, Morgan let hot tears roll off her cheeks and onto the pillow, soaking into the starchy white cotton.
Morgan didn’t like to cry. As a child, her mother detested her crying and would often dole out a punishment to get her to stop. When she was good, smiling and happy and nice, her mother lavished her with attention. So she internalized early on that crying got you nothing, but kindness could get you attention. And, sometimes if you were really lucky, kindness got you love.
But she deserved this cry. Suddenly, the tears became less about Mei and more about everything else. Her mother, her father, Gemma, the thought of leaving Ruiz and Reyna and moving away…misery compounding misery until she ran out of tears.
She didn’t look up when the door opened and closed, just peered out of the corner of her eye. Gilland strolled in, staring down at her paper. “So that’s all the panels for today. Do you want to get dinner? There’s a place nearby that—” She looked up, stopping short. “Oh, shit.”
“Sorry,” Morgan said, rubbing her face. “I sort of started letting it all out.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” Gilland tossed the paper on a desk in the corner. “I’ll order us dinner into the room tonight. Shitty Italian or shitty Mexican? Or, halfway decent diner breakfast-for-dinner? Capital of the damn country, you’d think the dining might be better than what I used to eat in Nowheresville, Ohio.”
“You’re from Ohio?”
“Yeah, don’t spread that around. People either hate Ohio or start talking to me about football, and in both instances I’d rather cut off my own foot,” Gilland replied, perusing the takeout menus the hotel provided. “I’ll try to find the least offensive cuisine.”
“Thanks.” Sniffling, Morgan grabbed a towel and a robe. “I’m gonna finish this cry in the shower.”
“Good call.”
Morgan heard a knock on the door over the sound of her shower. Dinner, she thought hopefully, and she quickly rinsed out the hotel conditioner. Wrapped in a robe, she emerged into their room, ready to pig out. But instead of finding delicious food, she found only Gilland on the floor doing push-ups in sweatpants and a loose-fitting T-shirt.
“Dang, that wasn’t the food?”
“No, that was Mei.”
Morgan paused. “I’m sorry, that was what?”
“Dr. Mei Sharpe.”
“And you…” Swiveling her head back and forth between the door and Gilland, she nearly yelled, “And you didn’t let her in?”
“She didn’t want to come in!” Pushing off the floor, Gilland stood up and shrugged. “She asked where you were, I said you were in the shower. She thanked me and she left.”
If not firmly attached by her optic nerve, Morgan’s eyes might’ve shot straight across the room. “What? You answered the door looking like that, and told her I was in the shower? Oh my god.”
“What?” Gilland looked at herself, trying to see what Morgan saw. “I was doing my bodyweight circuits, is that a crime?”
Shoving on her hotel-issued slippers, Morgan wrapped her robe tighter around her waist. “No, Gilland, it looks like we had sex. You’re sweaty and basically in loungewear and I was in the shower.”
“Ew, gross. I’m not even your type. I was born way after Desert Storm.” Gilland snickered to herself until finally Morgan’s unrelenting look of ire made her clamp up. “Shit, sorry. Uh, you can probably catch her? She literally just left.”
“Jesus, lead with that next time!”
Sprinting out of the room, she headed straight for the elevator and smashed the button. A glance up revealed it was in the lobby, and Morgan did not have the patience to wait for this ancient elevator to rise again. Bursting through the stairwell door, Morgan padded down four flights of stairs as quickly as she could without wiping out in her slippers, which severely lacked tread.
Outside, Morgan flinched at the humid swamp heat. Near the curb stood a slender woman in a black suit with her back turned, her cocoa hair pinned up into a bun, rolling a suitcase behind her with a briefcase strapped to the top. Morgan’s belly swooped.
“Hey, Mei! Wait up!” Sweating and breathing heavily, Morgan nabbed her elbow and turned her around. “Mei, hey! Uh-oh.”
“Can I help you?” the woman, not Mei, asked in a clipped voice.
“Oh, geez, I’m so sorry. You looked…” Morgan withdrew her death grip on the woman’s elbow. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Someone else you were going to accost in your bathrobe?”
Ducking her head sheepishly, Morgan had no response as the woman huffed and turned, getting into her taxi with more haste. As the door closed and the taxi pulled away, Morgan’s heart dropped. She’d missed her. Mei came to see her and they missed each other.
Then, Morgan heard her name. Looking up like a dog who’d heard a whistle, she glanced around and spotted Mei halfway in a taxi, three cars down from where she stood. “Morgan?”
“Mei!” Jogging over to her, Morgan breathlessly stopped in front of Mei and her taxi. “Hey, wait, don’t go. It’s not…it’s not what you think.”
“Morgan, you’re in a robe.”
“The shower is not a sex thing,” she blurted out, panting.
Mei froze. “What?”
“It’s not a sex thing. It’s not like a ‘we had sex so I’m taking a shower’ thing. I was in the shower because I was crying,” Morgan explained in a rush.
“Oh. That’s fine. You have a life to live. I didn’t leave because I thought you—I’m not here to police what you do with your body. It’s—”
“I’m not sleeping with Gilland, nor with anyone else,” Morgan interrupted in a soft voice. “You didn’t have to leave.”
“Well, I did. I have a flight to catch.”
The taxi driver shouted at them to hurry up and Morgan scowled in his direction, taking Mei’s suitcase out of the trunk and slamming it closed. Holding the handle of the rolling suitcase, Morgan impatiently asked, “Why are you here?”
“I was invited to speak at a panel,” Mei replied stiffly.
“I know. I was there.”
“You were?”
“Yeah,” Morgan admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “I snuck in and sat in the back. It was a great talk.”
“Thank you,” Mei replied, lifting a small smile.
“Anyway, I meant more…why did you come to see me?”
Mei stubbed the ground with the toe of her shoe. “I wanted to see how you were.”
“As you can tell by my crying in the shower, I’m great.” Morgan scoffed.
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to see me and I don’t blame you for that. You don’t owe me anything.”
“No, I don’t.” Morgan’s voice was stern. “I hope you aren’t here to ask to be friends.”
Mei chuckled feebly. “Oh, god no. I think it’s well established we make good friends, but we are inevitably much, much more than that.”
“Yeah.” Crossing her arms over her chest protectively, Morgan shrugged. “So, what do you want?”
“I—” Whatever words were coming to Mei, they ultimately failed her. Morgan’s hope began to deflate. “I don’t know.”
Morgan sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. “Right. So, you came to tell me nothing changed.”
“No, I—”
“You what? Nothing’s changed, Mei. You don’t know what you want, or you do and you’re too scared to admit it.” Wearily, Morgan held back tears, managing to hold on to her composure by the tips of her fingers. “I started seeing a therapist a few weeks ago, before I got the call about the interview. I’ve been…I’ve been drinking a lot and I caught myself contemplating suicide and realized I need to change before I end up like my mother and blow my brains out.”
“Oh, Morgan.” What Morgan wouldn’t have given to give in to Mei’s comfort, to let her wrap her arms around her and tell her it was okay.
“That’s obviously not your fault, so don’t think this is me blaming you for that. I just never got that close before, and it was scary.”
“I’m sure.”
“Part of my therapy is coming to terms with…who I am, and who my mother was, and why she—why she killed herself. Why she left me. Well, not that, not really, but I’m starting to understand it’s not my fault.” Morgan didn’t quite believe that yet, but she was getting there. Clearing her throat, she moved on. “But, uh, the rest of it is you know, me talking about my other fun trauma or how I’m pretty bad at loving myself. Some of it is about you.”
“I talk about you with my therapist too,” Mei said softly.
Morgan’s eyes widened in surprise. “Good for you. I mean, for seeking help, not for talking about me.”
“Yes, well, she told me not to do this. Not to see you, to jeopardize the progress I’m making, but I—I couldn’t stop myself. I have to apologize to you. I’m so sorry for what happened. I’m sorry I ever made you feel like you weren’t loved. Because you were. You are.” Tears slipped down Morgan’s face, and she glanced away from Mei. “I need you in my life, and I guess I came here hoping you want me in your life too.”
Agonizing silence followed, punctuated only by insistent taxi honking. Wiping her tears on her sleeve, Morgan let out a sad laugh. “That’s the only thing I ever wanted.”
Hope passed through Mei’s eyes like sand through outstretched fingers. “But?”
“But you’re not ready yet. I can see you’re still scared.” As usual, Mei appeared to take this as an affront, as she often did when Morgan presumed to know how she felt. “What we have is…it’s extraordinary. Looking at you now, Mei, it’s like no time has passed at all. It’s taking everything within me not to kiss you right here and start all over again. That’s crazy, isn’t it? That’s…love is wild.”
“It is ‘wild,’” Mei agreed, attempting to smile. “Ruiz called it an inevitable love. For a supposedly hard-ass detective, she is quite soft.”
At this Morgan genuinely laughed. “That’s because you missed all her Spanglish rants about what she was going to do to you after I told her what happened. It was like listening to a very aggressive, homicidal Ricky Ricardo.”
Taking a small step forward, Mei touched the hand Morgan had on her suitcase. “I’m not giving up on us, not as long as you don’t want me to.”
“I’ll be ready when you are.” Morgan shivered despite the intense heat outside and nudged the suitcase toward Mei. “I should go in before I get arrested for flashing our nation’s capital. Have a safe flight home.”
“You too, darling.” Flustered, Mei blushed. “Oh, dear. That’s a reflex. I’m so—”
“Don’t apologize,” Morgan pleaded. “I missed hearing it.”
Smiling softly, Mei nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon.”
Chapter Twenty
Like a lot of widowed spouses, Mei went through the motions after Allan died. Most do, as many pamphlets explained, and it was a natural part of the grieving process. As Mei described it to her therapist, it was like floating underwater. And when you’re suspended in the water, not drowning and not swimming, it’s easy to see the others floating alongside you. Some struggle to reach the surface, the fighters who refuse to drown. Others, like Mei, content to swim down. The water carried them along and the movement mimicked living. And while existential and metaphorical, Mei also understood the science. We do not measure life in movement; even the most desolate, barren planets spin on their axes and orbit a star. They move, but they do not live, nor contain life. Life is measured in energy, in combustion, in change. Life is moving, not being moved.
Now, at this juncture in time, Mei was being moved again. She took off her shoes at the security check, placed her items in a plastic bin. She stood while a machine puffed air into her clothes as a woman waved a wand over her outfit. She gathered her things from the bin and returned them to her person. She waited. She boarded her flight. She sat in her assigned seat. She ate a complimentary bag of pretzels and drank a ginger ale. She thanked the flight attendant. She stared out the window of a taxi. She unpacked, started her laundry, made something resembling dinner, and ate it in her bedroom in front of the television.
Then, on Monday morning, she called out sick for the first time in years. After requesting the week off, Mei put down her phone and didn’t look at it again. Approved or not, she intended on staying away from her office. She had work to do, but not the kind for which she’d need a lab coat and a scalpel.
This time, Mei fought the current. She breached the surface and breathed deeply.
With fresh eyes, Mei wandered through all the rooms of her house. Her home had become a museum to a life she no longer lived. Allan’s office left untouched, even the glasses he refused to wear sat on his desk waiting for him to pick them back up. His side of the closet remained packed with clothes. The old, ratty sneakers he used for lawn care sat parked by the front door, tremendous in size. Mei and Allan were frozen in this home. Except Allan didn’t know and couldn’t change it. But Mei could.
