Jill lay still, listening to the silence, watching the shadow of the trees outside her bedroom window. She had been awake for hours.
She rolled over and looked at the time on her iPhone. Six-fifteen. Normally she would’ve been at work by now, but she was on annual leave… yeah, right. She buried her head in the covers. It had been another agonising night of fitful sleep, guilt and loss. At least she hadn’t woken this morning from one of her nightmares. She rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom.
She stood in front of the mirror and examined her body. Six days since Robbie’s death and the weight had fallen off her like melting snow. Yesterday she’d renewed her membership at the local gym, had taken up running again, something she’d let go when she’d started working double shifts. She was hoping to build muscle and improve her physical strength, and who knew, the exercise might help lift her mood.
Jill loved her job but there were times when she dreamed about escaping the life she’d built for herself. What was it her father used to say to her? You could run away from bad situations but not from who you were.
Perhaps he was right to have objected to her joining the force. Had he seen something lacking in her? A trait perhaps, a trait needed to cope with the violence and death she witnessed as a police detective? She sighed. If only Mickey was still alive. If only she had a mother who she could seek comfort from, talk to about how she was feeling. Too many ‘ifs and onlys.’
With a week’s leave ahead of her she’d already decided she wasn’t going to be idle and sit around the apartment moping. Last night she’d gone onto the Sydney Morning Herald’s web site and checked their archives and found the story Katrina Andrel had written on the protest at Callan Park.
This morning she would get back to her habit of beginning each day with a run to the beach, and then home for a shower. And after breakfast, she’d sit in front of her laptop and do some background searches on Robbie’s family. Then, if she was in the mood, she’d listen to her Spanish CDs and practice getting her accent right. So much had happened this past week — Asian gangs, Robbie’s death, the increase in the station’s case loads, Lucy Fletcher, David Cheung’s murder and the sudden disappearance of his family.
She wasn’t looking forward to speaking to the police counsellor. After she’d recovered physically from her ordeal with Kevin Taggart she’d been sent to see her. And now, less than six months later, she would be seeing her again.
She closed her eyes for a minute and asked herself how she would perform this time around when her feelings were under scrutiny? She found herself questioning her judgement. What if Robbie really did commit suicide? It would have all been for nothing.
Jill poured herself a glass of water and returned to her bedroom to get dressed. It had been raining earlier but for now there was a break in the weather. She grabbed her track pants from the corner of the room and found her fleece, running shoes and socks under her bed. She tied her hair up in a high ponytail, grabbed her keys, deadlocked the front door on her way out and ran down the two flights of stairs. She did some stretches before she turned down the road towards Bondi Beach, warming up first with a jog. The streets were wet and deserted; it was still dark and the sun wasn’t due to show itself for at least another fifteen minutes.
Jill had been running steadily for twenty minutes before she pushed herself harder, alternating jogging with short sprints. With the sun creeping over the horizon she ran along the promenade and onto the wide concrete steps to the beach. Her running shoes sank into the powdery sand and slowed her pace. Her thighs ached. When she reached the water’s edge, she stopped, caught her breath and looked out at the rolling surf, remembering how she and her father had often come down here to surf. She sighed. It was the beginning of another day. There must have been winter days by the beach with her father but she couldn’t remember them, she only remembered the sun, the sand and the surf. She walked along the tide line, stopping occasionally to pick up a shell or a pebble. There was no wind and the water slid onto the beach, the waves barely breaking. If only her life was that serene.