Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

Suddenly the shadows beyond the breakfast bar shifted and she almost dropped her beer in shock. ‘Jesus,’ she exclaimed, taking a step back, eyes wide with apprehension.
    ‘It’s only me,’ Torin said as the darkness resolved itself into his shape.
    Paula reached for the switches and turned on the low-level lighting under the cabinets. In the soft light, she could see he was wearing what passed for pyjamas these days – baggy plaid trousers and a grey V-necked T-shirt. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ she complained, reaching for the patio door and hauling it open.
    ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked as if he was about to burst into tears. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ He gestured at the half-empty glass of milk on the breakfast bar. ‘My mum always said that milk helped you sleep. Something about the calcium. It’s not working too well, though.’ He hitched himself on to a tall chair.
    Paula stepped outside with her beer, lit a cigarette and grimaced at the acrid taste that filled her mouth. Why was it that you only ever knew you’d reached the limit of daily cigarette pleasure when you went one too far? And what the hell was she supposed to say to this kid that wasn’t some desperate cliché? ‘You’re going to have a lot of broken nights,’ she tried. ‘The only advice I can give you is not to fret over it. It’s natural. Part of grieving.’
    ‘What’s going to happen to me, Paula?’ His voice shook.
    A lot of bad stuff. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. You’re going to have a shit time for a while. You’re going to feel raw, like somebody scraped your insides with a spoon. You’re going to feel like the tears are never more than somebody else’s careless comment away. You’re going to feel like nothing will ever be right in your life again. But I promise you, all of that passes. It’s not that you stop missing your mum or loving her. Somehow it becomes bearable.’
    ‘I don’t know. It’s like that would be letting her down.’
    She remembered that feeling only too well. When her colleague Don Merrick had died, it had felt like every day on the job was part of a long process of failing his memory. ‘What would be letting her down would be to not live your life as fully as you possibly can. You’ve got a helluva touchstone there, Torin. When you’re confronted with hard choices, you can always ask yourself what would have made your mum proud.’ Paula took a last drag and crushed out the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray Elinor reluctantly allowed on her precious deck. She came back inside and sat in the chair next to him.
    ‘I want to kill the man who did this to her,’ he said, staring bleakly at his milk.
    ‘I know.’
    ‘But what’s worse is knowing that, even if he was standing in front of me, I wouldn’t be able to. I’m just a kid, Paula. And there’s nothing I can do to make him feel the misery he’s made for everybody that knew her.’ He banged his fist on the table. ‘I feel pathetic.’
    ‘We’re doing everything we can to bring him to justice. It won’t be the kind of wild justice that we all crave when we’re hurting, but it will deprive him of everything that makes life worth living for most people.’ She put her hand over his. ‘And you’re already in a better place than him because you’ve got people all round you who care about you. When we catch him, his friends will melt into the darkness. His family will disown him. He’ll have nothing. You’ll always have more than him.’
    Torin didn’t look convinced. ‘I wish my dad was home.’ He gave a jerky laugh. ‘Listen to me. Fourteen years old and I want my daddy, like I was a little kid.’
    ‘Of course you want your dad. It doesn’t matter what age you are when you lose a parent, you want somebody you love to take care of you. I’m sorry your dad can’t be here, but we’re going to do our best for you, Torin. Don’t bottle up how you’re feeling. Don’t worry about what we think of you, because what we think is that you’re a great lad.’
    All at once, his shoulders were shaking with sobs, huge gulping moans that filled the room with his anguish. Not knowing what else to do, Paula got up and gathered him in her arms. It was like hugging an alien; the feel of his body, the faint boy-smell of his skin, the vibration of his grief in her own chest were all foreign to her. She’d thought the best thing she could do for Torin was to nail his mother’s killer. Now she understood this