Touch & Go Read Free

friend.
    Mrs. Ennis was already awake. As with many older women, she had a nearly preternatural ability to know when she’d be needed and generally operated one step ahead. Now she was sitting upright, bedside lamp snapped on, notepad in her hands for last-minute instructions. She slept in an ankle-length red-and-green-plaid flannel nightgown Sophie had given her last year for Christmas. All she needed was a small white cap, and Mrs. Ennis would look just like the grandmother in “Little Red Riding Hood.”
    “I’ve been called in,” Tessa said, an obvious statement.
    “What should I tell her?” Mrs. Ennis asked. “Her” meant Sophie, Tessa’s eight-year-old daughter. Having lost the only father she’d ever known to violence two years ago, Sophie wasn’t keen on letting her mother out of her sight. It was for Sophie’s sake, as much as her own, that Tessa had resigned from being a state trooper after Brian’s death. Her daughter had needed more stability, to know at least one parent would be coming home at night. Tessa’s new job in corporate investigations generally allowed for nine-to-five hours. Of course, this morning’s call…
    Tessa hesitated. “From what I can tell, the situation is urgent,” she admitted. “Meaning it might be a day or two before I return. Depends on what kind of juggling I have to do to gain traction.”
    Mrs. Ennis nodded, didn’t speak.
    “Tell Sophie she can text me,” Tessa said at last. “I don’t know if I’ll always be able to answer my phone, but she can touch base by text and I’ll answer.”
    Tessa nodded as she said the words, satisfied with that answer. Sophie needed to be able to reach her mother. Whether with the touch of her hand, or the push of a button, Sophie simply needed to know, at all times, that her mother was there.
    Because once, Tessa hadn’t been, and even two years later, those kinds of wounds left a mark.
    “She has gymnastics this morning,” Mrs. Ennis said. “Perhaps she can invite a friend over afterward. That’ll keep her busy.”
    “Thank you. I’ll try to call before dinner, definitely before bedtime.”
    “Don’t worry about us.” Mrs. Ennis sounded brisk now. She’d been caring for Sophie since she was a newborn, including the long years Tessa had spent patrolling on graveyard shift. There was nothing involving the household or Sophie that Mrs. Ennis couldn’t handle, and she knew it.
    “Go on now,” Mrs. Ennis said, waving her hand dismissively toward the door. “We’ll be fine.”
    “Thank you.” Tessa meant it.
    “Take care of yourself.”
    “Always.” She meant that, too.
    Tessa eased down the darkened hallway. Her footsteps moved slower than she would’ve liked, pausing before her daughter’s room. Going in, waking her sleeping child would be an act of selfishness. So she contented herself with standing in the open doorway, peering across the dusky room until she could make out the tumble of her daughter’s dark brown hair across her light green pillow.
    Two night lights burned, as Sophie was no longer comfortable with the dark. Tucked between her hands was her favorite doll, a Raggedy Ann–like toy named Gertrude with brown yarn hair and dark button eyes. After Brian’s death, Gertrude wore a Band-Aid on her chest. Because her heart hurt, Sophie would say, and Tessa would nod in understanding.
    Sophie wasn’t the only one with scars from two years ago. Each time Tessa walked out the door now, whether heading to work, going for a run or popping down to the grocery story, she felt the separation from her child as a physical ache, a tearing of herself in half so that she couldn’t be whole until she returned home again. And sometimes she still dreamed of snow and blood, of reaching for her husband’s falling form. But just as often, she dreamed of herself still holding the gun, still pulling the trigger.
    Tessa made it down the hallway. She paused in the kitchen long enough to scrawl a simple note and place