But it was. The crushing agony knowing I was now…alone.
That I’d left home nearly two months earlier as a happily married man with so many plans for our future, and returned home a crushed widower.
I don’t understand how Case always has the perfect words—or sometimes knows when not to speak—but she’s kept me going.
I still can’t do this without her,and I wouldn’t even try.
Yes, I’ve absolutely told her that, too. And she promised not to leave me. It makes me feel glad in a guilty sort of way that she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend in her life. She never has dated the same guy for long.
I damn sure would never think about teasing her over it now. Especially not when I desperately need her steady strength in my life.
When we pull intothe parking lot, the officers right behind us, I realize it feels weird being here today. Case doesn’t get out or even shut the engine off right away, either.
She knows me.
I stare at the building for a long moment. There are already a couple of cars parked in the lot.
“Am I doing the right thing?” I quietly ask.
She removes her sunglasses and avoids looking me dead in the eye, her gaze focusedon my lips instead. “She’d call you a pussy right now, hon. You know she would.”
I sigh and nod, finally managing a chuckle for her before I glance away. “She would.”
Yes, Ellen would. I can hear her saying it. These two women have always had far more faith and confidence in me and my abilities than I ever had.
Neither ever coddled me. Once we decided I would run for office, Ellen became aformidable political spouse.
“You’re going to keep kicking ass, George,” she says. “There’s a whole laundry list of shit wehaveto get done in her memory. If she was here today, she’d be sitting in the back seat and complaining about us not going in there and kicking ass already.”
“She would.” I pick at the crease on the front of my slacks. “She absolutely would.”
“What do you want her legacyto be?”
Case knows how to duck low, go in hard and fast, and slash a vital artery, retreating before her opponent even realizes they’ve been mortally wounded.
Like me right now.
Except Idoknow it. Not my first dance with her.
Thankfully.
“I want to restore true civility and human kindness to this goddamned state,” I say. “I want to undo the bigoted fuckery enacted in the name of ‘familyvalues.’”
Because it’s exactly what Ellen said when we first started talking about me maybe taking a run for the governor’s office in the next few years. We hadn’t decided yet, though. I wanted to complete my third term as a state senator before committing one way or another. It would have also depended on who my competition would be for the job.
I never expected to land in the job like this.
The “Big G,” as Susa called it during our talks on the island.
And Ellen never knew Aussie’s secret, either.
But Case now knows, because she told her after she told me.
Case keeps her voice low, forcing me to listen. “Then what’s our next step, George?”
I take another sip of my coffee. “I need to quit my whining, get my ass out of this car, and march myself into that fucking office like Iown the goddamned place.”
From my peripheral vision, I see her smirk. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I had Dec stock up on the good coffee for us. And I grabbed your Xanax for you, just in case.”
