I should have predicted it, of course, but I wasn’t prepared for Sam’s vulnerability. He had always been the tough guy. But that day, despite his size, he seemed frail and more than a little frightened.
A few hours after my appointment with Gibbs, Sam and I walked from his home near Community Hospital over to North Boulder Park. He met me outside by the curb. He was carrying a pedometer that he didn’t understand how to use, and he futzed with it continually for a couple of blocks before he cursed at it and stuck it into the pocket of his sweatpants. It was apparent that he had about as much faith in the operation of the thing as he did in the diameter of the opening of his coronary arteries.
I was lugging lunch in a shopping bag that had originally been used to cart home a toaster from Peppercorn on the Mall. Lauren had packed hummus and roasted vegetable sandwiches on flatbread for Sam and me. Dessert was first-of-the-season Clementine tangerines. The beverage was caffeine-free green tea. I considered the homemade meal a special treat. Sam, I was afraid, would consider it evidence of all that was wrong with Boulder.
We did a lap around the park before we chose a place to sit and eat. Boulder was getting one of the latest extended Indian summer sojourns I could recall. The day was glorious.
Once we were seated, Sam didn’t jump to unwrap his sandwich. He had two fingers on the underside of his wrist and his eyes on his wristwatch. “I think I’m okay,” he said.
“That was convincing.”
He chuckled, just a little. What was more interesting to me was that he started downing the hummus and vegetables without complaining about the absence of animal flesh in his meal.
“That Laguna Beach detective has been in touch with the department,” he said between bites.
“What?”
“You know, that Carmen… something. The one you talked to. She reached out to us.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I asked Lucy if any of the detectives had heard anything, she told me somebody had gotten the call. Maybe Danny, she thought. But that’s all I know. I’m a little out of the loop.”
Lucy was Sam’s partner. I didn’t know any detectives named Danny.
“So you don’t know the next step for Detective Reynoso? If she’s coming out here?”
“I don’t know anything. I know less than nothing.” He took another bite of his sandwich. “You make this? It’s pretty good. There’s no cheese in it, right? I’m trying to cut back on cheese. I used to eat a lot of cheese. The French eat a lot of cheese; they’re not fat. I eat a lot of cheese, and I’m fat. I don’t get it. One of life’s mysteries, I guess. And how come so many of life’s mysteries involve the French? Why is that?”
I didn’t have an answer for his French puzzle. “You can thank Lauren for lunch. And no, no cheese. You want to know what’s in it?” He didn’t answer. I started to tell him anyway. “Garbanzo beans, tahini, a lot of garlic-”
“Did I tell you yes? Did I? I don’t want to know what’s in it. It tastes okay, that’s all I care about right now. Tahini? Jeez. I can’t believe I’m eating something called tahini.”
“I’ll tell Lauren you liked it.”
“I’m ready to go back to work,” he proclaimed.
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be a long time until January. I’m going to go stir-crazy. You know, I won’t even be done with this stupid rehab program until Christmas. I only go for a couple of hours three times a week. Why don’t they just let me go straight through for a couple of days, and then I’ll be done with it? Wouldn’t that be more efficient, less stressful? Isn’t that the whole idea, to reduce my stress?”
“They give you any handouts on type A personality, Sam? If they did, you might want to take a minute and read them.”
He grumbled.
I went on. “Attitude is half the battle. Give rehab a chance. And you can use your free time to get into the holidays this year. Make it fun. Decorate the house. Sing Christmas carols.”
“Holidays mean food. Ham and prime rib and pumpkin pie and Christmas cookies and all sorts of stuff I’m not supposed to eat anymore. I can’t even sit around and watch Bowl games and eat crap in front of the TV.”
“There are other things you can do.” I finished peeling a tangerine and tossed it to him.
He missed it.
“You this banal when you’re seeing people in your office, or you save most of your trite shit for your friends?”
I glanced at my watch. “I need to get back to the office. Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
“Maybe I’ll stay here for a while.”
I stood up before I asked, “Things tough with Sherry, Sam?”
“We’ve been here before. We’ll muddle through.” He stopped for a long pause and picked at some dead grass. Colorado ’s prolonged drought meant that there was a lot of dead grass to choose from. “She feels, I don’t know, unfulfilled with me sometimes. I think I understand, kind of.”
“It’s not just the heart thing, though?”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“How do you feel? About things with Sherry?”
He didn’t answer. He pulled himself slowly to his feet and walked beside me as I crossed the park. I matched his pace, wondering whether it was his wounded heart, literally, or his wounded heart, figuratively, that was slowing his progress across the wide lawn.
We spoke little until we got to his door. I went inside with him to use his bathroom before I drove the short way back to my office.
When I’d finished washing my hands, I stepped into his tiny kitchen to say good-bye. He was slumped over at the counter with his head in his hands.
“Sam? You okay?”
He didn’t look up. With his elbow he slid a single sheet of floral paper in my direction. I could see it was covered in a tiny, neat script.
He said, “It looks like Sherry’s gone. She took Simon to see his grandparents.”
“For Thanksgiving? In Minnesota?”
He looked up, finally. His eyes were red. “I guess. I imagine I’ll be alone for the holidays.”
“What does it say? You guys haven’t talked about this?”
“Talking’s overrated. I think she’s taking a break from me.”
“Sherry’s leaving you?”
He picked up the paper and shoved it into his pocket. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
The shock I felt was seismic. I couldn’t imagine the effect of the quake on Sam’s recovery.
“She loves me. That’s not it, Alan. I’m not a hundred percent sure what it is, but it isn’t that.”
“Sam, I-”
“Go back to work. I think I want to be by myself for a while,” he said.
My feet were stuck to the linoleum.
“Go on. I need the practice,” he said.
He meant practice being by himself.