Previously, Christmas Night, Morristown Memorial Hospital, just after 10 pm...
 
“Miss O’Rourke. I’m sorry. We called the number you left, but there was no answer. It’s about your mother.”

“I’m so sorry,” Michael said as she held the weeping girl, not knowing what else to say or do. And she was right. There was nothing much to say and nothing at all that could be done. Grace O’Rourke had made peace with her daughter; almost in some sort of premonition some might say, but it seemed to Michael that it was one more opportunity for Caden to meet a challenge. But even without really knowing the girl or even how she felt at that moment, Michael was determined that the girl would not have to meet that challenge alone.

You brought me up and out of the water
You brought me up to forget
I had ever been, I could ever breathe
In the water under your heart

“We…we just made up…she told me she was sorry,” Caden looked into Michael’s eyes, pleading for help that was not to be; as if Michael could somehow turn back time and rescue the O’Rourke family. She felt helpless, but she was far from helpless as she held the girl and rocked her gently. A side of Michael few besides her mother had seen.

“I’m so sorry, Miss O’Rourke,” she said to the girl even as she wondered if she had the obligation to speak the girl’s name while feeling both incapable and undeserving even to hold the girl.

“She….we’ve been so angry for so long. I wanted to…I needed to tell her I forgave her…I never got the chance.” Caden spoke haltingly between sobs. Michael would say later that she had no idea where her own strength came, much less any wisdom for the girl, but she spoke.

“From what you told me tonight, it sounds like she knew that….calling you by your name for once…” She paused as the girl gasped. It was the first and only time that Caden would hear her mother utter her name; not in resignation or resentment, but finally….at the last possible conceivable moment…speaking the name as something of value. What had been meant to provide solace caused the girl instead to shake in her arms; her sobs intensifying and underscoring once again just how helpless and incapable Michael felt.

I darkened your door and your days, you said
You couldn't sleep the night
With the sound of the sea hard on my heels
Climbing the stairs to your bed

“It’s not fair….” The girl stammered. Michael rubbed her back softly as the girl’s shaking subsided; replaced by a soft moan. Michael looked up, heavenward in a way, as she shook her head at the irony of God. Here she was a woman in a man’s world; living a man’s life some might say in error, but still pushed and jammed into a square hole by misconceptions and ignorance. She pulled back and looked at the girl’s face. Caden had closed her eyes and seemed to be sleeping even though her shaking still remained; albeit almost like the gentle quake of a fragile tree limb in a soft breeze.

“I know…I know…shhhh….shhhh.” Michael found herself almost ‘channeling’ her grandmother; a careful soothing voice that was more used to shouting information over a radio or barking instructions in a crisis. This remained a crisis, but with a need for another approach. The girl put her hand on Michael’s chest; her fingers brushing lightly on the badge before settling in the crease between Michael’s breast and arm.

“Shhh…shhhh,” she repeated. She looked into the girl’s face. ‘The girl,’ she wondered. Here she was, holding a very fragile human in her arms; a boy? No…not a boy. She squeezed her eyes a bit tighter, squinting from the glare of the harsh light of the hospital corridor to gain some sight that made sense. The girl’s features were not very soft at all; she remained ‘boyish’ in a way, but in the attractive ‘boyish’ way some girls present as opposed to a remnant of what she had once been. This was a girl in her arms even if she had started out differently. Certainly more of a girl than Michael believed herself to be. She felt strong and manly, which caused her to bite her lip as she blinked back some tears.

“Shhhh….shhh,” she said once again as the girl wept in her arms. Not manly…humanly? Something inside her began to change as the girl in her arms proved once and for all that things and people and lives and hearts and minds aren’t always what they seem to be; certainly they are most assuredly not all what others would have them be, if they had their way. And she felt guilty somehow; as if by arriving one moment sooner she would have been able to undo the damage already done by….a killer. The very personal and introspective moment was rudely interrupted by the urgency of the matter. What had been a break-in and assault had now become a homicide.

“Miss O’Rourke?”

“Ye…yes?”

“I have to call this in; I’m very sorry for your loss. Give me a moment?” She turned and waved for one of the nurses to come over.

“I have to call in. Would you sit with her for a moment?” The young woman looked back and forth between Caden and Michael before nodding. She sat down and Michael went to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone.

“That break-in over on Hazlett this afternoon? Yeah…the woman died. We’ve…yes…The doctor is filling out the report…yes….no…nothing yet….They’ll send you a report, but I guess Pat and Jerry won’t get tomorrow off, either…yes…yeah…I’ll make sure she’s okay….I’ll call in….yeah…Merry Christmas.”

“Miss O’Rourke?” The girl had put her head back against the wall and had closed her eyes, but her expression indicated anything but rest. She either didn’t hear Michael or she didn’t have the energy to respond. Michael nodded at the nurse sitting next to Caden and the girl got up. Michael sat down next to Caden and said again,

“Miss O’Rourke?”

“Yes?” She lifted her head slightly and opened her eyes. Even though the staff had dimmed the lights in the hallway, she still felt the glare and closed her eyes once again, but turned her attention to Michael.

“We’re going to find out who did this…I promise you.” It was little consolation; the girl almost didn’t care who had killed her mother since it wouldn’t retrieve what had been lost. It was so much more painful, but the pain itself gave testimony to the miracle that had occurred only hours before. Her mother was gone, but Caden finally knew her mother’s love for her. Again; hardly a consolation at the moment, but something that would actually help see her through the pain and sadness in the coming days.

“I think it might be best if you come stay at my place?” The question gave Caden some control in what was quickly beginning to look like a world completely out of control.

“You…Your place?”

“We don’t know who did this or why, but you were attacked the other night, and that’s too much of a coincidence for my thinking. I don’t want to take any chances. You’re too important…” Her voice trailed off for only a moment and she quickly added.

“You probably have something or know something that the killer wants.” The word killer grated harshly on the moment, and Caden winced. She hadn’t meant to, but even still, the word probably did more to convince the girl that Michael’s concerns were urgent and valid. She opened her eyes once again and it was only then that Michael noticed that the girl’s eyes were almost violet. She’d only seen that once before; a picture of Liz Taylor of all people. Do boys have violet eyes? She felt guilty as she once again realized that regardless of how the person in front of her had originated, it was a woman who sat there now. She shook her head reflexively.

“We have a spare bedroom at home that’s always ready just in case any of my sibs visit. My mom is due back sometime next week.” Michael paused as she realized how much she had in common with the girl sitting next to her. The manner and timing of her passing might be different, but Michael’s mother was also destined to leave this earth sooner rather than later. She was about to become an orphan herself, and Michael felt a stab of grief even though her mother still drew a relatively healthy breath in her battle with cancer. Michael could only hope and pray that Katie Callahan’s passing would be as swift and hopefully painless as the mother of the girl before her.

She shook her head once again; this time with more thought as she regretted in a way the almost too similar circumstances that were drawing her toward Caden O’Rourke. Perhaps it was the rescuer in her; the kid in the family that always begged to keep the lost kitten or take care of the wounded bird. Certainly it had driven her to become a police officer in the first place.

Ever the protector, she was the arbiter with fists and kicks when it came to facing down bullies that hurt stray kids and wounded geeks and Goths in High School; the name ‘SuperLez’ had been worn almost with pride even though it hurt inside when her friends adopted the nickname. “Oh, you know we’re just kidding, right?” They would say.

And now here was another stray; a homeless oddity of a pet. A defenseless, helpless kid who needed protection. At least that’s what she told herself, but inside…in her heart of hearts, her mother would always say, Michael Callahan was falling in love with Caden O’Rourke.

You promised me gloves from the skins of the fishes
The smile of a dolphin for a ring in my hands
You left me with nothing but a mouthful of air
And promises wide as the ocean

You left me down for once and for all
You left me out in the open
Under mackerel skies, high and dry
Way out of the reach of our sea

Next: Promises Wide as the Ocean

You Brought Me Up
as performed by
Meav Ni Mhaolchatha