8 Strawberry Bank Rd.

Suite 20

Nashua, New Hampshire

note. Something. She loved me too much.” Tears were welling in his eyes again and he poked at them with the soggy napkins. “Please.” He pushed the crinkled bill, a fifty, across the table.

    I didn’t know what to say to him. How could I tell him that grownups sometimes do things like that? Maybe tell him about my boy, Rob, about two years his junior, and how Witch Number One hauled him off to Utah? Or how Witch Number Two left with Mandy, then three, after cleaning out our savings account, maxing the Sears, Visa and Discover cards and scribbling “Goodbye, Asshole” on my pillow in lipstick? How could I tell him that life wasn’t fair?

    “Look Tommy, I’d really like to help you,” I said, still avoiding his eyes. “Really. But this isn’t my kind of job. I could get into all kinds of trouble. Lose my license even, messing around in a cop’s private affairs.”

    I guess he could tell by the tone of my voice that argument was useless. I knew he was looking at me. I continued staring at my Coke. A minute passed before he took his money and quietly got up and walked out the door. It was time to go to work. All I could think about were his sad eyes and the words on the pillow.  Maybe she was right.

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