I could decorate the nursery. Except she loved decorating Milo’s. That was her thing, not mine.
No. I need to do something for her. Something that reaches her.
I could get her those hiking boots she has been eyeing.
No. Too trivial.
What does Lore even want?
I know she wants me to be more open. She has always said I never talk about my feelings. And she’s right. With what I see at work, with what I deal with, feelings get shoved down fast.
People are always quoting that line about the first forty-eight hours being the most crucial in a missing person case. That part is true. The part they don’t show on TV is the reality. A team does not get one case and work it until it’s solved.
Sometimes we have two active missing people at once. Sometimes three. Sometimes five. And then we have to decide who gets priority. The runaway teenager or the six-year-old. The domestic situation or the homeless vet no one will report missing until winter.
And the brutal truth is that the one who gets priority is not always the one who gets found.
You carry that home with you. You carry all of them home with you. Every face. Every family. Every open door you walk back through with no good news.
What am I supposed to do? Come home and tell my pregnant wife that today we picked wrong?
So, I shut down. I’d rather talk about her day than think about mine.
But she wants all of me. The parts I lock away.
The parts I don’t even like to look at.
Maybe that’s what she needs. Not gifts, flowers or grand gestures.
Me.
The version of me I never let her see.
Only I really don’t want to do that.
What am I supposed to even talk about? I had a good childhood. I have siblings. My parents are still together. Nothing dramatic or tragic. Nothing worth turning into a heart-to-heart.
What would I even say? That I cried when my grandma died? That dad once grounded me for the teacher not updating grades on the weekend?
Yeah. Very deep. Lore is going to be moved to tears over that one.
Maybe I should just do something else. Something safer. Help more around the house. Give her a chance to put her pregnant feet up. Clean. Cook. Fold the never-ending piles of laundry she hates.
I can’t remove the password from my phone. Department policy. She already knows that anyway.
I need something bigger. Something she cannot ignore. I need to show her I regret every second of that night.
The idea hits me so suddenly I sit up in my chair like an idiot who just reinvented marriage.
Drinking.
I can give up drinking.
I am not a drunk, but Lore knows how much I like kicking back with a beer after a shift. She knows it helps me unwind, forget the awful parts of the day, breathe after dealing with things most people don’t even see on TV.
If I give that up, she will understand how serious I am.
She will see exactly how much I regret what happened and what I’m willing to give up to prove it.
