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She lied.
She lied and like a fool, he'd believed her. Now the girls were gone and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Nothing that didn't involve a capital offense and a twenty to life prison sentence anyway.
Not that he hadn't been tempted to say the heck with it many times over the past six months. But the fact that he wouldn't fare well in an enclosed space with cop-hating inmates kept him from hunting his ex-wife down like a rabid animal.
A week ago, Mark Conroy—his boss and former foster father—sat him down for a heart-to-heart. Grief and anger were affecting Ed's job performance and he was worried. Inability to focus in certain situations had gotten many officers hurt or killed. And not just them but their partners too.
No one blamed him. Life, in the form of a manipulative ex, had dealt him a bad, heart breaking hand. But Ed needed to face facts. Mary and Annie were gone. Much as it hurt, there was nothing he could do about it now. It was time to stop living in the past and move forward with his life as best he could.
On one hand, he knew Mark was right. On the other- It was so hard to let them go.
Two nights ago, he'd finally decided to take the advice. To stop tearing himself up with memories of what he should have done, what he could have done, and what he hadn't done.
After hunting up a dozen boxes, he'd started packing. All of the clothes and toys he'd kept at the apartment for them. All of their cartoon character bedding. All of their books. Everything that reminded him of them would have to go.
Except the pictures. For those, he'd rented a safe deposit box at his bank. Once a year, he'd allow himself to get them, spend one day making himself miserable remembering, and then he'd take them back. Of course, he'd had to keep one out. Just one of them sitting on Mary's bed, dressed in frilly princess nightgowns, freshly scrubbed and ready to visit dreamland. That one, he'd had laminated and tucked it behind his driver's license.
Yesterday, after dismantling the beds and hauling all of the furniture out to the living room, he called the charity. If they could send someone, he had a truckload of children's stuff, all in good condition. They could have it.
This morning though, he broke down and went through the boxes, pulling out Mary's favorite Christmas storybook, something he'd read to her a hundred times or more, along with the doll Annie couldn't sleep without when he had them for his weekends. Those, he couldn't part with either.
The rest?
It was all he could do to keep from throwing the boxes into the truck they'd sent, along with a frail senior citizen driver who couldn't help with most of it. Bad enough he'd had to pack it all up, now he had to literally give it away. It hurt more than he'd ever be able to express. It made him angrier than he'd ever been in his life. And it made him want to hit his knees and sob until the hurt went away.
Except it would never go away. Never.
An hour later, he watched as the old box truck rattled down the road filled to almost overflowing with all of their things. Maybe now he could keep his daughters safely in a part of his heart where they couldn't torture him every second of every day.
With a sigh, he walked back into his now emptier apartment, determined to focus on the future. Instead, he heard the echoes of happier times. Little girl voices chattering from the moment they woke up until they fell asleep at night, exhausted from their busy days. Delighted peals of laughter as they chased each other up and down the halls. Their soft, "I love you, Daddy's," as they cuddled in his lap.
Shaking the memories away, he closed and locked the door, then sat down in his recliner.
What was done was done. There was no going back. No second chances. No matter how much he might wish he could change what had happened, that somehow, he could be given a do-over, he’d been stupid enough to believe the pack of lies he’d been fed. The game was finished. Teresa had won.
He’d read somewhere that a man his age had a life expectancy of seventy-four-point-four years. That meant he only had forty-nine left to fill. To find enough things to keep him so busy he could forget the past seven years. At least part of the time. If he couldn't, he didn't know how he'd survive the next five decades.
During their talk, Mark had a list of suggestions as long as his arm of things Ed could do. From volunteering at a local soup kitchen to taking some courses at the community college.
While he didn't mind donating cash to charities, he wasn't much into the giving of his time right now. Not because the ones he supported weren't worthy causes but because the last thing he needed right now was to see other people going through rough times too. He felt so bad for himself he didn't know if he could find any compassion for others. Not right now.
There was one thing though...
A little league coaching position that had opened up out in Charlotte. The guy who had been doing it had been transferred and they needed a replacement ASAP. He liked baseball. Softball was close enough. And working with a bunch of rowdy teenage boys was bound to be a good distraction. Totally different from what he was used to with the girls-
No. He was done thinking about that part of his life. It was over, time to move on.
Maybe he'd take the job, the unpaid job, and make Mark happy. He might not be the best coach on the planet but he sure had enough spare time and, from what Mark told him, he couldn't do any worse than the other guy had. The team was last in their league.