Nine

Sarah looked around as she walked into the big building. Matt had just come off two night shifts. For him, working a twelve-hour shift meant Saturday night stretched into Sunday morning. So being Saturday night, she knew he seldom got off on time, on what was typically the busiest night shift of the week. Therefore, he never knew if he would be at church when his rotation fell that way. He’d said that there were times that he was still working or filling in reports at ten o’clock when church was starting, even though he was “supposed” to get off at seven. Or, if he did get off, he was typically exhausted after working all night, so the alternate was that he would be passed out in bed.

Since she didn’t immediately see him, she hoped he was sleeping because she certainly hoped he wasn’t still working.

Therefore, today she was alone. She couldn’t even sit with Gwen and Lionel because they were still away on vacation. But that was okay.

For the first time in her life, Sarah wanted to come to church, even if she had to sit alone. For the past two weeks, the pastor’s message about God loving people who made bad decisions had been fascinating. At first she’d felt very safe about going to heaven, since the Bible talked about these people having committed major sins like murder and adultery. She’d never killed anyone, and she wasn’t married, so she couldn’t commit adultery. She led a good life, and she was basically a good person.

But at the tail end of last week’s sermon, the pastor had talked about other sins that weren’t so bad. Lying. Cheating. Even speeding or rolling through a stop sign. Most of the people in the congregation had responded with a nervous laugh about that—everyone except Matt. He gave people tickets for those sins. She hadn’t felt bad until the pastor pointed out that heaven was only for those who were as perfect as God, which meant no sins at all, not even the little ones.

Sarah figured she led a pretty good life, but she certainly wasn’t as perfect as God. In their conversation on Friday, before Matt started his first night shift, he’d mentioned that even though he might face death in the line of duty, he didn’t fear dying.

Matt was a good man. Matt was even a wonderful man. But he wasn’t as perfect as God. Yet he said he knew he was going to heaven, without a doubt.

Today, she wanted to hear more. In fact, she thought she’d pay attention better if she didn’t have Matt sitting beside her.

On her journey into the sanctuary, a few people she’d met before welcomed her. Sarah felt good that they recognized her. She chatted for a few minutes then continued on her way. She settled into a corner seat and followed the order of the service just as she had when Matt had been with her. This time, she was a little more familiar with the routine. She could even sing along with two of the songs, which helped ease the feeling of being a stranger. As expected, the pastor’s sermon had her nearly riveted on the edge of her seat as he spoke about how salvation was for everyone who simply believed.

The sermon ended before he could explain exactly what it meant to believe.

And that meant only one thing. Sarah knew she would be back again next week.

A few more people whom she’d met when she was with Matt greeted her on the way out. She even stopped to talk to someone in the parking lot who recognized her from the donut shop, which was a pleasant surprise.

Her tummy rumbled at the same time as the motor of her car roared to a start, making Sarah smile. With the graphic reminder, Sarah drove straight home, intending to make a quick lunch with whatever she had on hand. However, one look at the kitchen stopped her dead in her tracks.

All weekend long, instead of catching up on her housework, she’d been frantically catching up on her homework. For the first time in months, after studying and writing all weekend, she was now ahead on her assignments. Before she realized the state of the rest of her apartment, she thought she could relax. However, she couldn’t do that—she couldn’t even eat until she at least found room on the counter to make herself a sandwich.

Mentally kicking herself, Sarah grabbed an apple to munch. She ate it while she cleaned up the backlog of dirty dishes and scrubbed the counter and sink clean. She was halfway through washing the floor when the phone rang.

A low and very pleasant voice drifted over the line. “Hi, Sarah.”

“Matt? What are you doing awake? What time did you get to bed?”

“I only had to stay an hour late this morning, so I fell asleep about nine.”

Sarah looked at the clock and counted on her fingers. “It’s one now. That means you’ve had only four hours sleep.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve gotten by with less. Besides, I don’t want to sleep all day. What are you doing? Want to do it together?”

Sarah glanced into the living room. It was fairly clean. The biggest mess was her papers strewn about the coffee table, and her current textbook open and face down on the arm of the couch, which seemed to be its permanent place unless she was in class.

With her apartment now tidied up, she should have gone back to her reading, but she’d done enough work for the weekend. For months, all she’d done was work, homework, and housework. She deserved a break.

She smiled into the phone as she spoke. “I didn’t really want to do homework today, anyway. If you’re tired, why don’t you come here, and I’ll make you some nice, fresh coffee.”

“I’d like that. ETA twenty-two minutes. Bye.”

Sarah smiled as she hung up the phone and walked into the kitchen. Matt wasn’t as awake as he thought he was. He may have been at home, but his brain was still half-functioning in cop mode. For that reason, Sarah put an extra scoop of coffee into the machine.

Before he arrived, she finished washing the kitchen floor, then ran around the living room to pick up whatever she could to make it presentable.

The buzzer for the downstairs door went off at the twenty-one-minute mark, giving her just enough time to kick a sock under the couch and ram her homework into the magazine rack.

When she opened the door to let Matt into her apartment, she could see that, just as she suspected, he definitely wasn’t as awake as he claimed to be. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and for the first time since she’d met him, his posture wasn’t perfect military-upright. Yet, just as he had been at church, he was dressed as neat as a pin. He wore fairly new jeans that were spotlessly clean and a nicely pressed, green short-sleeved shirt.

“Hi. That coffee smells good.”

Sarah grinned as she poured two cups, very glad that she’d started her cleaning spree before she knew he was coming. “I know you’re tired, but I would think when you drink so much coffee every day when you work, you wouldn’t touch it on your days off.”

“One can never have too much coffee.”

They sat in the clean living room together, on opposite ends of the couch, sipping coffee in silence. While she’d already learned that Matt tended to be more of a listener than a speaker, Sarah thought today that he was quieter than usual.

“How was your night? Anything exciting or just average?”

He made a very humorless laugh. “There’s no such thing as average. Some things are predictable, like parties and more drunk driving accidents on the weekends, but really, no two days or nights are alike.”

“Tell me about last night, then, as un-average as it was.”

Not that she expected a rundown of his whole thirteen-hour shift, but when a long silence hung between them, Sarah suddenly wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have asked. She knew some of the things he did were confidential, and she now worried that her question was out of line. He’d told her a few of the funny things that happened, like the time a woman thought she had a burglar trapped in the basement. It ended up being a bird that had somehow flown into the house. But she also knew not everything was like that, and many of the things they laughed about were only funny the next day.

She opened her mouth to tell him it was okay, that he didn’t have to tell her, but when she turned to look at him, her words caught in her throat.

Matt slouched forward until his elbows rested in the middle of his thighs. He cradled the mug between both his hands. With his head down, he stared intently into the cup, not looking at her or anything else in the room. As he spoke, his voice skipped. “I attended a really bad MVA last night. A drunk driver crossed the center line. Ran head-on into another car. They called me as first responder.”

He turned the cup, almost as if he were studying the picture on the side, but he didn’t sit upright. Instead, he sighed, then took a long sip from his slouched position and turned all his attention to the contents of the cup as he again cradled it between his palms.

“The other car was a midsized late model. It was a woman and a young boy, about ten or eleven. She must not have been wearing a seat belt because she was thrown clear. It was 5:07 a.m., so not many people were out at that hour on a Sunday morning. When I got there, two people were standing over a woman lying on the road. But I heard crying coming from the car, so I went to the car first. The boy was still seat-belted in the front seat. He was badly hurt. The car was completely crushed. I radioed for a Jaws of Life to come.”

He took another sip of his coffee.

“He was crying. He was pinned, so I couldn’t have moved him even if I had tried. All I could do was hold his hand. He asked if his mommy was hurt, and I told him that she was. He looked up at me with his battered little face and said ‘Tell my mommy I love her.’ And then he died. Right there while I was holding his hand. I was kinda shook up, but I wanted to honor his last request. So I went to where she was laying on the ground, but she was already dead.” His voice skipped. “I was too late to tell that woman her little boy loved her.”

“Oh. . .Matt. . .I’m so sorry. . . .”

He set the mug on the coffee table, and with his elbows still resting on his knees, Matt lowered his face into his palms. “This morning, the sound of kids playing outside woke me up,” he muttered through his fingers. His voice skipped again. “Listening to the laughing and screaming, I could only think of that little boy who loved his mommy, who will never laugh and play again.”

His shoulders heaved. Even though the sound was muffled from his face being covered by his hands, Sarah thought she heard a sniffle.

Just watching him, her heart broke—for the unknown people who had lost their lives and for Matt, the big strong cop with a heart of gold.

She set her cup on the coffee table, shuffled down the couch, rested one palm on his back, and rubbed gently. “I wish there was something I could say or do. Would a hug help?”

Without a word, Matt dropped his hands from his face, turned, and wrapped his arms around her. He’d moved quickly, and for the most part, he’d kept his head down. In the split second she saw his face, Sarah had seen that his eyes were red and, watery and one cheek glistened. He nestled his head in the crook of her shoulder and held on tight.

Slowly, she wrapped both her arms around him and held him just as tight as he held her. His breathing was ragged, so she just held him and rubbed little circles on his back with one hand, without talking, to give him the time he needed.

After having to handle such a thing, she could see why he had trouble sleeping, and especially why he couldn’t go back to sleep, with the sounds of the children playing outside on a warm, sunny, Sunday afternoon. She couldn’t imagine the pain of being in that kind of situation. Sarah found it difficult when one of her fish died. She didn’t know what she would do if she found herself in the same spot with a person, especially a child.

The more she thought about the life he led, the more she realized she couldn’t handle the things he came face-to-face with every day. She’d panicked and fallen apart and let her imagination run away with her after simply witnessing money being exchanged. In order to handle all the various trials and tribulations of law enforcement officers, they would have to be able to build a wall around themselves as a shield against the world. Yet at the same time, they had to be able to handle those situations in the middle of the worst of it, and still be able to help those same people. She didn’t know how they did it.

When Matt’s breathing settled back into a regular pattern, Sarah stopped moving her hand. “Tell you what. Why don’t you come into the kitchen with me? I really haven’t had anything to eat today, and I doubt you have either. We can make supper together, and since you’re going to help make it, you can help eat it too.”

As Matt released his grip around her back, Sarah did the same. He straightened, swiped one hand over his face, and looked straight at her, unashamed of his red eyes.

“Keeping busy sounds like a good idea. I’m not handling this very well. We’re supposed to be able to distance ourselves and maintain an emotional barrier, but sometimes it’s really hard.”

“It’s okay. I understand. I really do.”

Sarah stood, and Matt did likewise. He followed her into the kitchen and waited behind her while she dug everything she needed for her favorite beef tamale casserole out of the fridge. Most Sundays, she made herself a large casserole. Then, over the next few days, she would eat a little bit each day when she got home from class at noon. That would be her supper, or whatever anyone who worked odd shifts called a full meal at lunchtime, which was the end of her day. Typically, she would eat a sandwich during the break that she called lunch just before the working world started coming through the drive-thru at 5:30 a.m. to get their breakfast. She didn’t know what she called breakfast, unless that was the little snack she wolfed down at 11:30 p.m. after she woke up and ran out the door so she wouldn’t be late for the start of her shift at midnight.

She didn’t want to think of Matt’s schedule. At least she worked the same schedule all the time. His changing from days to nights to a longer stretch off in the middle, then back to days again would probably drive most people crazy.

As they worked together, they filled their time with meaningless banter and light conversation. By the time Matt actually laughed at something she said, the sound was like music to her ears.

When everything was complete and the casserole was in the oven, they returned to the living room, where they continued to joke around and even throw pillows at each other until the timer went off.

Sarah placed the whole casserole dish in the center of the table and waited for Matt to help himself first, since he was company. Instead, he folded his hands in front of him and smiled at her. “Before we eat, can we pause for a word of thanks? I have to be honest with you. When we went out to the restaurant, I didn’t suggest it because I didn’t know how you felt about that, especially in a public place. But now that we’ve come to know each other a little better, I think this would be a good start, to pray together.”

Sarah felt her cheeks heat up. She should have known he would be accustomed to praying before supper. Whenever she was with Gwen, Gwen always prayed before they ate. She also knew that Gwen prayed at restaurants, because Gwen always closed her eyes and paused for a few seconds before she ate. Come to think of it, all three times she’d been out with Matt, he’d done the same as Gwen.

“I guess,” she mumbled.

He smiled and bowed his head, leaving his hands, which were already folded together, on top of the table in front of him. “Dear Heavenly Father, I thank You for this meal we’re about to share. Thank You for Your love and all the provisions You give us, and I ask that You bless this time together. Amen.”

“Amen,” she mumbled.

Sarah helped herself to the salad she’d managed to throw together, while Matt went straight for the casserole. She tried not to stare at the amount he heaped onto his plate, thinking that it would take her two days to eat what he had taken for one. But then, Matt was a large man, much larger than the last man she’d dated.

She nearly dropped her fork at the thought.

She wasn’t dating Matt. As much as she liked him, she didn’t intend to date him either.

Today she’d seen a small sample of what he went through as a cop, and it made her think of what else he did from day to day. One of those things was handling criminals. And criminals were dangerous. As sweet as Matt was, he obviously had a side she didn’t see because, in order to survive, he had to be just as rough and mean as the criminals he combated.

“This is really good. I’m not much of a cook, but it seemed pretty easy to make. Can I have your recipe?”

All she could do was stare at him. He was a cop. A tough guy. “You cook?”

He grinned. “I gotta eat, so that means I gotta cook. No one else does it for me, and I can’t live on take-out.”

“I guess. . .”

She scrounged around the kitchen for a pen and paper and wrote out the recipe, which she’d made so many times she had it memorized. While she wrote, Matt helped himself to more of her casserole. “I really like this stuff.”

“I could never tell.”

“You know, if I doubled the recipe, I bet it would last for a couple of days.”

Sarah studied her nearly empty casserole dish, which now only contained enough for a bedtime snack. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah. If I made a salad or something. That was a good idea. I never make salads. I guess it’s not a guy thing.”

He stood and tucked the recipe in his back pocket. Without asking first, he stacked the dishes, gathered the cutlery and glasses, and carried them to the sink.

“What are you doing?”

“The dishes. Your kitchen looked so nice and tidy when I got here, I’d like to leave it in the same condition I first saw it.”

She almost told him that he was a guest, and therefore shouldn’t be in her kitchen, but she stopped herself short. She had struggled to clean up, and she appreciated the help to get it clean once again more than she cared to admit.

“Before we start, let me put the casserole dish in the sink to soak for a few minutes. You go turn on the television, and I’ll be right with you.”

He turned and walked into the living room. Sarah couldn’t believe how much of the doorway he filled on his way through. Even from the back, he was gorgeous—tall, with broad shoulders, yet trim and physically fit. Not only did he look good in his uniform, he also looked good in casual clothes.

She turned and buried her face in her hands at her wayward thoughts. The man was a police officer. It was probably disrespectful to think that way about him, especially after what he’d just been through.

The television clicked on. A few channels flipped by, stopping on an episode of classic Star Trek. Knowing that he was occupied, Sarah dug her cookbook out of the cupboard. While he was watching television, she intended to surprise him by finding another recipe or two that he could make for himself, since he had been so impressed with her simple dinner.

She wrote out three others that she’d tried and liked, doubling the ingredients as she went. As she wrote, she found herself stifling a few yawns. She looked up at the time to realize that it was nearly suppertime for the rest of the world, which meant it was past her bedtime. She had six hours to sleep before she started a full night of work, followed by a half day at the university, which, thankfully, she was fully prepared for.

Sarah rose and walked to the sink about to start washing the few dishes, but she stopped. Matt had offered to help. She didn’t want to offend him by turning him down. Besides, with two people, the job would go twice as fast, and she could get to bed that much sooner.

She walked into the living room to ask him if he wanted to wash or dry. Instead of finding Matt sitting on the couch where she had left him, he was half-sitting, half-lying down. He had positioned himself with his long legs stretched out, one on the couch, the other dangling off. One arm lay draped across his stomach, the remote cradled in his large hand, the other hung limply at his side. His head was at what looked like a very awkward angle, tilted to one side, half on his shoulder and half resting against the back of the couch.

And he was snoring.