Janie clears her throat. “I didn’t want to bother you. It’s not like I even knew him. Well, not really.
He was unconscious the whole time.”
Captain’s sigh comes out like a warning blast from a steam engine. “Stop that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank God Strumheller had sense enough to tell me about the funeral, or you would have been toast.”
“Yes, sir.” Janie’s losing her appetite. “I’m sorry.”
“Good. Now, your father. Let’s talk about him. He was a dream catcher too?”
Janie’s jaw drops. “How did you know?”
“You said so in your testimonial. Between the lines. You said he had issues that people wouldn’t understand, but you understood, or some such thing. Normal folk wouldn’t have guessed what you really meant.”
Janie nods. “I didn’t intend to say that—it just came out. But yeah, he was an isolated dream catcher.”
“Ahh, isolated. Like what you’re considering. Well, no wonder we didn’t know about him,” Captain says. “How did you find out?”
“I went into his dreams.”
“Oh?”
“Uh . . . yeah. Found out some interesting stuff.”
“I’ll bet. And how did you know his UPS driver, Ms. Hannagan? Seems a bit odd that you’ve never spoken to your father, but from what she said in her testimonial, you apparently had a previous conversation with this lady in brown.” Captain takes a bite of her lunch. “What’s that on your thumb? Looks like high school bling right out of the eighties. Mm-hmm. Don’t answer that.”
Janie grins. Her face turns red. “Yes, sir.”
“Quite the detective you are, even when you’re not on assignment.”
“I guess.”
“So. Have you made a decision? What we talked about? The isolation thing?”
Janie sets her fork down. “About that,” she says, a concerned look on her face. “I, uh . . .”
Captain looks Janie in the eye. Says nothing.
“I was going to. I mean, I made a decision.” Janie’s having a terrible time saying it.
Captain’s gaze doesn’t waver.
“And turns out, it’s not going to work out after all.”
Captain leans forward. “Tell me,” she says quietly, but it has an edge to it. “Come on.”
Janie is confused. “What?”
“Say it. For Chrissakes, do it. Share something that goes on in that mysterious brain of yours.
You don’t always have to hold everything in. I’m a good listener. Really.”
“What?” Janie says again, still puzzled. “I just—”
Captain nods encouragingly.
“Okay, I just pretty much found out that Martha Stubin had it wrong. My choices are differenteither I become like her, or I become like him. My dad. He isolated. And his brain exploded.”
Captain raises an eyebrow. “Exploded. Medical term?”
Janie laughs. “Not really.”
“What else?” Captain’s voice loses the edge.
“Well, so I think I’ll just live at home, then. And, I guess, go to school as planned. I mean, it’s a toss-up—blind and crippled in my twenties, dead from a brain explosion in my late thirties. What would you choose? I guess, because I have Cabe, I’ll choose blind and crippled. If he can deal with it, that is.” Janie remembers his dreams.
“Does he know any of this? Any of it at all?”
“Er . . . no.”
“You know what I always say, right?”
“Talk to him. Yeah, I know.”
“So do it, then!”
“Okay, okay.” Janie grins.
“And once things settle down after your terrible week, and you get to feeling good about school, because you will, we’ll talk about you and your job. Okay?”
“Okay.” Janie sighs. It’s such a relief.
They pack up the remains of the lunch.
“Before you go,” Captain says, rolling her chair over to the filing cabinet and opening the middle drawer, “here’s something—if it’s not helpful to you, just toss it. I won’t be offended.” She pulls an orange photocopied paper from a file, folds it, and hands it to Janie. Stands and walks Janie to the door. “And if you ever want to talk about that, you know where to find me. Family. Don’t forget.”
“Okay.” Janie takes the paper and smiles. “Thanks for lunch. And everything.” She stands and heads for the door.
“You’re welcome. Now stop bothering me.” She smiles and watches Janie go.
“Yesss,” Janie says as she runs up the steps to the street level. One hard conversation over.
Goes outside and walks to the bus stop. She opens up the orange paper and squints, reading it.