Miss Willow became a bigger part of their world, often staying over and holding Sara’s hand at three o’clock in the morning, talking, and watching wisps of steam rise from chamomile tea. These impromptu therapy sessions helped Sara sleep through the remainder of the night.
Sometimes.
Sara knew that someday she would emerge from the cocoon of regret and self-doubt as a stronger, take-no-shit person, but for now, the recovery process was doing its job, albeit slowly. But it was better than sitting in a padded room, bound in a straightjacket.
She’d started referring to Jacob as “Little Man,” dropping his first name in an attempt to disassociate him from the memory of his father’s betrayal. Some days, it worked. Some days, it seemed silly to try. So many of his facial features—his smile, the dimples in his cheeks—were all carbon copies of his dad’s, making it difficult to forget and move on. One day.
Teddy, bless his narcissistic, egotistical heart, had returned to his normal self around LightPulse. Offending everyone in proximity, pushing the limits of acceptability, causing two of their strongest employees to quit. He’d stared Death in the face, and had come away from it with a renewed, invigorated sense of being untouchable. Jim had called Sara into his office one afternoon, asking for her counsel on how he should go about firing his own son. She’d talked him out of it, and, as far as she was concerned, she and Teddy were an inch closer to being even.
Besides, when they were on the private side of closed office doors, he treated her with the reverence and respect that had been missing from their professional relationship for so many years. He said ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’. Liked to call her B.C., short for ‘Badass Chick’. She’d stopped calling him ‘Little One’ as promised, and encouraged the rest of the senior staff to do the same. Yet another fraction closer to making up for playing God with his life.
And then, on a wet Saturday in September, she loaded the kids into the minivan, stopped to pick up Miss Willow, and drove to the cemetery.
Sara parked and stepped into the drizzly, gray morning, leaving them behind. The light rain sprinkled her face as she zipped her jacket higher to block the wind, holding the bouquet of lilies and baby’s breath close to her chest. She trudged up the grassy hillside, breeze lifting the hem of her black dress, passing simple plaques with nothing more than a last name jammed into the muddy ground. Markers with elaborate designs carved into the granite. Ornate cherub statues placed by those with enough money, or enough care, to do so.
So much death buried around her. Such little time they all had. How many broken hearts were out there in the world while their loved ones rested peacefully underneath her feet?
She stopped at the gravestone she’d come to see, which was nestled amongst a group of plain gray rectangles with simple designs and simpler lettering. Sara swiped her rain soaked hair from her face, stared at the name carved into the rock. Knelt down close to it.
“You were a good man,” she said, “and it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. But how often do things turn out like they should, you know? I think about you a lot. I wonder about what you’d be doing, where you’d be right now. You’re here because of me, and—and I haven’t figured out how to deal with that yet, but I’ll keep coming back until I do, I promise. Maybe after that, too. See you next week, okay?”
She laid the flowers down at the base of the granite block, read the words as she had so many times before.
DET. JONATHAN JOHNSON
“LOVED AND RESPECTED”
1977-2012
Sara stood, traced her fingers across the top of the gravestone, and walked down the hillside, back to her family.
Back to where they were close.
Close...and safe.
-the end-
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you so much for reading SARA’S GAME. At times, this intense little novel had me holding my breath as I followed Sara’s path, wondering what was going to happen next. Even though I knew who “the bad guy” was going to be early on (and you probably figured it out as well), there were certain plot twists that even I didn’t see coming until I was deep into creating the scene. I’ve written other mystery/suspense novels where the “Ah ha!” moment didn’t come until I was a sentence away from tapping it out on the keyboard (GOING SHOGUN, for instance). I like to think that if a story can surprise the one person that knows where everything
should
be leading ahead of time, it’ll be a fun moment for the reader to experience. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
I take great pride in my work and had a number of readers and a professional editor go over SARA’S GAME before it was published, but the occasional
oops
does occur. If you happen to catch anything and would like to point it out, please feel free to let me know at
[email protected]
. I’ll reciprocate with a gargantuan thank you and sing your eternal praises. (Honestly, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, so the
singing
part may be a bit of a stretch.) Or, if you’d just like to send me a comment, you’re more than welcome. You can also visit my website at
http://www.ErnieLindsey.com
to sign up for my newsletter, check out some poorly drawn cartoons that are certain to elicit an eye-roll or two, and learn more about me and my other works.
Lastly, if you enjoyed SARA’S GAME and would like to support the author, nothing is more effective than word-of-mouth. Please give some thought to posting a review and sharing with your friends and other readers on your social networks.
Thank you!
-Ernie Lindsey, October, 2012