Teri Deketomis stuck her head into Deke’s study, expecting to find her husband sitting or standing while working at his height-adjusted desk. But Deke wasn’t at his desk, nor was he working. He was sitting in an old leather armchair in the corner of the room, his chin resting on his hand. In the background he had one of his favorite albums playing, Johnny Cash’s At San Quentin. Teri’s arrival coincided with the song “A Boy Named Sue.”
Deke straightened in his chair and smiled. “You caught me daydreaming.”
“That’s not a crime,” Teri said.
“Then why do I feel guilty?”
Teri walked across the room, sat on the chair’s armrest, and put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Lily?” she asked.
He nodded. “I was thinking about the day of her christening. Art was so proud. He was crazy about his little girl.”
“I remember.”
“Usually, I don’t look back in time.”
She gave him a squeeze. “I know.” More than anyone, Teri did know.
“I tell myself I don’t have time for introspection. My excuse is I always have a case that needs my full attention. The truth is, I don’t much like looking back to when I was Lily’s age.”
“Given what you went through, that’s understandable.”
“It wasn’t an upbringing I’d wish on anyone.”
Deke had been in the foster care system, going from one placement to another. He tried to bury the past and rarely talked about the parents who had abandoned him, but sometimes his childhood had a way of surfacing with a vengeance. Like today. Because of Lily. For a man like Deke, letting his goddaughter fall through the cracks was a personal failure.
In the background, Johnny Cash seemed to be commenting on that. On a monthly basis, the firm had a Bergman/Deketomis karaoke night. Every so often Deke joined in the festivities, and his standard was always “A Boy Named Sue.” Deke wasn’t much of a singer, but his rendition of that song always got wild applause. Most of his colleagues hadn’t been aware of the song’s existence until they heard him sing it, and now they had even learned the words and loved joining in. Deke believed his coworkers sensed it was personal to him, which it was. He’d felt the same abandonment as the boy named Sue but hadn’t let his crappy upbringing and abandonment dictate the outcome of his life.
Teri gave her husband another squeeze, and Deke felt her love. It always helped to vanquish his shadows more than anything.
“I was an angry kid who made plenty of bad decisions, but was fortunate I didn’t make one that sabotaged my future,” Deke said.
“You beat the odds.”
“That’s for sure,” he said. “Which is why I don’t like to let my inner abandoned kid come out very often. He’s a real downer.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t bottle him up as much as you do.”
“It’s a lot easier to think about my life after the age of twenty-eight.”
Teri’s gaze turned to a prominent photo hanging in Deke’s study that showed him kissing his young bride. She found herself smiling, just as she’d been smiling in the picture.
“Sometimes I still can’t believe the ways things turned out,” he said. “I got the woman of my dreams, two great kids, and an unbelievable career.”
“The woman of your dreams loves hearing that, but also thinks you shouldn’t completely shut out that kid from foster care. He helped make you who you are.”
“Lily made me think about him. She kept calling to that kid in my head.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Carol says the best way I can help Lily is by putting all my efforts into the Welcome Mat case.”
“That makes sense. It’s your forum to take on human trafficking.”
“It makes professional sense. But it feels wrong to not be doing more for Lily. I already made that mistake once.”
“What else could you do?”
“I was thinking of putting up billboards,” Deke said.
“Billboards?”
“You remember how they used to advertise missing kids on milk bottles? I could put billboards up with Lily’s picture, along with the images of a few other children whom we know are being sexually trafficked, and advertise a reward for their safe return.”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“It’s something, at least. And there’s a chance Lily might even see herself up on one of those billboards. If that happens, she’d know she isn’t alone. She’d know someone cares.”
Deke was aware that his own biography was coming out in his words. When he’d been Lily’s age, no one had given a damn about him, but he’d been fortunate in that he’d never had to endure physical or sexual abuse.
“I’ll help you set that up tomorrow,” Teri promised. “But no more ruminating tonight. It’s time you came to bed.”
“How could I refuse the woman of my dreams?”