The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

He doesn’t stop me, which doesn’t surprise me. I start walking and I don’t stop. When I exit the station, I’m surprised at the load that lifts off my shoulders. I feel no regret.

“Jazzy.”

At Lang’s voice, I inhale a deep breath and turn as he jogs into a spot in front of me. “You turned in your badge.”

“Yes. I’m done.”

“Our story is good. I’ve got your back.”

“That’s just it, Lang. I don’t want you to have my back if it means lying. And I’ve come to discover that this job is one big lie.”

“I’ll come over tonight and we’ll talk.”

“I won’t be home.” I turn and walk to my car. I get in and start the engine.

Once I’m idling at a stoplight, I do what I haven’t done in far too long. I call my mother before she calls me. “Honey, how are you?” she says.

“How about that lunch, Mom?”

She laughs. “How about dinner? It is after five.”

“Dinner it is.” I hang up and I have no idea what my future holds besides dinner with my mother, but dinner’s a good start. No one is my master but me now.

Chapter 89

The dinner with my mother is the best dinner I’ve had with my mother in years. I meet her at a little Mexican spot near the hospital where she works, and we chat for hours about my future. She tries to hide her relief at my departure from the police department, but she fails. And I’m okay with that. There are times when I’m angry with her over her rose-colored glasses where my father was concerned, but it’s time I get beyond that. She loved him. And now he’s gone, which has left her afraid that I will be, too.

After dinner, we sneak by the nursing home to find my grandfather sleeping. My mother steps out to speak to the nurse while I creep to his bedside and give him a kiss, disappointed when he doesn’t stir. Mom and I are leaving when I spy the poetry book and box of Frosted Flakes by the window. There are two bowls sitting there as well, both floating with leftover milk. I’m sad that someone here has replaced me and vow to remember to visit. I pick up the poetry book and read the title.

There is a pad of paper with my grandfather’s writing, and I sit down in front of it and read his still quite perfect script: The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot’s Contemporary Prose: Second Edition. T. S. Eliot is not only a Nobel Prize winner and one of the most distinguished poets of his time and beyond, he has always been a poet my grandfather favored. “The Waste Land” is a deeply emotional, post-World War I piece broken into five parts.

1. “The Burial of the Dead”

2. “A Game of Chess”

3. “The Fire Sermon”

4. “Death by Water”

5. “What the Thunder Said”

The quote on the paper is from “What the Thunder Said.” Ironically, considering The Poet’s theme of judgment, this section concludes the work with an image of judgment.

In this decayed hole among the mountains

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing

Over the tumbled graves

The words hit a nerve and a shiver runs down my spine, stirring something dark inside me that I quickly visualize. An image of Dave naked and bound to the chair has me launching myself to my feet. A foreboding feeling settles deep in my belly, and I know that while Newman Smith is dead, The Poet will live on in my nightmares.

Chapter 90

Wade calls right before I fall asleep that first night without a badge. “I’m not surprised you resigned.”

“Even I’m surprised I resigned.”

“It’s been in the air since your father died and you wanted to go to Internal Affairs. You’re ready for a change.”

“Is this the FBI recruitment talk?”

“It’s not. You took off your mother’s rose-colored glasses and once you did, you changed.”

He’s referencing many a talk we’ve had over the months. “Is that bad?”

“It’s necessary. It’s a part of what we do and how we survive. It also makes us better at what we do. We become wider thinkers and more diverse.”

“I don’t know what that means for me.”

“You’ll figure it out. Rest. You’re a free woman, and there’s one less killer in the world.”

We hang up and I replay the conversation, drifting into sleep without apprehension. In an unexpected and welcome twist, I wake up my first day without a badge also without memories of a nightmare.

Refreshed, I start my day with a run, frustrated that something about Newman and his suicide nags at me, but I resist a path to the school. I crank up a Garth Brooks song and force The Poet from my mind. I end my run at the coffee shop, suddenly aware that I haven’t heard from Lang or the chief. Lang I understand, but the chief? Well, I thought a godfather would care that I resigned, but I guess I didn’t go to him first, either.