Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (14 page)

“I told you I would,” I said.

Her features softened. “Thank you.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting any pre-trial rituals.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m glad you’re here. It takes my mind off of it.”

“Do I wish you luck or break a leg or something? I don’t know courtroom lawyer lingo.”

“You may wish me luck, but unfortunately there’s not much I can do at this point. Besides my closing remarks, my job is done.”

“If you lose, is that it?”

“Do you mean can I appeal or is it like a criminal case where a person can only be charged for a crime once?”

I nodded.

“I can request another trial at a later date, or the judge could even choose to schedule a follow-up trial in the future. Either way though, this seems to be my best chance.”

The rear door opened for a second time and Julia’s father, William Desjardin, appeared. He strode toward the front of the courtroom, chin tilted toward the sky. I expected him to stop or to at least acknowledge his daughter’s existence, but he walked past us without so much as a look.

“Did it just get really chilly in here?” I mumbled for only Julia to hear.

“I should go take my place up front, too,” she sighed.

I grabbed her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Hey, it’s almost over.”

She nodded, but her eyes looked vaguely watery.

The presiding judge was a middle-aged black woman with short hair and serious eyes. She entered the courtroom with little fanfare, scanning the room as she made her way to her seat at the center of the room.

“Counselors,” she began, addressing Julia and her father, “I have decided to forgo closing statements in this case. Opening up the floor to potential debate will only unnecessarily delay the court’s decision.”

Julia’s father stood and buttoned the middle button on his suit jacket. “Your Honor,” he began, “this is highly unusual.”

The judge stared him down with steely-eyed resolve. “Mr. Desjardin, you’re lucky I didn’t hold you or your daughter in contempt after that embarrassing display yesterday. Now, may I continue?”

William Desjardin inclined his head and returned to his chair. “Of course, Your Honor.”

The judge looked next in Julia’s direction. “Ms. Desjardin, do you have any complaint about us moving forward?”

“No, Your Honor,” Julia smartly denied.

“Good. Because I’m ready to pass judgment.” The judge sat up straighter in her seat and smoothed out her black, billowing robe. “In the matter of Olivia Desjardin, based on her doctor’s independent recommendation and the briefs included in the police report, it is the decision of this court to declare Mrs. Desjardin as incompetent.”

The judge’s wording made me wince. I knew it was a legal definition, but as someone whose own brain tended to misfire and betray her, the word ‘incompetent’ sounded unnecessarily cruel and heavy-handed.

“Now, to the matter of guardianship,” the judge continued. “Both petitioners brought strong cases yesterday as to why they and not the other party should be granted legal guardianship over Mrs. Desjardin. Normally in these situations I recommend co-guardianship with one person looking after finances and the other dedicated to the ward’s healthcare, but your antics in court have made it blatantly clear that this kind of arrangement is simply not possible.”

The judge shot censuring looks in the direction of Julia and her father. I watched both of their heads dip in a humbling gesture.

“My ruling in these cases sides with whatever is in the best interest of the ward—the citizen who through no fault of his or her own can no longer care for themselves. While the junior Ms. Desjardin has presented sufficient evidence why her mother should join her in St. Paul, at this time I find it premature to remove Mrs. Desjardin from her home, her friends and family, and the only town she’s ever known. Therefore, it is the decision of this court to grant you, Mr. Desjardin, sole guardianship of your wife.” She paused. “Do not make me regret my ruling.”

The gavel struck twice, and with it, Julia’s mother’s fate was decided.

The judge rose and removed herself to her chambers and other bystanders began to mill out of the room. Julia remained seated at the table at the front of the courtroom. Her shoulders were slumped and her head hung forward. I noticed William Desjardin didn’t try to address his daughter after the judge’s ruling—he gathered loose papers into a black leather satchel and stiffly exited the courtroom.

Our eyes met briefly on his way out, but he showed no signs of recognition. It didn’t surprise me though. We’d only conversed a few times when I wasn’t arresting him. I was too insignificant to be on his radar.

When only Julia and I remained, I stood from my seat and approached her. It felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the courtroom. “Hey.” I gently touched my hand to her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

“I need …” The words got caught in her throat.

“What do you need?” I encouraged. “Whatever it is, I’ll make it happen.”

“I need,” she tried again, “to be alone.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

When I returned to my apartment later that morning—alone—I began to strip. My shirt came off the moment the front door shut behind me. Next came the pants I had painstakingly ironed, followed by my bra, socks, and underwear. I turned the shower on in the bathroom and waited for the water to heat up before I stepped into the hot spray. Sometimes when the day hadn’t gone as planned, the only solution was to wash away the disappointment and hit the reset button. In the desert, I’d found satisfaction in watching the physical grime from the day swirl around at the base of the shower and vanish down the drain. Today, however, there was nothing tangible to scrub away.

The problem with a morning trial meant that I had the rest of the day to myself and my dangerous, self-doubting, destructive thoughts. I could have called up Rich or any of my other cop friends for a distraction, but they were at work or sleeping. Regardless, I was too proud to admit even to my closest friends that Julia and I were fighting. Well, not exactly fighting, but it stung more than I wanted to admit that she hadn’t leaned on me when her mother’s trial hadn’t produced the desired result.

I wondered what she was doing at that very moment. Had she gone back to work? Had she gone back to bed? Was she at a bar convincing the bartender to allow her just one more drink? Or maybe she was in the shower at her apartment doing the same thing as me?

I didn’t want to think about Julia, but I couldn’t even take a shower without evidence of her existence. She had left a travel-sized version of her shampoo and conditioner in my shower. I unscrewed the cap of one of the miniature bottles and unabashedly inhaled its scent—sandalwood and rose. It was sweet and fiery all at once, kind of like the woman who used it.

I didn’t linger long in the shower, and I sure as hell didn’t use Julia’s soap. Her scent on my skin and in my hair would have been unnecessary torture.

I kept a plastic souvenir cup on the bathroom sink as a toothbrush holder. It was from my childhood; my dad and I had taken a road trip from St. Cloud to Minneapolis to watch a Twins game when I’d been eight or nine years old. We’d only lived an hour from the Twin Cities, but I had never been there before. The Twins got clobbered by the Kansas City Royals, but it had been the greatest day of my young life. I’d eaten a box of Cracker Jacks and two hotdogs, and I’d gotten to spend the entire day with my dad, just the two of us.

There were two toothbrushes in the souvenir cup. The handle of my toothbrush was red. The one Julia had left at my place was blue. It was just like the golf balls from our first date. After only a few months of knowing each other, Julia had infiltrated my life. It wasn’t just the extra toothbrush on my bathroom sink or the travel-sized bottles of her shampoo and conditioner. Hers was the voice I wanted to hear each night. When I’d had a rough day at work, she was the person I wanted to confide in. She was the only one I wanted to tell about my flashbacks and nightmares. So why wouldn’t she rely on me the same way?

As I continued to stare at the two toothbrushes, my eyes began to fill with salty tears. When I blinked, a curtain of moisture fell down my already damp cheeks. I must have gotten soap in my eyes, I reasoned to myself, because there was no way I would let myself cry over some girl.

I couldn’t stay in my empty apartment. There were too many thoughts and emotions running unchecked in my head. I should have called Dr. Landsen for an emergency therapy session like an alcoholic worried about slipping and taking a drink, but I still had outstanding medical bills that had yet to be resolved. In lieu of a proper therapy session, I found myself driving my motorcycle to the parking lot of the local VFW hall, auxiliary post 246.

The local VFW hall smelled like macaroni and cheese and maple syrup. It was a nauseating combination, but I didn’t have much choice. Unlike my therapist, I could go as many times as I needed to without getting the insurance company involved since it was free, kind of like an AA meeting.

I’d been to group therapy at the VA hospital a few times before moving to Embarrass. The auxiliary post didn’t advertise it as therapy though. Instead, it was a time to share memories and to make connections with other vets, many of whom had been soldiers long before I’d been born.

Before the meeting started, a few of the guys hovered around a coffee machine and picked at an open container of store-bought cookies. I could sense their curiosity about me as I pulled a chair for myself into the circle. I was an anomaly, but being the only woman in the room had never bothered me. I never would have made it in the Marines or the police academy if it had. What the group lacked in gender diversity, we more than made up for in age. Grizzled, old veterans sat alongside younger soldiers, some of whom looked even younger than my twenty-eight years.

A baker’s dozen of us sat in a closed circle. The unforgiving metal of my fold-up chair dug into my tailbone. Most everyone looked uncomfortable sitting around the small circle. Ball caps were pulled low, and arms were folded in front of chests in a closed-off body language. Group therapy was harder than one-on-one therapy sessions because of the PTSD symptom of avoidance. No one ever wanted to re-live what we’d had to go through over there, not unless we were being forced to do it. Three groups of people primarily suffered from PTSD: those who experienced trauma as children, survivors of sexual assault, and war veterans. Sometimes those groups overlapped.

“Anybody want to go first?” a man with red hair and the beginnings of a potbelly asked. I didn’t recognize the moderator that day. Sometimes group was led by a licensed psychologist, but other times it was just another vet with a knack for mediation.

A big, broad shouldered man in a black t-shirt and cargo shorts leaned forward in his chair. He worried an empty Styrofoam cup between his two, giant paws. At one time it might have held coffee, but the cup was now shred and torn beyond repair. “Hey, everybody. I’m Jackson, Second Battalion, Fox Company, United States Marines Corp.”

Reflexively, myself and another young man called out the Marine Corp’s battle cry: “Ooh Rah.”

“My soul turned into Swiss cheese over there,” Jackson said roughly. “Every kill, every shitty thing I had to do or say, poked a hole in me. Humans were never meant to kill,” he continued as he stared at the ground. “We aren’t born with claws or beaks or body armor. It’s unnatural. And then everyone acts so surprised when we don’t come back right.”

There was a pregnant silence before someone else spoke up.

“It didn’t bother me at the time,” another man in the circle began. “I was doing it for my country. But coming back to my own family made me realize that everyone I killed over there had a family, too. They were someone’s brother, husband, or son.”

I grunted in agreement, but I kept my story to myself. I wasn’t ready to share. Sometimes it was enough to hear about other people’s frustrations to make you feel not so alone.

“They prepare you like hell when you’re going over there,” a third man remarked. He looked about the same age as my father, maybe a little younger, probably from the generation who’d fought in Vietnam. “It’s just one training camp after another, so that by the time you’re actually deployed, you just want to shoot something. Anything. But then your tour is over and everyone expects you to get on with your life.”

Going directly into the police academy after my medical discharge had probably saved me from developing worse PTSD symptoms. As a police officer what I was doing for the majority of the day didn’t differ that greatly from military life. I wasn’t behind a desk, selling life insurance or rental cars. I could only imagine how quickly the nightmares would have snuck up on me if I’d continued to live in my childhood bedroom at my parent’s house for an extended amount of time. Coming home from combat didn’t mean shutting off your soldier reflexes. It only meant dialing them down.

I didn’t go straight home after the meeting. I drove around the city with the visor of my motorcycle helmet flipped up so I could feel the rush of air against my face. I had no destination, but I made sure to stay in Minneapolis and to avoid the neighborhood where Julia’s office was located. It would have been too easy to find myself at her condo or her office complex.