Entropy and Sorrow's Kiss

Burnett felt the blood drain from his face, and he saw her reaction before he could catch himself.

Of course! That was why the name was so familiar! Had it really been so long ago?

Everett Tomberlin, his training officer – when he had been a rookie. Killed on duty... what was it... four, no, five years ago? Burnett had been riding solo by then, had passed his probationary period and was in patrol division when Everett was shot and killed on a traffic stop. The rookie he was training hadn't even got her gun out of her holster, and had quit in disgrace a few days later. He had known Tomberlin well enough though he had never met his family, but Burnett had learned his wife was pregnant at the time, that she had miscarried a few weeks after Everett's death, and had tried to kill herself in the loneliness that followed.

And now, here she was. His eyes went to her wrists, and he could just make out the faintest remains of scars on her pale skin. She watched him, followed his eyes as they sought the truth, yet she remained solid and quiet. She hid nothing, for quite obviously she had nothing to hide from this man. From this man – of all men.

And he knew. Knew what she had been through. Knew the burden she carried, because he thought he understood the burden all cop's wives carry. His own shattered marriage in no way resembled what this woman had endured, yet even so Burnett leaned back in his chair and felt the cares of the world come crashing home. Again.

"He was my FTO. Eight years ago."

"I thought I remembered your name."

"What have you been doing?"

"Work for the city, secretarial stuff. You know."

"Did you have any kids?"

She shook her head. "No, we..." And then she was crying, gently at first, then she ran from the room.

He sat there for a while, waited for her to come back but soon it was obvious she wasn't going to. He stood and cleared the table, took the dishes to the kitchen and turned on the water. He was sorting them out, beginning to wash them when he felt her by his side, and he shut off the water and turned to her.

"You don't have to..." she began.

"I want to, Tracy. Go sit down, let me finish up in here."

It took him a half hour, but the tiny kitchen was spotless when he finished, all the leftovers out away. He went to the living room, found her sitting on the sofa with her tiny feet pulled up protectively under her, and he sat beside her.

"Wasn't a very good hostess tonight, I'm afraid."

"Are you kidding me? That was the best steak I've had in forever, and the best company I've had in a long time, too."

"That's sweet of you to say so, Alan, even if..."

"No ifs ands or buts, Tracy. This was great, and you are really something else."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, I was thinking in there just now, in the kitchen. About what I was feeling while I was watching you cook, the drink, everything. I was thinking that Everett was the luckiest man alive. To have spent time with you, to have been your husband."

She smiled, leaned into him, put her head on his shoulder.

"How long were you with him, when you were a rookie?"

"Four months, on deep nights."

"Oh yes, I remember now. You're the philosopher. Your parents were..." She stopped, fought to control herself. "Oh, Alan..."

"That's okay."

She put her hand on his chest, listened to him breathe, listened to his heart beating, and soon she felt herself falling asleep.

He sat with her for some time, then lifted her and carried her to her bed, took off her shoes and covered her with a little quilt, and while he was standing above her he looked at her and smiled. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, and when he stood up again she was looking at him through half closed eyes, smiling at his kiss.

"Goodnight, Tracy."

She was asleep before he got to the front door.

+++++

He saw her again in the parking lot from time to time over the next few weeks. She said little as they passed, for indeed, little needed to be said. Burnett had simply felt too awkward that night, too conflicted by his desire for the woman and his understanding of her past, too confused to make the next move, and even worse, she had seen the conflict written all over his face. When he left her, when he walked back into his barren apartment later that night, he had cleaned up for bed, had brushed his teeth and stared at himself in the little mirror above the sink. He looked at his eyes staring back and for the first time in months he questioned his own humanity, his inability to accommodate the contours of human frailty. And his inability to be open with people when he discovered their frailties.

Still, as he had so many times before when he met his eyes in a mirror, he blinked, closed his eyes to the reality he found there and walked off to bed, walked back into the darkness that sleep afforded, to the certainty that with a new day there would come other problems to hide from, and to bury the uncertainties within himself he ran across from time to time.

+++++

The following weekend, a Tuesday in Burnett's world, he was taking groceries up the stairs to his apartment when Tracy opened her door and leaned out. Burnett saw her as she stepped onto the third floor landing.

"Alan?" she called out from the landing above, "I've got an extra hamburger ready to go. What about it?"

Burnett thought about his empty apartment for a split second, the prospect of another movie to watch after another frozen dinner, and he looked at Tracy standing there, leaning out her doorway, the smells hitting him and a million memories yet to be made calling out to him, pleading with him to simply say yes.

And so he did.

+++++

The last dish washed, Burnett and Tracy sat on the sofa. He sat back and leaned into him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, then she took his hand in hers and caressed his fingers. She seemed ageless in that moment, ageless in that the weight of her cares had been stripped away for this brief interlude, and nothing remained but the essence of her soul. She seemed beautiful – beautiful still, yet fragile – in a way he had never seen or known in another human being. She was ancient and new, touched, yet somehow chaste, kind of like a windblown daisy in her way. She radiated a knowing resolve to carry on, yet he could see her knowledge of the depths of despair as it danced in the darkness. Her's was a dance, Burnett knew from deep experience, known only to those who've held death in their hands – and let it go. No one, Burnett knew, can even begin to understand those depths until they've been there – and known such crushing loneliness in their bones.

And so it was – within that ageless moment that defines simple choice– that he held her, and within the shadow of a sigh – time stopped as it often does for new lovers.

He held her precious body within the careful glow of that fading day, lost in a moment that seemed to want to hold time on the far side of the night. He felt her leaning into him, bathed in the bond that seemed to be forming from nothingness, and it was as if he felt her soul melting into his. Time hesitated in the space between two heartbeats, seemed to slow, and then – stop. He turned within this arc of time and held her close, her smell was electric, he felt himself breathing her in deeply, and he felt himself consciously wanting to know her every scent, of wanting to know all the contours of her body.

Then he kissed her face, felt tension fall away as waves of acceptance washed over her. As suddenly, he felt hot sand under his feet, the crash of distant surf, seaborne breezes filling this time within time with a cool, salt–hewn caress. He walked on far distant shores within himself, and he was sure she would follow...

She looked up at him; he felt the warmth of her eyes lingering on his mouth – and his lips moved to hers. Her hands moved to cup his face, and within this new chalice of soul he opened his mouth and drank the essence of that most ancient wine. He felt her hand moving up his leg and he smiled at the sound of the surf crashing, water hissing in retreat, his belt tugged open and zipper parting, a start as cool skin encircled his warmth and began to gently caress the seeds of memory until all that remained was the unfettered hope of release.

She took him first with her hands, and in time he felt the walls of her womb holding him, willing him to give her new life, and in this everlasting night he came to her. They lay on sun-kissed sands of memory, tall grasses bent to the will of soft sea breezes, and as rose-hued petals opened to receive the gift, deep within this desperate moment a new life came into this world.

+++++

Burnett sat in the Assistant Chief's office a month later, watching the old man as he went over the paperwork in his hands once again, wondering if he was doing the right thing, questioning his sanity for the millionth time and coming up blank.

At his first meeting with the A/C a year ago, the old man had told him the C.I.A. was looking for cops with street smarts and four years of college. The pool of available talent from the armed services was drying up, the old man said, and they were looking to recruit from within well-respected departments around the country. The A/C had joined the D.I.A. after leaving Nam with one leg rent by shrapnel, then mysteriously joined the department – as Assistant Chief, no less – without ever having been a police officer. He worked with the detective bureau, and was rumored to be working on a new counter-terrorism division. But nobody questioned the A/C, Burnett thought as he watched the old man scrawling notes in the margin of the paper in his hands; in fact as far as he knew most people stopped breathing when the old man walked into a room. He routinely made the highest pistol score in the department's annual combat competition, and he could still crank out a mile in a respectable seven minutes.

Burnett hadn't known what to make of the A/Cs first overtures; they were in the beginning vague, tenuous explorations that seemed both preparatory and non–committal, but soon they had taken on a more deliberate, interrogative tenor that had frankly unsettled Burnett. Maybe that was the point, for not long after he was flown to a briefing with other prospective applicants and issued a battery of tests and reasoning appraisals. Background checks followed, then family and next door neighbors from homes long forgotten were interviewed. The A/C was going over these findings now, and he shook his head from time to time, nodded knowingly once in a while, then he finally put the paper face down on his desk and turned to face Burnett.

"Well, Alan, the long version is this: you're almost too old, your – uh – marital instability is a concern, and you're about ten pounds heavier than they'd like. On the other hand, you know history, and not too many cops have a working knowledge of both French and German. You're not currently encumbered, and your evaluations are consistently among the best in the department, and shit, even the shrinks think you're about as emotionally mature as a cop can be." This, Burnett knew, was probably the old man's one attempt at humor for the year, so he smiled and intimated understanding by tossing off a brief chuckle.

"Short version is this, son. They want you. They want you to report to Yorktown in September. And now here's the good part. You're not going to resign from the department right off the bat; instead you'll be on extended leave. Retirement will still accrue, and if you decide to bail out you can come back to work with no questions asked, no loss of seniority or rank. If you make it, if they take you on, well, that's it. We've arranged to have your retirement rolled over into the Agency's, so you won't take a hit on that front. But this life here... well... that'll become ancient history. Five years from now you won't even recognize yourself."

The silence in the room was only broken by gusting rain that lashed the window. The old man leaned back in his chair and with his hands folded across his lap he simply looked at Burnett. There was no curiosity on the man's face, no wry amused look, no anticipation whatsoever. While Burnett had thought about little else for weeks, the arrival of Tracy Tomberlin in his life had changed everything, and he knew if he hesitated now the entire matter would be over and done with. And the hell of it was, before Tracy entered his life he was looking forward to a change like this, to moving on.

Now, he was sure leaving her would be the very worst thing imaginable. For both of them.

"Chief, I can't...."

"I know. Mrs Tomberlin, Tracy. I couldn't either, son."

Burnett looked at the A/C, his eyes blinked rapidly as he stood there, understanding the true dimensions of the revelation. "How long have you known, sir?"

He could have sworn the old man was going to laugh, but he simply shrugged his shoulders. "Well Alan, we'd have hated to lose you. Glad you're going to stick around, and that'll about do it for today."

"Yessir." He turned to leave, suddenly very happy.

+++++

Burnett was alone in his apartment later that afternoon. He sat hunched forward on his little sofa, his hands on his knees as he nursed a beer, slowly turning the bottle round and round as he thought about the choices he'd made that day. Tracy wasn't home yet, probably wouldn't be for another hour or so, but he knew he had to talk to her about what had happened in the ACs office.

They'd both fallen pretty hard for one another. He felt more attached to her than he had to Joan, which was to say he felt as strongly for her as he ever had for anyone. He loved her, he knew that now, and even though she told him she loved him, Burnett was too cynical to go by words alone any more. He felt loved by Tracy, really loved, and that counted for so much more than words ever could.

He heard her knock on the door and he walked over and opened it, and he kissed her when he saw her face, kissed her and then all the cares of the world fell from his shoulders when he felt her lips on his. He kissed her, and he knew she was meant to be. He held her and he felt a great loosening in his soul, a sense of being where and when he needed to be.

But there was something else. She smiled at him as he pulled back from her, and he looked down to see a bottle of champagne in her hand.

"It's for you," Tracy said.

"For me?"

"I won't be having any. Well, at least not for the next nine months or so."

He pulled her close, held her for what felt like forever, running his fingers through her hair, feeling her skin on his.

"You know, I've tried the marriage thing before. I wasn't really all that good at it, Tracy, but do you think..."

"Alan, I was good at it, I was a good wife, maybe too good. I believe in love, and I think you do too, but I also believe in two people working together to make good things happen. Maybe you just never really had that in a partner."

"I never looked at it that way," he said, "but maybe it's time I did."

"Maybe. I do know I can't make you forget whatever happened before. And I don't want you to think you have to change to suit me either, because you don't. But Alan, I do want a partner, a husband, and a father for our baby. I will give you everything I have, everything I will ever be..."

"Tracy..."

"I love you Alan. Against all odds, I do. And there's nothing you can do to change that."

"Why would I want to change that? Besides, you're the cutest thing, the sweetest, the most generous soul I've ever known."

"Piffle! Don't give me that 'most cutest gal in the world' stuff, Alan..."

"Well, you know, your legs drive me wild."

"I think the high heels do too," she said with a knowing smile.

"No. Those drive me crazy, like right out of my mind."

"A good kind of crazy, I hope?"

"The best kind, Tracy."

"Are you glad I bring that out in you, Alan?"

"Really? You know, I think I am. Still, you've been so completely unexpected."

"Unexpected?"

"Yes. Everything about you is so, I don't know, so good and pure. Sometimes it feels like you really want to make life better than it can be. But, well, I do have a question."

"Sure, go ahead."

"Well, what do you think about us? Together, I mean? Being together?"

She grinned, looked at him looking at her legs. "I think...we should talk about stuff like this later. Maybe at dinner?"

"Uh, could I have some champagne first?"

"Maybe you can have some after," she said.

"After dinner?"

"Oh, Alan, I think I'd like to do something else, before dinner..." She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards the bedroom, and they never did make it out that night.

+++++

"Heard you're going out with Everett's wife, Tracy," Dan Tisdale said one afternoon, right after shift change. Tisdale had been a Watch Commander, a Captain, before he fell into the clutches of a truly wicked woman and was brought up on Moral Turpitude charges. Now he was back in patrol, ranked no higher than a rookie out of Academy, and while he was a certainly a competent officer, he was also just biding his time, waiting for retirement. He was also an outcast, one of those guys most other officers shunned, though politely; he had also been, years ago before his fall from grace, Everett Tomberlin's best friend.

Burnett was putting his battered old briefcase in his locker; he was tired and really did not want to get into it with Tisdale today. "Oh? Where'd you hear that?"

"You know, Burnett, normally I'd let it go at that, but not today. Not when it's about Tracy."

"What's on your mind?"

"Not here. Let's go grab a beer."

The went to an old burger place near the station, a dark, smokey old hangout that had been a favorite among cops and firefighters for decades. There were lots of pickup trucks out front, peanut shells and sawdust on the floor, and a chunky old jukebox loaded with country music in a corner by the bar, and the place was filling up fast when Burnett and Tisdale dragged in. They got a couple of longnecks from a chirpy young thing and settled into a corner booth, and Tisdale started right in, talking about Everett and Tracy.

"She's a good troop, Burnett, and no one wants to see her hurt," he heard Tisdale saying, and the way he said it made Burnett think there was a little bit of a threat just under the surface.

"And you think I want to hurt her? Is that what you're saying?"

"Don't be a fucking moron, Burnett. Look, the word is you were shacked up with some sort of dominatrix freak for a while. I'm hearing some pretty fucked up shit about that woman, too."

"Is that a fact?"

"Yup," Tisdale said, taking a long pull his bottle. "That's a fact."

"So, what do you know?"

"She's a hooker, a fuckin' well paid one, too."

Burnett nodded his head. "What about you, Dan? What about these rumors about your, uh, girlfriend?"

"This ain't about her and me. It's about Tracy. She's a good woman..."

"Yes she is. The best, I think I'd say. So, what do you think gives you the right..."

"Ev was my best bud, Burnett. And I ain't gonna let nothing bad come to that lady."

"I'm not either."

"Not good enough, Burnett."

Burnett nodded his head, ignored his beer. "You remember that shoot I was in last year?"

"Yeah, yeah, the Byron Court thing? Sure."

"That was her house. Diane's. The dominatrix."

"Yeah?"

"She called me about a week later. Sounded she needed someone to talk to, and she was pretty, well, interesting looking, so anyway, I went, took her out to dinner. She was kind of rough around the edges, 'rode hard – put away wet' kind of rough, but nice. Anyway, went back to her place and she breaks down, tells me she'd just been diagnosed with breast cancer..."

"Oh, sweet Jesus, Alan..."

Burnett held up his hand. "Let me finish, okay Dan?"