That night Kelly was working the night shift, so Tommy didn’t even get a chance to cry on his shoulder. She called him once, but he sounded harried and quickly said, “I’ll call you back.”
Shoot. That’s right, Tommy remembered: his unit was on stakeout tonight for a drug raid from some meth house by Lake Calhoun.
Lacing up her tennis shoes, Tommy decided to go running. The empty apartment seemed depressing right then. It was because Tommy realized that she had no one to call. Nobody to talk to about the possible loss of her job. Her obsession with her job had led to this. She had no life. She had no close friends. She’d turned down overtures from other women to hang out. Big mistake. She was lonely and alone. No friends. No family.
She was an orphan. For the most part, she tried not to feel sorry for herself, but on days like today, when she was blue, it got the best of her.
As she stretched on the running path across from her condo, she hastily wiped the tears that were slipping from her eyelids. “Cowboy up, St. James,” she told herself as she began her run. “You’ve got a good life.”
But it sure would help to have some family around. Both her parents were only children and she was an only child. What she wouldn’t give for a sibling or even cousins.
It was times like this that the death of her mother overwhelmed her. Everyone was dead. Her loving mother. Her pathetic father. Her generous grandma who had left her enough money to make a huge down payment on this condo. However, as much as she cherished her condo and its spectacular views of the skyline and river, she would have traded it all in an instant to have her grandma still alive.
An hour later, hot, sweaty and tired, Tommy was back home. She debated taking a shower, but didn’t have the energy. Instead, she pulled a glass out of her kitchen cabinet and reached for a bottle.
Knowing it wasn’t the best way to handle her loneliness and grief, Tommy poured a half glass of scotch and took it out onto her patio. She felt so alone. But in a way, she thought, she’d always felt this way, it just sometimes was disguised or hidden by the busyness of her life. But during the quiet moments, it was always there just below the surface. The loneliness was always there. Even now, in a relationship with Kelly, it was there. She might as well get used to it, she thought with a sigh.
About a mile away, she saw the lights of the Twins stadium. She drained her glass and opened the sliding door to go inside. She’d watch some baseball on TV. That sometimes helped to cheer her up. But deep inside she knew it was just that same noise and busyness that helped mask how she really felt: sad and alone.