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There’s a framed photo in Lucy’s kitchen.
It’s nothing objectively special. Never attracted attention from guests, and the twins really only ever asked about it a handful of times. It’s faded by now, after years and years of sunlight on cheap photo paper. The frame is cracked on the lower left side from when the moving truck had a nasty near-miss with a motorcycle. The glass has been replaced at least twice. And the corners of the paper are yellowing just slightly.
But Lucy can’t imagine her home without it.
She pauses her stirring to take in the all-too-familiar sight, having already memorized every detail a hundred times over. Each streak of light, every leaf on the trees, every smile line on their faces, she knows it.
It’s a scene of two people on a park bench. Leaning toward each other like magnets drawn together, hands reaching out for the other and anchoring to each other with a sense of urgency that’s palpable through the glass. Their faces gleam with smiles, the light filtering softly through the trees to illuminate them perfectly. But there’s a side to the photo that no one knows except the two of them.
Apprehension, sorrow, regret, longing . . . All filtered through their matching lenses of joy and relief. It’s a two sided coin. A moment where all the emotions came flooding together and collided, but instead of tearing another hole in their relationship, it had only brought them closer together.
And that day at the park was the lynchpin for it all. The turning point.
It had been one of the more perfect days she’d experienced. Although the weeks and months leading up to it were as close to hell as she ever wanted to get.
It was considerably early in her career, when the thought of ever making detective was completely impossible. She’d hit that seven year slump way too early, loving her job but feeling stuck in a rut, just trying to make it through each day without losing anything more than her sanity. At that point she had been fully convinced that if she were ever to advance in her career, it would be nothing short of a miracle. She had been picturing herself as a patrol officer for the next thirty years, decaying into a corpse of who she used to be until she eventually inherited Smitty’s unfortunate legacy.
How young and naive she had been . . .
Her entire life had spiraled down into the drain that week. It was the week of Tim’s run-in with Ray.
And as if she hadn’t already been beaten into a pulp by anxiety and worry and all his secrets and dishonesty, he drove the final nail into the coffin out in that dark parking lot, essentially telling her that he was no longer willing to fight for her, like he always had before.
She thought her life was over.
The weeks following were some of the worst of her life. Tamara moved out, so the apartment was just as eerily quiet and lonely as it had been after Jackson’s death. Lucy threw herself full-force into her job, pulling insane shifts and racking up overtime to the point that Grey had to put his foot down and order her to go home almost every shift.
She can’t recall all the details of those few weeks now . . . It was so long ago. And her brain did its job well, protecting her by disguising the painful memories and preventing her from ever feeling them that acutely again.
All she remembers is crying herself to sleep almost every night for a week. Drifting in and out of a sort of haze as she completed her assorted tasks on autopilot.
But then as she hauled herself out of the spiral of muck and mire, something strange and amazing started to happen.
Beyond all hope, beyond all her expectations . . .
She started to heal.
And not just from the breakup or the shooting or the detective’s exam. No, she found herself finding peace about events that happened years ago.
It wasn’t without help, of course. She had resisted therapy as long as she could, until Tamara arrived at her door with takeout and ice cream one night and threatened to turn around and share it all with her new roommates unless Lucy picked up the phone and set up a counseling appointment right that second.
So she did.
It ended up being her saving grace.
And so, when Tim asked if they could meet in the park and talk, she was ready.
It had been exactly fourteen weeks and five days since he walked away.
Fourteen weeks and five days since she was bluntly forced to see his beautiful face every day at work, rushing past him as fast as possible in the hallways, sitting on opposite sides of the room during roll call, dodging her coworkers’ silent looks that they thought were subtle, wondering if it wouldn’t just be easier to transfer to Hollywood after all.
Fourteen weeks and five days of soul searching and healing and wanting to do everything right, not chasing him like a lost puppy or begging him to take her back. She knew he needed space, so that’s what she gave him.
Fourteen weeks and five days of wondering if this moment would ever come.
So when it did, it felt like jumping into the freezing ocean.
Exhilarating, terrifying, familiar.
They spent four and a half hours on that park bench. Talking out every minute of not just the last few months apart, but also the last few years together.
She remembers the feeling of the hot mid-September sun as it drifted across the sky. The occasional dog and owner pair walking by. Sounds of birds chirping and kids screaming and the LA suburbs full of life.
She remembers Tim.
Her Tim.
Finally, finally , having him close to her again, their knees almost touching as they leaned toward each other on the park bench. His eyes, so familiar and yet so strangely foreign. There was a new sort of understanding behind them that day that she’d never seen before, like he’d met his demons face to face, fought them tooth and nail, and come out the other side victorious.
He had always been a survivor.
Just like herself.
The longer they talked, the more Lucy’s heart filled with hope and joy and relief.
She had her Tim back.
LA had no shortage of street performers and wannabe influencers and people stopping strangers for clicks. Usually Lucy disregarded them as nothing more than mostly harmless as long as they stayed in their lane.
But to this day, she’s endlessly grateful to that particular one.
The girl couldn’t have been older than her mid-twenties. Lucy remembers that she was wearing her digital camera on a bright pink neck strap and that her fingernails were painted to match her dyed orange hair.
She had approached the couple almost nervously, excusing herself and promising she didn’t want any money for the gift she held. She simply delivered the photo which she had probably printed out on one of those beginner level portable printers, gave them a quick smile and an awkward wave, and disappeared around the corner.
And Lucy’s breath caught in her throat. Tim was speechless.
The girl had artistically and organically captured the couple on the bench.
She picks up the framed photo, grateful that her hands have been shaking less than normal today.
Tim sat on the right, his knee bent and hiked up onto the bench so he could face her. He was wearing that soft red sweater she loved and faded jeans, and his arm was slung over the back rest, his other hand resting on her knee. She was bent forward toward him, her legs arranged similarly to his own, one hand playing with the corner of her green jacket, the other reaching up to rest at the base of his head, cradling it. They both wore hopeful smiles filled with all the overflowing love and respect and adoration for each other that had always existed, even when Lucy couldn’t see or understand it.
The trees in the photo seemed to bend up around them, creating an arch of leaves and sunshine and pure radiance that even decades of the photo’s fading couldn’t erase.
Lucy sighs, lets the memories of decades past rush over her – the old familiar feelings and worries and joy.
Especially the joy.
So much has changed since then. And yet, she still feels like that woman in the photo. Young and hopeful and damaged all the same . . . But with the strongest of wills and the determination and open heart to love and accept and fiercely protect this man – her Tim . Her friend, her partner, her everything.
For as long as they both shall live.
Oh, she’s getting lost in the past again.
She’s been doing that more often lately. Sentimentality has a way of creeping up on someone.
With one final loving glance at the photo, she turns her attention back to the stove – to the present; to all the joy in the mundane – humming that one Aretha Franklin song that won’t leave her head and wondering if Tim made it on time. Traffic to the airport this time of day is nothing short of brutal.
She reaches for the spoon and checks the clock.
Oops . . . Time to hurry.
Briar should have landed a few minutes ago and Aster will be barging through the door any moment now with her three littles in tow, and Lucy needs to finish the lotus root soup now if she wants any time or free hands for the grandkids.
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