The sunshine was brilliant as it poured down on the crowd gathered in front of the 2nd Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department. A podium with the department’s seal was positioned at the top of the concrete stairs near the lobby doors.
Tommy hung up her phone as the chief gestured for her to join him at the podium.
Sandoval had called. Her job was saved. They were going to cut a copy editor job and a reporter job and keep the photographers on staff. Tommy felt guilty until Sandoval said the two people who were leaving already had jobs lined up with the other newspaper in town.
The police chief guided Tommy by her elbow until she was standing right beside him. Tommy had rarely in her life ever felt so uncomfortable. She was facing all of her colleagues from the other side of the podium for once. They were all staring at her, some with malevolent looks, holding their microphones aloft and pens poised above notebooks. So, this is what it feels like to be on the other side? Tommy thought. She didn’t like it. Although not a word had been spoken yet, Tommy felt her face redden just from being up in front of the crowd. Darn my Irish skin, she thought.
Finally, the press conference started, drawing attention from her and to the speaker. Suddenly in the back of the crowd, toward the parking lot, she saw him.
Kelly.
He looked sheepish and was staring at her intently. She quickly looked away, but then couldn’t help but turn and look back toward him. He was mouthing something. Then she figured it out. He was saying “Sorry.”
Again, Tommy quickly averted her glance. What the hell? How was she supposed to respond to that? But she couldn’t help but look back at him. Kelly tilted his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. Then he put puts both his hands together in a praying gesture and mouthed something else: “Forgive me? Please?”
Tommy gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Maybe.
Then, Kelly pointed to his eye, then to his chest, then to her. The child’s game of saying “I love you.”
He’d never said it before. Tommy’s heart caught in her throat and this time she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was watching her response intently; his eyes seemed desperate and pleading. The words of the chief were distorted, noise in a distant background. Tommy hasn’t heard a word. But apparently, the chief had introduced her because suddenly he stepped aside and gestured to her, right when she was making a signal back to Kelly: I love you, too.
She has just pointed to her heart and held up her two fingers: “Me, too” when everyone in the audience looked her way. All eyes were on her and her deepening blush as she approached the mic on the podium.
“Thank you, Chief. And thanks for coming everyone. It feels awfully strange being on this side, so I’ll keep this short. I want to publicly apologize to Tim Bender’s family for the pain they have gone through … I vow to never again take the power of the press so lightly. Believe it or not, journalists get into this work not for the money, but because we truly think we can help people. I did not help Mr. Bender and caused irreparable harm. I’m deeply ashamed and hope he will someday forgive me.”
Tommy looked into the audience. The members of the press were bored. She heard one reporter say, “Yada yada, let’s get to the arrest.”
Upon hearing this, Tommy faltered. But then she saw Kelly in the back giving her the thumbs up so she continued.
“As I said, not all of us, but most of us who got into this gig called journalism didn’t do it for the money. Most of us did it because we truly in our heart of hearts believe we can do some good. Let’s never lose sight of that.”
Clamping her lips together, Tommy backed off from the microphone and blended into the crowd of dignitaries behind her. She saw Cameron Parker clapping and she was eternally grateful for that. The rest of the press just stared, bored.
The chief took over and announced the arrest of Sgt. Laughlin. The chief spent the rest of the press conference talking about measures the police department was taking to ensure that officers had adequate access to mental health counseling and that recruits to the department would have to undergo more extensive psychological evaluations from here on out.
Later on, after all the reporters had left, Tommy packed up her bag and headed down the stairs for the parking lot. Mr. Bender was waiting near her car.
“I saw the press conference,” he said and then met her eyes. “I just wanted to say apology accepted.”
Tommy’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you. That means more than I can say.”
He nodded with his lips pushed together as if he had more to say, but had decided against it. Then, he turned and walked away.
Across the parking lot, Tommy noticed someone else. It was Detective Kelly leaning against the hood of his car. He walked over when she saw him.
“What was that about? Everything okay? I saw him hanging out by your car so I figured I’d better stick around in case he was going to cause some trouble.”
“No. No, trouble,” Tommy said, swiping at her tears.
“Okay. Good.”
There was an awkward silence as Tommy and Kelly stared at one another. A whole conversation took place in just a few seconds. Then Kelly broke the spell.
“I’ve got tickets to the Twin’s game tonight. Seven o’clock. You interested?”
Tommy smiled and nodded.
“Okay then, see you tonight.”
He began to walk away and then turned back. “I meant what I said back there during the press conference.”
“Me, too,” Tommy said softly.
Back at the office, Tommy put the finishing touches on her project about halfway homes and how mental illness affects families.
It was a photo essay and would feature her favorite shots: The mentally ill grandmother hugging a stuffed bunny as she sat in a wheelchair reading a book to her granddaughter. The parents of a mentally ill teenager on their knees in a small chapel praying that their son get medication to help him live a normal life. The hardworking manager of a group home supervising meal preparation in a busy kitchen at the house, directing house members to chop, stir, and boil dinner fixings.
Each picture told a story about how mental illness affects more than just the mentally ill person.
After giving the project one last glance, she sent it off to the photo editor who would get it ready for Sunday’s paper.
Before leaving her desk, Tommy once again eyed a tiny scrap of paper in her notes. It was the phone number of the mentally ill group home where she had been spending time.
During her visits, Tommy had talked a lot to the manager, a man named Roland, who was in charge of supervising dinner preparations. During her time with him, Roland had mentioned that state funding for his house had been cut and he was so short on staff that he hadn’t seen his kids in three days. If only he had someone who could fill in for a few hours so he could go home, have dinner with his family, and then tuck his kids into bed, he said, his life would be so much easier.
“I’d have that much more energy to help these guys back at the house, but the state is not funding a second position anymore. My wife is great, totally supportive of what I’m doing, but it’s still a bit rough on my sons. They don’t understand why I miss every single dinnertime. If I could only be home a couple nights a week, I think they would be happier. Right now, they are acting up and giving their mother a ration of grief. Hopefully one day they’ll understand and see me as a role model, as an example.”
Remembering this, Tommy punched in Roland’s number. She had checked with her editor and by coming in a bit earlier some days and staying a bit late on others, she could carve out enough time to fill in one night a week so Roland could take a break and go home to his family.
“Tommy St. James, you are an angel,” Roland said, when she made the offer. “However, I’m only going to accept it on one condition.”
Tommy was baffled. “Okay, what’s that?”
“That you come over and meet the wife and kids and have a family dinner with us. My wife makes a mean pork roast and her mashed potatoes are to die for.”
“You had me at mashed potatoes.”
After she hung up the phone, Tommy’s hand rested on the smooth black plastic for a long time as she thought about the twists and turns her life had taken over the past two months. She looked around the newsroom — at the hustle and bustle of reporters on deadline—and smiled. She was right where she belonged.
She was home.