Expectations

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 1

They used to talk about it, dream about it, even plan for it, but life had interfered. Infidelity. Blindness. Rehabilitation. Healing. Adjustment. Where had those plans gone? Had they escaped, with his vision, to a place in his imagination he couldn’t often bear to visit? Why had he never thought of such a thing happening?

Where did a baby fit into this life?

He and Christie used to imagine what their child would look like. All they knew for sure was that it was bound to have blue eyes, but the hair color could be anything. It was a given that any child born of Christie would have to be stunning and Jim was sensible enough to know that his genetic contribution wouldn’t lessen the effect any. The thought of his future daughter’s beauty used to make him tense as he imagined her setting off on her first date with some punk who was obviously not good enough for her. He had seen himself shaking hands with the little rat extra hard to give him a taste of how strong the daddy of this girl was, making sure the kid was able to look him in the eye as they spoke. He had seen the scared kid glimpsing the gun on his hip…the gun he had conveniently left in place after arriving home from work, just to remind the kid that he had to take extra-special care of this girl. Or else.

He shifted on the couch and sighed, feeling Christie’s eyes on him even though she was silent. She was waiting for his next words, but he didn’t know how to form them.

“You’re sure about this?” he finally said. “Can’t you take another one?”

She laughed easily. Comfortably. “I’ve taken three already.”

When had he last heard that tone in her voice? That joy in her laugh? He looked right at her but all he saw was the image her voice triggered in his mind. He saw her eyes laughing at him, startlingly pale in contrast with the glossy blackness of her hair. What color were they, exactly? It was easier to say “blue” but they were nearly aqua. He could see them crinkling impishly in the corners as she smiled at him. She had to be smiling because that laugh had been so very real.

“So,” he started to say, feeling foolish. “Uh—a baby. So, those tests are never wrong?”

“Jimmy!” Her tone was playful, but a slight edge had crept into her voice. “Come on.”

“I thought we would talk about it before—how did this happen?”

“Well, I haven’t been on the pill for over a year,” she reminded. “And you don’t like condoms…”

He knew this only too well. But she had worked it all out. Timed it. Measured it. “You said you were doing that thing with your temperature every day,” he said helplessly. “You said you knew when it was safe.”

“I was. I did. Hey, it kept us safe for over a year, but nothing is foolproof. Well, almost nothing, but that’s no fun.”

Again that laugh rang out, jarring Jim with its very happiness. How long had she been hoping for an “accident” like this?

He rested his forehead against the palm of his hand. “Every time, when I asked you, you told me if it was safe or not. You sounded so sure. What did you do, Christie?”

“What did I do?” she asked, the edge in her voice deepening, “First of all, I didn’t do anything, we did, and you’re smart enough to know these things can happen. Second of all, I seem to remember you not asking not too long ago. Neither one of us seemed all that concerned with consulting my chart on that particular night before…”

His head came up. Oh. That night. It almost felt like a blur, even though it had only been three weeks. The day he had given up his gun. Too much had been crammed into his head that day for anything to make sense. The sacrifice. The despair. The triumph over self. Holding Christie in his arms that night, oddly euphoric after their final dance class, somber because of the thought of that gun sitting in his locker and not on his hip. Never again on his hip. The passion ignited as it hadn’t since—well, it had never been that good, even when he could see. He had never before allowed himself to feel such a complete sense of oneness with his wife. Of course he hadn’t remembered to ask Christie if it was safe. Her fertile days had not been on the top of his list of concerns as he had given in to whatever it was that had overwhelmed them both when they found themselves in the privacy of their apartment. What a release it had been. The thought of that night had kept him going during those next hard days at work as he had arrived each morning, feeling like less of a cop because he was the only one who wasn’t armed. Feeling like less of a man. But whenever he thought of that night, he knew he was still all the man he needed to be.

“So that night…”

“Yes,” she said. “It had to be. It was at just the right—or wrong—time. I realized it later.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you might be…?”

“I figured there wasn’t any hurry in case it turned out to be a false alarm. I even waited a whole extra week to be sure and now we know. It’s not a false alarm. Congratulations, Jimmy. You’re going to be a father!”

Extreme emotions struggled within him, leaving him stunned, as he had felt the day Dr. Galloway had told him he was fit for duty and that he didn’t need to come in anymore. As part of him had inflated, thinking of the psychiatric evaluation being favorable, another part of him had felt cut off at the knees, lost without the safety of having an excuse to continue talking to this man, who had such wisdom. Even now, Galloway’s words floated through Jim’s mind sometimes, making him think, sustaining him.

Christie was going to have his baby. He tried to think of what having a baby in his life would be like, but some barrier came up every time he tried to take that image past a certain place in his mind. Why wouldn’t his brain allow him to fully realize what this meant? But then he knew and a chill swept over him, causing him to shudder.

“Jimmy?” Christie asked, but her voice seemed to be coming from very far away. Jim had a hard time hearing her over the pounding in his ears.

Never, since the moment he had awakened in the hospital, face covered in bandages, had Jim felt so blind. Blindness had become just another tiresome fact of his life; that one extra hurdle placed before him he would always have to jump in order to be almost as good as everyone else. But that was life and Jim had learned to accept the limitations that had been forced upon him. He was even learning to be happy, and in ways he had never thought of when he could see.

But a baby! That beautiful child Jim had always dreamed of protecting. The child Jim would never see. He would always remember what Christie looked like, but his child would be a faceless blur in his mind, like Marty or Karen or everyone else he had met since losing his sight. His knowledge of his child’s face would be secondhand. He wouldn’t see his baby smile. He wouldn’t be able to size up pesky boyfriends. He wouldn’t be able to coach Little League. He wouldn’t even be able to drive his kid to Little League games and then film the games from the bleachers like all the other embarrassing parents. He would be raising his child in a void. He sighed, shaking his head.

Christie’s hand brushed his cheek. He jumped, jarred out of his reverie by the contact, but her gentle fingers played with his hair and he felt himself being drawn into her arms. He gave himself up to the comfort of her body, sheltering him as his thoughts swirled out of control. Before losing his sight, Jim wasn’t one to cuddle or even to sit still for very long. Now he knew what he had been missing all those years as he leaned against his wife so her arms could encircle him from behind. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t facing her. In a way, this position made not being able to see her slightly less frustrating than usual because she couldn’t see much of him either. Not head on, anyway. His eyes and whatever they could accidentally reveal were not in her face.

“I knew this would be hard,” she said, her voice sweet, quiet. “And I know why. I understand, Jimmy. I know you don’t think I can understand what this is like for you, but I can.”

He stiffened a little, feeling the sudden urge to resist the comfort she offered. “Can you?” he asked. He regretted the words almost instantly. They sounded bitter. Jim had been through a lot over the past couple of years, but one thing he had tried not to be was bitter. Once he gave in to that kind of feeling, the fight was lost and he might as well give up and sit around the house for the rest of his life, living off his pension.

“I can never know what it’s like,” she said, leaning in to kiss the top of his head. “Of course I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand. I’ve been with you through everything. I know a little something about the way your mind works and I know what you’re thinking right now.”

“And what is that, huh?”

Again those lips brushed across his face, kissing his scarred temple. “This has to be bringing up a lot of—issues.”

He sat up straight on the couch, disentangling himself from his wife’s caressing kisses. “You call them ‘issues’?”

Her silence could have meant anything. Oh God, she had his baby in her. Jim reached for her, his hand settling on her stomach. A new kind of awe struck him as his palm pressed against her. He tried to imagine was has happening inside. No one could see it yet. They were all blind.

“You’re going to be the most amazing father, Jimmy,” she said, the calmness of her voice settling some of his raging thoughts. “What a lucky baby. We always planned—”

“We did,” he interrupted. He didn’t want to hear about those plans now; those words that would shove blindness back in his face, mocking him. “It’s different…” he said slowly, but then he realized he couldn’t explain what was so different except for to go with the ridiculously obvious thing, and that wasn’t something he talked about. Not the deeper aspects of it. Not with Christie. Not with anyone. It had taken some time to even tell Galloway and that had only happened because his job had depended upon it.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said, drawing him back to her. Those hands felt so good, one of them back in his hair, the other trailing across his chest as he settled back into that comfortable place only Christie had.

“It’s okay,” he said, giving up all thought as his body relaxed.

“Obviously things are different, Jimmy.”

Now her voice had lost that dreamy sound that had made him relax. The words were sharp, insistent.

“That’s what I said,” he said, his sharpness matching hers. “Different.”

“Well, why bring it up?” she asked. “I get it. You’re blind. That wasn’t in the original plan. Why is this different from any of the other things you’ve had to accept?”

Why was it? Warmth flooded him for a moment, settling in his eyes, making him glad Christie was holding him from behind and wasn’t in a position to see his face very clearly. Jim couldn’t remember the last time he had out-and-out cried, but this warm feeling in his eyes was as close as he came to it and Christie could always tell.

“Why, Jimmy?” she asked again.

“I don’t mind not seeing a crime scene so much—or Marty, for that matter,” he said, trying to laugh. “I miss seeing you, but I know what you look like. It’s locked in and I can see you any time I like. But…my kid—”

“You’ll know your child, Jimmy. Better than anybody. Maybe even better than I will. It will be special, the way you get to know your baby.”

He nodded because the warmth was worse now and he knew it would be in his voice if he tried to speak. Turning, he kissed Christie’s stomach and then he wrapped his arms around her in a low hug.

“You happy?” Christie asked, nudging Jim back into a sitting position and shifting so that, if Jim could see, they would be looking into each other’s eyes. He could feel her expressive eyes boring into his blank ones. “Jimmy? What is it?”

He smiled. “I’m happy. It’s just…it’s too much for me to really get all at once.”

“I hope he looks just like his daddy,” she said, a playful note back in her voice. “Daddy’s blue eyes and blond hair.”

Jim shook his head. “No. She’s going to look like you.”

“A girl?”

He thought about it. “I don’t know why, but I feel like it’s a girl. I just picture it that way. I mean, a boy would be great, too—but I just keep seeing a girl.”

Her hands went to his face, drawing him into what he knew would be a kiss. He even knew what kind of kiss it would be. Learning all her signals hadn’t been easy in the beginning, but now Jim could anticipate Christie’s needs without a word being spoken between them.

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 2

“I have to admit I'm surprised to see you here again, Jim.”

Jim gripped the armrests of the familiar chair, turning his face toward his best guess at where Dr. Galloway was, but then his hands relaxed and dropped into his lap. This was no longer about keeping his job. Jim could trust the kindness he sensed in this man, could feel comforted by the low, calming voice that never shied away from the truth, even when it hurt.

For some reason, he hadn't been able to tell Christie about this appointment. A week of living with her fertilized and implanted bliss was enough to prove he would have to find a different way of figuring out how to feel about this child. His child. It still felt weird to even think those words.

“Yeah,” Jim said to Dr. Galloway. “I—well, I want to run something by you. Get your thoughts about what I should be doing.”

“I'm flattered you think I can be of such help to you,” Dr. Galloway said, a smile in his voice. Some people had more audible smiles than others. Jim thought he could always hear Dr. Galloway's smiles.

“I need to at least try,” Jim said, smiling back. “You see, Christie told me something last week and I need to know—”

“This is about Christie?”

“It is.”

“Sorry to cut you off here, but I thought you and Christie were going to a couple's therapist now. Remember, this isn't my area of expertise.”

Jim frowned. He had been wondering if this would come up, hoping Dr. Galloway had conveniently forgotten about couple's therapy.

“I know. We were going to—we still plan to, but we went that other way you said first and it—it worked. That's actually part of the problem. See, it was so successful that we forgot about taking certain precautions when—”

“What other way? What are you talking about?”

“You told us to have fun.”

Dr. Galloway sighed and Jim could hear him tapping the arm of his chair. “You had fun?” he finally asked, but the patience Jim often heard in his voice sounded like it required more effort than usual to sustain. “You did understand, didn't you, that I was suggesting a place to start? Something to keep you sane until you were able to talk it all over with someone more qualified than myself to deal with…”

“That's just it. We tried to figure out what to do and then Christie signed us up for these ballroom dance lessons and—”

He stopped at sound from Dr. Galloway that was probably a stifled laugh but that could have been the choke that comes when water goes down the wrong pipe.

“I know,” Jim said sheepishly, assuming he was interpreting the sound correctly. “That wasn't exactly my first choice. But she really wanted us to do it. It wasn't about the dancing. It was about taking the time and about me making an effort so—I did. We did. It was…fun. Not something I plan to pursue, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There's this one song that will always be stuck in my head now, but…it was mostly positive. I think I got kind of good at it.”

Jim ended with a self-conscious laugh. The mental image he had of himself dancing was probably as funny as the one that had caused Dr. Galloway to practically laugh aloud.

“So you danced, you enjoyed it—”

“I wouldn't say enjoyed…”

“I thought that was what you were saying.”

Jim smiled and shook his head, feeling more at ease than he ever had in that office. “I enjoyed the time with Christie. Just doing something like that together. It got us more in sync than we've been before. It rekindled something.”

“This all sounds very positive, Jim. I'm not really sure what it is you think I can do when it comes to your marriage, though. I still think you need to be going to that therapist I recommended—or someone else. Why come to me?”

“You weren't shy about bringing my marriage into it when you were supposed to be doing my psychiatric evaluation,” Jim pointed out. “Let's just pretend I never came in here with Christie and go with the approach you were using then, all right? That's what I need here.”

“So you want me to approach your marriage from the perspective of how it affects you as a cop?”

“You did more than that.”

Jim could hear a sigh coming from Dr. Galloway. “I guess it can be interpreted in that way,” he admitted. “Okay, I'll do my best here. Before we go on, I have to ask. How are things on the job?”

“Really good,” Jim said, nodding to emphasize the point.

“You know I won't be writing any more reports—unless I see something too extreme to ignore, which I don't anticipate happening in your case. You can say whatever you want. You always could.”

“I know that. It is good, though.”

“Even with Detective Russo?”

Jim laughed. “Even with Marty. I stopped carrying the gun, you know.”

“I thought you might decide to do that. What made you do it?”

“A lot of things. A case we were working. Marty. Karen agreeing to partner with me even without the gun. Everyone was supportive and it—it just seemed like something I had to do.”

“Marty was instrumental?”

“Yeah. He confronted me about it without being the complete asshole he usually is and he made some strong points. And he said I had earned my place in the squad even without a gun—especially without the gun, I think.”

Dr. Galloway made a noise like he was puffing out his cheeks. “Wow. That's surprising. Did he also tell you you were like the son he never had?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Since when are you the smartass here?”

They both laughed, Jim feeling a kind of connection he had never expected to feel with someone he had never seen. He used to wonder how he would be able to connect with the faceless people he was going to be meeting for the rest of his life. No eye contact. No visual cues. None of the little things that link people together in any of the normal ways. But now he felt he knew the man across from him. Not on a personal level. They couldn't exactly be friends. But Jim understood and could even predict Dr. Galloway's reactions. He knew his various tones. He could receive the signals and interpret the silences of this man.

“Okay, Jim. Let's talk about your marriage. What happened with Christie?”

“She's pregnant.”

Silence. This wasn't Dr. Galloway's usual silence, punctuated by the rustling of his papers or his footsteps pacing the floor or the faint sound of him moving to another chair or just tapping something. He was dead silent this time.

“Was this…planned?” he finally asked.

Jim sighed. “No. At least I didn't plan it. Christie says she didn't either and I guess I believe her, but…she’s so happy. Would she be this happy if it was a complete accident?”

“I don't know, Jim. Maybe. So, what do you think about all this?”

“I'm—confused,” he said, not satisfied with his own response but unable to think of a better way of expressing it.

“Have you ever thought about having kids before?”

For a second Jim thought that warm feeling was going to go to his eyes again, but he held it back, trying to keep his face stony. “Of course.”

“What was your timeframe?”

“We talked about it when we were first married. A lot, actually. We didn't really have a timeframe.”

“And since the shooting?”

Jim shook his head and sighed. “I—you know. So much was happening. No, we haven't mentioned it for a long time, except to plan for ways of preventing it from happening. Christie was doing this chart thing and it was supposed to tell her when it was safe and…after dance class one night we forgot to check. I forgot. I don't know if Christie…”

“What are you accusing Christie of doing?”

“I'm not accusing—”

“Yes you are, Jim. Bottom line here, you two always planned to have children and now you're going to. Did Christie get careless on purpose? I don't know. Maybe she doesn't even know. Is that the point here? What would you have said if she had brought up the issue with you before this happened?”

“I would’ve—” he stopped himself, realizing he had no idea of how to honestly answer this question. “I don't know. I might have considered it.”

“Do you think she sensed your hesitation and decided to take matters into her own hands? Is that what this is about?”

“Maybe.”

“Does that make a difference to you? Do you want this baby?”

Jim bowed his head. “Of course I do.”

Jim heard Dr. Galloway's hands dropping onto his armrests, as if he had first raised them in exasperation.

“Why are we here, Jim?”

Jim looked toward Dr. Galloway and sighed. “Do I have to say it?”

“Ah,” Dr. Galloway said in his seconds-before-reaching-a-breakthrough voice. “This isn't about becoming a father. This is about becoming a blind father.”

“Not like you didn't know that all along,” Jim said sharply.

“I never presume to know anything,” Dr. Galloway said, and Jim caught another smile in his voice. A sympathetic smile.

“I just—I’m happy. Of course I am. But…it just feels so wrong when I know I'll never be able to…”

“To what, Jim?” Dr. Galloway asked eagerly. “You haven't been blind all that long, despite all that you've accomplished. It's okay to have these thoughts. To mourn for what you have lost. That's all a part of the process.”

“I didn't want it this way,” Jim said, finding his words increasingly difficult to choose. “I always thought when I had kids I would be…”

Dr. Galloway allowed the silence after Jim's broken sentence to grow between them for longer than Jim thought was comfortable.

“You thought you would be sighted,” Dr. Galloway said at last. “You had a different plan in mind, but think about this for a moment. If you were sighted right now, would you be as close to Christie as you are as a blind man? The two of you were obviously having some serious problems for a long time before you lost your sight. Would you even still be together if you weren’t blind?”

Several things rushed through Jim's mind at once, all of them unpleasant. Anne Donnelly, Christie leaving him, the guilt he had felt when she had returned to take care of him. And before all that, he recalled their violent spats, their misunderstandings, the distance growing between them, the feeling that they didn't even know each other.

“Probably not,” he admitted. “She had already left me.”

“She came back because you were blind?”

“Because I got shot, yeah.”

“And she stayed because you were blind?”

“I hope that wasn't the only reason. That isn’t the reason now, anyway.”

“Whatever the reason, she stayed and the two of you decided to work things out. Sounds like you’re even having some success at it.”

Jim smiled. “Yeah, I feel like we got that fresh start you told me about.”

“You seem happy about that.”

“Of course I am. It feels great, having that with Christie again.”

“Was it worth going blind to get that back?”

Jim shook his head. “That's a really—what kind of question is that? You think I had any choice? If I had to answer right now, I'd say, yeah. It’s better to have Christie than my sight. Ask me in ten minutes, you might get a different answer. I don't know. I like to think I could have had it all.”

“You did have it all once. Was life as good then as it is now? Think of everything this experience has taught you, Jim. Think of all that you’ve gained, including your renewed relationship with your wife. Your unborn child. Do you really think Christie would be carrying your baby right now if you hadn’t lost your sight?”

Jim shifted in his seat. “Are you coming to any kind of a point here?”

“We're almost out of time so I will say this: your concerns about being a blind father are valid and your feeling of loss over not being able to see your child is completely normal.”

“I didn't say…”

“You never do. Did it ever occur to you that I learn the most about you from what you don't say?”

“Well, this is all very helpful. I’m glad to be normal and everything, but a solution would be nice, once in a while.”

“Sorry Jim, I don’t have the instruction manual you came with. But back to my point, and yes, I do have one, you're not in an easy situation, but I feel confident this can still be a very happy time for you. I'm far more concerned about the state of your marriage than I am about the state of your vision. The two of you need to do everything you can to make sure you can provide a stable environment for your child as a team. I'm glad you had fun and reconnected. That's a huge accomplishment. But you didn't suddenly fix yourselves. You have to work even harder and you really should get into couples therapy as soon as possible. I know this means a lot to you or you wouldn't be here talking to me about it.”

Jim nodded, trying to take it all in. “Okay,” he said, standing and reaching for Hank's harness. “I understand. I will make sure we go to that therapist but…does that mean I can't come to see you about this on my own if I need to?”

“That would be fine, Jim.”

“Thanks,” Jim said, heading for the door.

“Jim?”

Jim stopped and turned at the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Congratulations.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 3

“You can go now,” Karen told Maria Ramirez, the girlfriend of a man who had been found murdered in an alley that morning. “We need you to be available in case we have any more questions for you in the course of our investigation.”

Jim stood at the sound of the door closing behind the woman they had just interviewed, wondering vaguely what she looked like. Based on her name, he imagined her to be Hispanic and something in her voice gave him the impression she was overweight. Her speech pattern and poor grammar caused him to see her as young and dressed in tacky and possibly tight clothing. He couldn’t be certain of any of this, but he had started to trust the images of people his mind produced as he interviewed them. Sometimes he wondered if his subconscious was able to pick up on subtle details about people and throw hints of them into his mental images to give him a different—and often more accurate—picture of them than what the others saw with their eyes. Was he seeing the real thing while the others were given only the façade? He couldn’t know for sure, but he liked the concept.

He followed Karen back to their desks and took his seat beside Hank, who was waiting patiently on the floor, as always.

“Okay,” Karen said, sitting at her desk and moving some papers around. “Tomorrow we need to track down the roommate and see if…”

Her words started to go by him, growing more difficult for him to follow as the thought of the argument he had had with Christie that morning resurfaced. Why had she been so angry? As far as he could tell, she had flown into a temper because he had forgotten to put the orange juice back in the refrigerator the night before. Maybe she was being hormonal again. That had been her excuse the last couple of times her anger had reached an unreasonable level. She had apologized both times, citing her pregnancy as the reason for her extreme moods. Very possible, although Jim wondered what had caused some of the moods prior to the pregnancy.

“…so I’ll give that a try and you can…hey! Jim!”

Jim’s head jerked up and he faced Karen. “The roommate,” he said, nodding. “Yeah.”

“You’re not listing to a word I’m saying, are you?”

The corners of his mouth went down and he shrugged. “I thought I was. Sorry, Karen. What were you saying about the roommate?”

“Is something up with you lately?” she asked. “Is it still the gun? You get real quiet sometimes and you just aren’t all there. If something is wrong, I need for you to tell me.”

“Nothing is wrong,” he said. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been pulling my weight lately.”

“No, Jim. It isn’t that. You pull your weight just fine, but I can see you’re preoccupied.”

He had always appreciated Karen’s straight talk and the way she never let anything slide, even if such scrutiny was uncomfortable from time to time.

It often amused Jim to think of those shaky first few days after he had joined the 8th Precinct. Of course, he had thought at the time, they partnered him with the woman. And quite a young one at that. He hadn’t been in a position to complain, knowing that the lowest one on the squad’s totem pole was even less happy with the pairing than he had been. But he and Karen had underestimated each other. He soon came to see that Karen was sharp, intuitive, tough. But there was a soft side there. A kindness. A kind of instinct that showed her how to give Jim a non-intrusive form of help that made him feel like more than an equal in their partnership. She had made it obvious early on that she was the still the junior partner, even if she was lending Jim her eyes and even though she was the main thing that had enabled him to succeed on the job. She looked up to him. Admired him. He could feel it. Her trust in him had made things bearable even during the time before Marty had accepted that Jim was going to be staying at the 8th Precinct. It could have been a whole lot worse, he had often thought. Fisk could have partnered him with Marty, just to get rid of him.

“So what is it, Jim? And don’t tell me it’s nothing because I know that’s not true.”

Jim cocked his head to one side, listening. He could hear some activity at the far side of the room, but the area around his desk seemed quiet. He reached down and scratched Hank between the ears, thinking of what to tell Karen.

“We’re alone, aren’t we?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

Karen rolled her chair close. “Yeah,” she said after a pause that told Jim she had checked before answering. “No one too nearby.”

“This needs to stay between us, okay? It’s not something we’re telling people yet.”

“No problem.”

“Christie is pregnant,” he said, smiling.

The smile came naturally as he said the words, surprising him with how good it felt to be telling someone this news—apart from Dr. Galloway, whom he had told because the thought had scared the shit out of him at the time. The idea of the life growing within his wife—the life he had planted there—had become a source of excitement in recent weeks. The biggest surprise now was how difficult it was becoming not to tell people, but Christie was adamant about holding off until at least her second trimester. She didn’t want to jinx it. But Karen was his partner and, as she often reminded him, if something was bothering him, she needed to know about it so they could work better together. Surely Christie wouldn’t mind Karen knowing, since he depended on her for so much on the job.

“Congratulations, Jim!” Karen said, filling Jim with a softer image of the brown-eyed half-Puerto Rican woman than the one her voice often gave him. He had a better description of Karen than of anyone else in the squad, but he still couldn’t see her face clearly in his mind. Her toughness on the job and the streetwise sound of her voice gave him one image while the almost-shy vulnerability she let peek through at times gave him quite a different one.

“Thanks,” he said, his smile still going strong.

“How far along is she?” Karen asked.

“Eight weeks,” he said. “She’s due in February.”

“Wow, this is really great news. Be sure to tell Christie how happy I am for the two of you.”

Jim bit his lip. “Well, I’ll tell her later. You’re not supposed to know, so…”

“Right,” she said, her voice full of understanding. “Man, I didn’t know you were even trying.”

Jim’s smile grew sheepish. “We weren’t.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But it’s still a good thing.”

“And you guys aren’t getting any younger,” Karen pointed out.

Jim grimaced at her. “Thanks for that.”

“Well it’s true, and with a baby—”

“Dunbar procreated?”

Jim stiffened, the smile on his face fading. Marty. The absolute last person he had planned on letting into this particular loop.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” Karen said quietly. “I didn’t see him come in.”

Jim shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

“So,” Marty said, footsteps stopping across from Jim’s desk. “You’re going to be a father?”

“Marty,” Karen said, her voice quiet but firm. “This isn’t supposed to get out yet. It’s still very early, so please don’t go blabbing. Seriously.”

“Okay,” he said, sitting at his own desk. The slightly mocking tone had left his voice.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened, but the thought of having proof to throw in the face of someone like Marty that blind people could still make love to their wives was oddly gratifying. Something told Jim that Marty might not have known this; that he might have assumed blind people to be asexual and rendered celibate for life. Jim no longer had a gun, but the image of beautiful pregnant Christie was in Marty’s head now. That seemed to make something right.

“So, what are you going to name it?” Karen asked.

Jim puffed out his cheeks, thinking. “That’s going to be a problem,” he admitted. “I don’t know if we’re on the same page about that at all. Christie likes to be creative and I like names everyone knows how to spell.”

“Just name it after yourselves or the grandparents,” Marty suggested. “Easier that way.”

Jim shook his head. “Nah, that won’t work. Christie already has a niece and nephew named after her parents and my parents are named Howard and Ruth, so that isn’t really the way we want to go. Christie only wants our names to turn up as middle names, if at all, so we still have a lot to discuss. Right now I tell her we’re going to name it ‘Warren’ whether it’s a boy or a girl. That shuts her up.”

Marty’s laugh had a note of appreciation in it while Karen’s sounded merely tolerant.

Jim stood, reaching for Hank’s harness. “I’ll see you both tomorrow,” he said. “Christie has her first ultrasound tonight so I gotta go meet her there now.”

“Jim,” Marty said. “I got tons of advice if you ever need it. I’ve been there.”

“Thanks, Marty.”

He really did appreciate the offer and the sincere manner in which it was presented, but he couldn’t imagine the circumstance that would drive him to ask Marty for parenting advice.

Jim followed the complicated directions he had memorized and met Christie outside her doctor’s office.

“Perfect timing,” she said as he approached. “I’m glad you were able to get off on time today.”

She kissed him and held his hand as they walked to the door together.

“Before we go in,” Jim said, keeping his voice low. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“The orange juice?”

She laughed. “Oh, that. I had already forgotten about it. Sorry, Jim. I wasn’t feeling well and you know…hormones.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, sighing. Did he have seven more months of hormonal outbursts ahead of him?

Jim knew he wouldn’t be able to get much out of the ultrasound experience. From what he remembered, even sighted people couldn’t make much sense out of them, but as he sat in a chair beside where Christie was lying on a table, it struck him that other people were going to be seeing his baby for the first time and he was going to have to put up with hearing them talk about it, with catching their initial reactions and then having to wait patiently for someone to remember to describe the image for him.

He was right.

The initial reactions were stronger than he had expected, the surprise in the voices causing a knot of fear to tighten in Jim’s chest.

“…you see that?…is that what I think it is?…no way!…”

Surely they couldn’t know a gender yet and Jim couldn’t think of what else could be causing this kind of a reaction.

“What is it?” he asked, annoyed that no one had immediately let him in on it.

The next afternoon Jim entered Dr. Galloway's office, moving faster than usual.

Before going through the any of the usual routines or even sitting down, Jim sighed and faced the sound of rustling papers coming from Dr. Galloway’s desk.

“Twins,” he said, feeling that he had already just explained himself completely.

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 4

Jim could hear it before he was even close to the door of his apartment. Female voices, laughing and chattering inside. It was happening more often, now that Christie was more than three months along and everyone knew about the babies. More friends stopping by the apartment. More female bonding.

Bracing himself, he removed Hank’s harness and put his key in the front door.

“…the morning sickness isn’t as bad as it was,” Christie was saying, her voice coming from the couch area of the living room. “I’m still dragging at work, though. Hi, Jimmy! You’re home early.”

“Who else is here?” Jim asked, irritated that she hadn’t thought to tell him straight away. She didn’t always think of such things.

“It’s just me,” a familiar voice said.

Shannon? Since when did Christie hang out alone with Jim’s sister?

“This is a surprise,” Jim said, dropping the harness in its usual spot and heading toward the voices.

“Watch out for the—” Shannon couldn’t even complete her sentence before Jim’s foot made contact with something on the floor that shouldn’t have been there. He knew instantly he had no hope of regaining his balance. Arms flailing, he took a tumble, hitting his knee hard a second before his hands came down and broke the rest of his fall

He heard them rushing toward him at the same time, but Shannon got to him first.

“Here, Christie. Take Bradley. I’ve got him.”

I’ve got him? For a split second Jim flashed back to that horrible day when he had entered Terry’s home and was pulled along by Annie until Terry had said, “I got him, Sweetie. I got him.” As if he wasn’t even a person. As if every step he took had to be monitored. As if he couldn’t enter a familiar living room and find a place to sit on his own. And now he had fallen in front of his sister, who thought he needed help. She was ten years younger. Jim had always protected her, helped her, teased her mercilessly. He wasn’t ready for the tables to turn.

As he struggled to disentangle his foot from some kind of strap, he felt his sister’s hands in his, trying to help him to his feet.

“Wait,” he said irritably. “What is this thing? It’s all wrapped around my foot.”

“I am so sorry! That’s Bradley’s diaper bag. I forgot…”

Soon Jim’s foot was free and, after touching his knee gently to see if it seemed badly bruised, he stood and brushed himself off, hoping he hadn’t done any harm to his suit.

“You can’t be forgetting stuff like that around here,” he said sharply. “Think about it for two seconds, Shannon. I need everything to be in a certain place. The floor has to be clear.”

“I said I was sorry,” Shannon said, resting a pacifying hand on Jim’s arm.

“Jimmy,” Christie said. “It’s as much my fault as it is hers. She just got here a few minutes ago and we started talking and—we got distracted. You know how it is when there are babies around. I’m sorry we didn’t think about the bag.”

He raised his hands in front of him to end the subject—a gesture he knew Christie hated but that he used because it was effective—and then let them drop to his side. “What brings you by?” he asked Shannon.

“I wanted to come over and talk baby stuff with Christie. Everyone is so excited. Mom and Dad are shocked they get to be grandparents again so soon. They thought little Bradley here would be it for a while.”

And why had they thought that? Did everyone find it shocking that Jim was capable of impregnating his wife? He frowned, thinking of his parents. He was their only son and his dad had always taken great pride in everything Jim had done from boxing to joining the military to becoming a cop to becoming a detective. Jim and his dad may not have known how to talk to each other, but the more manly Jim seemed on the surface, the more he knew his dad bragged about him down at that same bar where he had spent nearly every evening of Jim’s life, drinking with a group of friends. Jim didn’t think his dad thought being blind was very manly and he doubted if his name came up much in that group anymore. His mom and sister were supportive and upbeat when they saw Jim, although he could feel their pity and their sorrow from time to time. But his dad…Jim no longer felt like the biggest source of his father’s pride. It seemed more likely he was an embarrassment to him now, in spite of how well he had adapted.

“You look really good, Jimmy,” Shannon said—a little too brightly. It was the voice she used when she was trying to sound chipper and normal because Jim’s blindness was still weird to her. Jim wondered if his family would ever get used to seeing him this way. Thank God Christie wasn’t like that, he found himself thinking—not for the first time. Christie had learned to think of it all as normal and had made it easy for blindness to be normal. Why shouldn’t it be normal? He still felt the same inside.

“He cleans up well, doesn’t he?” Christie said, admiration in her voice.

“Does he always dress like that for work? That’s a really nice suit.”

“Typical for work,” Christie assured Shannon. “Jim’s got taste.”

“I’m going to go change,” Jim said, heading for the bedroom. “You guys can keep talking about my wardrobe since you find it so fascinating.”

“Let me look at that knee,” Christie said, following him. “You hit it pretty hard.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just be a minute.”

He felt better when he had changed into Jeans and a t-shirt, even though he had no idea of which t-shirt he was wearing. He never had labeled his casual wear because it was mostly interchangeable anyway.

“There’s Uncle Jimmy,” Shannon said in a baby voice when Jim emerged. “You want to hold him?”

Soon Jim found himself on the couch with a six-month-old baby in his arms, listening to his wife and sister talking about pregnancy. He tuned them out, figuring the less he thought about his sister’s reproductive cycle, the better.

Bradley was a happy baby, seeming perfectly content no matter who was holding him. Jim could tell, as he hefted the sturdy boy up in front of him, holding him firmly by the armpits, that he had grown quite a bit in the weeks since he had last seen him. He held him so they were face to face and Jim couldn’t resist giving one of those cheeks a kiss.

Then it happened. Bradley didn’t make a sound, but as Jim’s lips were pressed against that fat cheek, he felt Bradley smile.

“What’s that?” he asked Bradley, smiling back at him. “You a happy boy?”

Bradley laughed this time and Jim ran his hand over the soft fine hairs covering his nephew’s head. He knew, from what Christie had told him, that Bradley didn’t have much hair of any color but that what he did have was starting to come in golden, just as Jim’s had. Jim had held Bradley many times, but never with the privacy he had now, knowing the women were in the kitchen, absorbed in conversation.

It was different with babies, he realized. People were supposed to touch them, kiss them, examine them. No one would find it the slightest bit odd for a blind man to be tracing the features of a baby or allowing his fingers to find a baby’s tiny sharp fingernails or to marvel at the silky texture of a baby’s skin. Jim wasn’t one to find it socially appropriate to go around feeling people’s faces in order to get a better visual image of them. The only face he felt from time to time was Christie’s, but he always wanted to keep it fresh in his mind and she encouraged that—especially since the face touching was usually leading up to an entirely different kind of exploration. He had never thought about what kind of image of an unknown face could be produced in his mind through touch but now, since he had relative privacy, he gave it a try.

“He looks like a Dunbar,” Shannon had told him the first time Jim had held his baby nephew. Jim knew what that meant. Dunbar babies had a distinctive look—blond, sturdy, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked—so he already had a place to start.

Gently, talking quietly to Bradley the whole time, Jim took his first detailed look at the baby, feeling the chubby cheeks, the nub of a nose and even the ears that had that little extra Dunbar curl to them around the lobes. Twice, Bradley smiled at him. He had never experienced anything in his life that made him feel the way he did when he was able to feel a baby smile. He wondered if other people were as affected by seeing the smile as Jim was just by knowing it was there. Maybe Christie was right. Maybe he really would know his babies in a special way.

“You were really good with him,” Christie told him later, after Shannon and Bradley had gone home. “I like seeing you with a baby in your arms. It brings out something sweet in you.”

Jim put the last dish from dinner in the dishwasher and did his usual check, running his hands carefully over all the countertops in case he had missed anything. Satisfied that they were clear, he wiped them clean.

“How are you feeling?” he asked Christie, who was sitting at the bar making her way through the bowl of ice cream Jim had dished for her before he had started on the dishes.

“Better. This is great ice cream. You should have some yourself.”

“Can’t. You’re finishing it off right now.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know that. Come over here and have a bite.”

He wrinkled his nose at her. “That’s okay,” he said wryly. “You’re the one with two people inside you. You’ve earned it.”

“But I feel bad!”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want any. Hey, Christie. How did Shannon look?”

“Pretty much the same as always,” Christie said. “Her hair is still really long and blond and she’s just a little bit chubbier than she was before the baby. She’s hoping to breastfeed the rest of the baby weight off.”

Jim cringed.

“Breastfeeding is a beautiful and natural thing,” Christie said, sounding indignant. “I’m going to do it—if I have enough for the two of them.”

“I’m all for that,” Jim said, smiling toward his wife. “I just don’t care for that particular image of my sister…”

“It’s no big deal.”

“So, you have any interesting conversations before I got home?”

“Nothing big. She felt terrible about leaving the bag out, though. She told me when you went in to change.”

Jim sighed. “I guess when the babies get here, things are always going to be a mess around here so I better get used to it now. Right?”

“We’ll try and keep things neat,” Christie said, her spoon making tapping noises on the bottom or her ice cream dish as she tried to get every last bit. “No promises once they get older, but we’ll just have to try and teach them good habits.”

“You know, I think I noticed something,” Jim said, feeling a little shy. “Um—does Bradley have my ears?”

“Your ears?”

“Yeah. They felt a bit…familiar.”

Christie’s laugh came from deep in her throat. “I really didn’t notice. Would you like me to call your sister and ask her?”

“Christie,” he said, climbing onto the stool next to hers. “Don’t laugh. I thought noticing something like that was…”

As usual, he didn’t know how to talk about the feeling that small accomplishment, something most sighted people wouldn’t have even found interesting, produced in him. Since finding out he was going to be a father, Jim had assumed he would always be out of the loop when people analyzed the faces of his children, picking apart their features and figuring out where each one landed in the genetic map going back a few generations on either side. But today Jim had noticed a Dunbar ear for himself.

Christie’s ice cream dish made contact with the counter and then Jim felt cold fingers grazing the stubble along his jaw. “I’m surprised you noticed his ears,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I’m sorry I laughed.”

Jim suspected that Christie often knew how to interpret his little clues; those partial sentences he found himself giving her when he couldn’t articulate his thoughts. She had an empathy that showed her the part of himself he didn’t know how to share.

According to Esther, the therapist Dr. Galloway had recommended, he needed to learn to be open about it. The big “IT.” Two sessions in a row had turned into uncomfortable talks about how being blind had affected the marriage and how Jim needed to learn to share his feelings about it, no matter how raw they might be. Jim had left the last session with the sincere hope that next time they could go back to his infidelity and really dig to the bottom of it. That seemed fun in comparison to all the talk about blindness. But maybe even Esther assumed his past lifestyle was no longer an issue now that blindness had so emasculated him, taking him out of the running for that kind of indiscretion. He sighed.

“What is it, Jimmy?” Christie asked. She seemed to ask that question a lot, especially lately.

“I’m just—I don’t know. Do we have to go back to Esther?”

“You don’t think she’s helping?”

He felt half his face scrunch as he thought. “Do you think she’s helping?”

“I thought she made some very interesting points.”

Jim stood so he could pace the kitchen as he thought. “Yeah, I know what you mean. But…when I spoke with Dr. Galloway, it seemed—”

“We’ve already talked about this, Jim. Esther isn’t Dr. Galloway. She specializes in couples, which is what we are.”

“But Galloway specializes in cops, which is what I am. What does Esther know about that? And what does she know about blind people? Telling me the way I’m supposed to be feeling and what I need to be talking about…”

“Maybe we can get her onto a different topic next time,” Christie said soothingly. “One you can talk about.”

Jim laughed without cracking a smile. “I think we both know what that means.”

“Isn’t that why we’re going to her in the first place?”

Jim faced Christie. “If going to her is helping you, then let’s keep doing it. I’m in for whatever is necessary to fix us.”

“You know what’s weird?” she asked. “I haven’t been feeling very broken lately.”

Jim shook his head, the corners of his mouth down. “Neither have I. But…do you think I don’t talk about the blindness enough?”

She didn’t answer right away. Jim could hear her idly scraping her spoon against the bottom of her bowl again. “I don’t know,” she said. “You live it. I see what you go through and I can imagine what it must do to you but…do I need you to spell it out for me all the time? I guess not. You’re a lot better at letting me in then you were at first so however you feel comfortable doing that is fine with me. I just want you to know that you can tell me anything.”

“I do know that. If I have something to tell, it’ll be to you.”

He found her, still on her stool, and placed a hand on her stomach. She said she wasn’t showing much yet, but he could feel the difference in her body. The new roundness of her stomach.

“Here’s something we can bring up at our next session,” Jim said as he felt a smile spread across his face. “How do people raise twins?”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 5

“There,” Dr. Nelson said. “You can see it.”

“Yeah,” Christie agreed, although Jim could detect some doubt in her voice. “So that means…?”

“Your babies share a placenta, which means they are identical twins.”

“Oh,” Christie said blankly. “That’s nice, right Jim? Kind of fun for them to look alike.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed, his hand tightening around Christie’s. “Do we know what they are yet?”

Dr. Nelson sighed and Jim assumed she was looking at the monitor as she thought. “At fifteen weeks it is possible to determine a gender with a decent amount of accuracy, but your twins are not cooperating today. Maybe next time.”

Christie laughed. “Taking after their father already, huh?”

“Can we listen to the heartbeats again?” Jim asked.

During their appointment a couple of weeks before, hearing those heartbeats for the first time had been the most thrilling moment of the pregnancy for Jim, making those two lives real to him in a way Christie’s expanding middle could not. Jim had been looking forward to this appointment so he would get a chance to hear the swooshing heartbeats again. The Doppler machine that picked up the sound had already been used at the beginning of this appointment, but Jim couldn’t leave without getting to hear it again. It seemed only fair, when everyone else was able to look at a jumble on a screen and see his twins sharing a placenta.

“Sure, Jim,” Dr. Nelson said with an audible smile. “Just let me finish up with this ultrasound first.”

“No problem. Hey, is it normal for her to be getting big so fast?” he asked. “It seems like it came out of nowhere.”

“Twins, Jimmy,” Christie reminded.

“It’s very normal,” Dr. Nelson confirmed.

The no-nonsense sound in her voice always made Jim picture her as a thin woman in her forties with short brown hair and square glasses. He also saw her with a humorous twitch at the mouth that meant she sounded harsher than she was.

“And I’ve been wanting to ask,” Jim began, feeling a flush spread across his face. “Are there many of us? Blind fathers? Have you had any experience with that?”

“I get blind parents in here every now and then,” she said, her straightforward tone setting Jim at ease. “Not too often, but it’s always fine. Their kids get born just like everyone else’s.”

“The blind husbands are in the room when their wives give birth?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I thought maybe they got in the way or…” he let his voice dwindle foolishly to a stop as the flush spread across his features again.

But Dr. Nelson pretended not to notice. “They do fine. Cut the umbilical cords and everything. They don’t pass out at the sight of blood, which is always a plus. Now I’m getting the Doppler ready again. You can buy one of these, you know. Listen to their heartbeats whenever you like. Let me find a twin to listen to…there it is.”

Jim leaned forward eagerly as the sound of the swooshing heartbeat filled the room again.

“Wow,” he said, smiling at Christie. She squeezed his hand back, which meant she was returning the smile.

“Now, Christie,” Dr. Nelson said, a new firmness in her tone. “You’ll have to start coming in for weekly ultrasounds after this.”

Christie’s hand, already in Jim’s, clutched tight. “Why?”

“Is everything okay?” Jim asked.

“Everything is fine,” the doctor assured them. “It’s just that now that we have confirmed that they share a placenta, we need to be monitoring the babies for TTTC; Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. It’s something that can happen when twins share a blood supply. One twin can get too much while the other gets too little. It’s relatively rare, but we have to keep an eye out for it to be safe.”

Jim nodded. “Okay. Weekly. We can do that.”

The appointments were starting to pile up. Jim wondered if Christie might consider dropping their sessions with Esther for a bit now that they had this new commitment. Hegot more out of their visits with Dr. Nelson anyway and found himself wishing they could sit down with her and talk about their marriage. She seemed more readily able to grasp what they needed than Esther was.

“I can’t believe they’re identical,” Christie said as they headed out to the sidewalk together. “How exciting!”

“There was a thirty-three percent chance of that happening,” Jim pointed out. “But it’s nice we get to know now. Even identical twins don’t always share a placenta.”

“Have you been doing internet research?”

“I have.”

“I’m dying to find out what they are.”

Jim grinned. “Now I’m picturing them as boys. I don’t know why.”

“But you were so sure you were getting a girl vibe early on.”

He shrugged. “I know. I can’t help it if they keep switching. What do you want them to be?”

“Healthy.”

“Me too.”

Christie tugged on his hand, which meant she wanted him to stop walking, and then he felt her arms around his neck and they drew together for a kiss. “I can’t believe it,” she said again. The happy tone in her voice was strong enough to bring a lump to Jim’s throat.

“You okay to go to work now?” he asked, kissing her forehead and then pulling apart so she could look him in the eye. “No morning sickness?”

She laughed. “I feel great!I haven’t had morning sickness in a couple of weeks and I have more energy than I’ve had in a long time. I feel ready to start getting baby stuff and decorating and figuring out where we’re going to put everything in our apartment.”

“Looking forward to that,” Jim said, managing a small smile.

“I am looking forward to that. We’ll make it all work. Anyway, we’d better get going now. We’re late enough for work as it is. You okay finding your train from here?”

“I know where it is,” Jim said, nodding. “And Hank never forgets anything.”

The new kind of preoccupation that had filled his mind lately when he was alone came upon him as he made his way to work. That swooshing sound, first from one baby, then from the other, came to his mind and he replayed it, smiling to himself over the thought. Would Christie mind if he bought one of those things? She would undoubtedly grow tired of him following her around, searching her belly for the best places to find heartbeats, but maybe he could make himself pathetic enough to convince her. “You got to see the ultrasound,” he might try saying. “You have a picture of it up on the refrigerator and can look at it whenever you like. Please let me listen.” Christie might go for that argument, Jim decided. She might not even mind him following her around so much. Didn’t she once say she wanted more attention?

“You’re in a good mood today,” Karen said as Jim took his seat at his desk.

“How can you tell?” Jim asked. It was a real question. Jim didn’t know how to gauge the vibe he was exuding.

“You’re glowing just a little bit,” Karen said, laughing.

Tom laughed too, startling Jim because he hadn’t known Tom was even at his desk. “You’re radioactive. What’s going on, Dunbar?”

“I just heard heartbeats,” Jim told them as he set up his desk for the day, ready to do paperwork. No phone calls that morning meant no new cases, so Jim wondered if he might actually have a quiet day for a change. Time to get caught up.

“How is the baby doing?” Marty asked.

Everyone at the squad knew Christie was pregnant by now, although Marty hadn’t blabbed as far as Jim could tell, but Jim had only told Karen that Christie was carrying twins. Now seemed as good a time as any for full disclosure.

“Everything looks really good,” Jim said, looking toward Marty’s desk. “Christie is feeling much better and the babies are—”

“What?”

“Babies?”

The reactions of Tom and Marty did not disappoint.

Jim shrugged. “Well, yeah. Twins. Didn’t you know?”

Marty clicked his tongue. “And I thought one was a lot of work.”

Tom gave a low whistle. “You really dodged a bullet there, Jim,” he said, obviously not thinking of how odd it was to be using that particular figure of speech with Jim. “Diapers, baths, getting them dressed, feeding them, you don’t have to do any of that and she can’t even make you feel guilty about it.”

Jim started to smile along with Tom, but as the meaning of the statement sank in, he felt his expression change. There it was again, and from Tom, no less. Wasn’t Tom the one who had assumed Jim was exempt from doing paperwork because he was blind? And now Tom was similarly excusing Jim from taking any responsibility for caring for his own babies. How could a blind person participate in such things? That was the way Tom thought. It would have made sense, coming from Marty, but knowing Tom still viewed him in this way was disappointing.

Jim tried to get his smile back before responding, but wasn’t sure he quite managed it. “I would never leave that all to Christie.”

“So you bringing in some help?” Tom asked. “A nanny or something?”

“No, I’m the help.”

“Is that safe? Aren’t you afraid you might step on one or—or drown ‘em or something?”

Jim didn’t even know how to respond to that and was relieved when Karen did it for him.

“Blind people have kids all the time,” she pointed out. “Sometimes both parents are blind.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Jim,” Tom said, sounding subdued. “You’ll be a great dad. You’ll take care of them by working. By supporting them financially. That’s a lot right there. You don’t need to be worrying about all that other stuff, right?”

Things like this came up all the time—especially on the job. Little nagging comments that made Jim cringe at night as he tried to sleep. People doubting him, underestimating his abilities. He had developed a thick skin, learning to allow his actions to prove people wrong as he kept his mouth shut. But this wasn’t about his job, or even his manliness. This was about his ability to be a father and Jim found he couldn’t let it slide without saying something.

“I’m just going to be a normal dad, Tom. I’ll do whatever needs doing.”

“You’ll be fine,” Marty said.

Jim turned toward the sound of Marty’s voice, bracing himself for something snide. “Yeah? How do you know?”

“All those things parents do…they’re half asleep half the time anyway. You get so you can change a diaper with your eyes closed. No big deal.”

“You changed diapers, Marty?” Karen asked, sounding skeptical. “I have a hard time picturing that.”

“Oh yeah. I helped. I didn’t actually change a diaper with my eyes closed, but Dunbar could do it.”

Jim smiled at the unexpected confidence Marty seemed to have in his abilities. “What makes you say that?”

“I’m assuming you shave yourself, right?”

Jim frowned. “Yeah.”

“Right. Your wife dress you?”

“No.”

“Well, look at yourself.” He stopped to laugh. “Sorry. But I can tell you you’re a well-put-together guy. If you can do that, you can take care of a baby.”

“And you know, Jim,” Karen added. “You already have the most important thing down. You’re willing to help. That makes you better than a lot of dads right off the bat and I know Christie will appreciate that.”

Jim nodded toward her to show appreciation, but he couldn’t add anything to what was said. Karen’s reassurance and even Marty’s gave Jim the feeling everyone assumed he was doubting his own ability to be a father and were trying to make him feel better. In a way it was even worse than when Tom practically said Jim couldn’t do it. Tom may have had his own doubts, butJim could just look confident and prove Tom wrong and everything would be fine. But once people started to assume Jim was doubting himself…

Putting his earpiece in, he opened his laptop and sighed.

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 6

“Here’s one that meets weekly,” Christie said, reading over Jim’s shoulder. “It’s not too far from here.”

Jim pulled the earpiece from his ear and sighed. He was getting used to the cumbersome task of having everything on his computer screen read to him by a synthesized voice, but when Christie could simply glance at the screen and spot the information for which he had been searching for the last fifteen minutes, it emphasized just how inconvenient his life often was now.

“What time?” he asked, and then remembered to add, “If you don’t mind checking.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, draping her arms around Jim’s shoulders from behind as she continued to look at his computer screen. “Oh, this one is during the day too.”

“Doesn’t it occur to anyone that blind people might actually have jobs?” Jim asked, dropping his hands to his lap. “Do you really think I need to do this?”

He felt the motion of her shrugging, and then her hands moved into position to massage his shoulders. “It was your idea to look for a blind parenting class. I know they have them for sighted expectant parents. Maybe I can just call around to those classes, explain the situation, and see if they have any suggestions.”

“Can’t you teach me how to change diapers?”

“I could,” she said. “But you may want to go to boot camp before you’re thrown into battle, soldier.”

He raised his shoulders until he could feel the relief of something cracking in his neck and then Christie’s hands were there to soothe away the rest of the tension with her massage.

“You’re right,” he said. “Yeah, we can go ahead and call around. I’m sure there will be someone out there who can at least give us some pointers. It won’t hurt you, either.”

“That’s true. Hey, it’s getting late. Your parents are due any minute.”

“Is everything under control in the kitchen?” Jim asked anxiously. “I told you I would make the pasta, but you said—”

“I told you I had it. Relax, Jimmy. It’s just a casual evening.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I don’t know why them coming over’s making me so tense.”

But he did know why and so, he suspected, did Christie. His parents had come by fairly often to check on him and to bring meals when Jim had first been released from the hospital, but as Jim had recovered, the visits had changed; they were no longer visits to a patient recuperating from a terrible injury. Once Jim was up and around and attempting to resume his normal routine, the visits were to a blind guy who was never going to be getting any better. Some family dynamic had altered. He could sense everyone’s discomfort, including his own, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had somehow brought disgrace upon the family by no longer being perfect.

“It’ll be fun,” Christie said, her fingers moving up to Jim’s hair so she could fuss over it, trying to perfect the slightly disheveled look Jim was always going for. “And it’s the perfect time to tell them our news.”

“My dad is going to be disappointed,” Jim predicted.

“Of course he isn’t. This is good news.”

“Trust me. Shannon has her boy, but he’s only a Dunbar by name because the father isn’t in the picture. Dad doesn’t think that counts. I know how the man thinks. He will think we somehow failed him.”

“Well, if he thinks that—” Christie was interrupted by a knock at the door.

A moment later, she was ushering Jim’s parents inside. “The place looks really good,” Jim’s mother said, as she always did. “But all those candles. Aren’t you afraid Jimmy will knock them over and burn the place down?”

That was a new one. Jim smiled, almost against his will. “Hasn’t happened yet,” he assured her, walking toward the sound of her voice. “Hey, Mom.”

He felt her usual embrace—an awkward grasping around his shoulders, pulling him in, and then releasing him quickly—and then she kissed him on the cheek. “You look good,” she said in that same overly-bright tone Shannon often used with him now.

“Thanks. Dad’s with you, right?”

“Right here,” a voice said gruffly, and Jim suddenly felt he had made a mistake by asking and thus drawing attention to the fact that he hadn’t instinctively known where his father was.

“You sure are showing now,” his mother told Christie. “But you do have two Dunbars in you. Bradley weighed over nine pounds, you know. And Jim weighed more than ten, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“How much longer you got?” Jim’s dad asked Christie.

“I’m exactly halfway there,” she said, and Jim sensed that they were all about to head into the living room because Christie seemed to be on the move.

Jim waited beside the bar, staying out of everyone’s way as they went past him. When he was sure they were situated, he started for the couch, but then stopped. Something had just occurred to him.

“Shit,” he said under his breath. He didn’t know where anyone was sitting.

“Your chair is empty,” Christie said, rescuing him from any awkward fumbling or questions. Jim knew which chair Christie meant and he headed for it.

“You need help?” his mother asked.

“Ma,” Jim said, some of his exasperation escaping through his voice. “I live here.”

“Just making sure,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry to offend you, Jimmy.”

Jim sat in his chair and faced where he now knew his mom was sitting. “You didn’t offend me. So, how have you guys been?”

They fell into fairly comfortable small talk for a while until Christie excused herself to get dinner on the table.

“Let me help with that,” Jim offered.

“I’ll help,” his mother said. “You just keep your father company.”

And they were gone before he could protest. Keeping his father company was something Jim had never been good at, even under the best of circumstances. He sighed.

“How’s work treating you?” his dad asked.

Jim shrugged. “You know. It has its ups and downs, but it’s mostly good these days.”

He heard his dad grunt something, but it didn’t sound like a word. Howard Dunbar was a retired cop himself and he knew better than most people did the nature of the opposition Jim had faced during his fight for reinstatement. A blind cop? Jim felt sure his dad would have laughed at such a thought, had the blind cop not been his son.

“You have something to say, Dad?” Jim asked.

“I heard you stopped carrying your weapon.”

Jim nodded. “Over five months ago.”

“How’s that working?”

“I’m doing the same job now as I was before. The gun wasn’t clearing all those cases. I was.”

“You’re still partnered up?”

“Yeah. Karen’s been supportive.”

“I’m surprised they allow it, sending a female detective out there with an unarmed partner.”

With a blind partner. Jim knew his dad would never say those words, but he heard them just the same.

“Karen can take care of herself.”

“Can she take care of the both of you?”

“Nobody’s asking her to—but yeah. She could.”

“I still say it’s dangerous.”

Jim sighed, feeling his cheeks puff out a little. “It seems some people thought I was more dangerous with the gun than without it,” he said, deciding the best approach was to bring it up himself so he could have more control over the topic. “They all got behind me and said they wanted me to stay on even without it.”

“They were all on board? The whole squad?”

Jim nodded. “All of them. See, Dad, I’m good at what I do because I’m smart.”

“I never said you—”

“I know, but I’m just telling you why they value me as much as they do.”

“Well, I think it’s really nice of them to—”

Jim could feel himself going into the head-shaking mode of disbelief that was always a prelude to frustration. “Nobody’s being nice to me. I earned it.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Christie called.

Taking a deep breath, Jim stood and started walking, forgetting to first orient himself as he usually did. He misjudged, bashing his shin into the coffee table.

“You okay?” his dad asked, taking Jim’s arm to steady him.

Jim straightened and shook his arm free. “I’m fine.”

He felt himself slowly relaxing over dinner, thanks to the light conversation kept going by his mom and Christie.

“So, we found out the sex of our babies,” Christie said as the meal was winding down.

Jim’s parents put down their utensils and everyone was silent. The energy in the room completely changed; the type of thing Jim had never noticed as a sighted person but that stood out to him vividly now that he was blind.

“Do you want to tell them, Jimmy?” Christie said, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

“You go ahead,” Jim offered, getting the vibe Christie was secretly dying to be the one to tell the news.

“We are having girls. Identical girls.”

“That’s wonderful,” Jim’s mom said, reaching over to squeeze Jim’s hand. “And you won’t have to go chasing them around as much as if they were boys. Shannon was much easier to manage than you were, Jimmy.”

“Yeah,” Jim’s dad agreed. “It’s just as well. You won’t have to worry about not being able to play sports with them.”

Christie’s hand on Jim’s arm told him not to say anything. “Well, that’s not entirely true,” she said, managing to keep her tone light even though Jim could feel a strain coming from her. “Girls are more involved in sports now than ever and there are plenty of activities Jimmy and I will be able to do with them.”

Jim sat quietly, his head slightly bowed, thankful that Christie was so good at this kind of thing. He knew he couldn’t be trusted to speak until the wordless frustration welling within him dissipated.

“Are they really gone?” he asked two hours later as he turned the deadbolt on the front door. “I know they walked out the door, but I can still feel them here.”

“I think it takes a while to get your dad’s vibe out of a place,” Christie said, taking Jim by the hand and pulling him over to the couch. “You okay?”

He nodded, turning Christie toward him. “You?” he asked.

She laughed. “Oh, I think I fared better than you did.”

His hands trailed up her until one was on either side of her face. Gently, he kissed her and then wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

“What was that for?” she asked, hugging back.

Jim could feel the difference in her body as it pressed up against him. “I—I just needed that.”

"You're not disappointed we're having girls, are you?" Christie asked, sounding anxious.

Jim placed his hand on the roundness of her belly and smiled. "You're not serious," he said. "I'm not likely to think like my dad, am I?"

They sank down onto the couch together, Jim heaving a sigh of relief.

“They mean well,” Christie said, anticipating Jim’s next topic. “They just underestimate you.”

“Dad thinks I’m a charity case at work,” Jim said bitterly, shaking his head as he thought about it,“ and Mom thinks I’m going to burn the place down. Neither of them thinks I’ll pull my weight as a parent.”

Christie sighed. “Well, what do you do when people are stupid enough to underestimate you?” she asked.

He didn’t respond.

“Come on, Jimmy. This is your philosophy here, not mine, and it’s been working really well for you. What do you do?”

“I prove them wrong.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 7

“What is it, Jim?”

Jim’s head whipped up and, out of habit, he faced the sound of Lieutenant Fisk’s voice.

“What?”

He heard Fisk’s footsteps nearing his desk. “You okay?”

Jim nodded. “Yeah,” he said, embarrassed to have been caught zoning—worse, to have been caught zoning by Fisk.

When he could see, he had often lapsed into deep thought, but being visually connected to his environment had made him better able to snap out of it when others approached. Now his mind was beautifully clear and free of external visual distractions. He could carry his thoughts deeper than he had been able to before and concentrate better but…it still embarrassed him to be caught at it. Whenever this happened and someone made it a point to bring him back to the present, he had a wild moment of wondering what he had looked like while in that zone and if getting his attention had been difficult. He had learned to laugh when Marty teased him about it. “Dunbar’s thinking again,” Marty had grown fond of saying. It was an accepted fact among the squad that Jim got a little weird that way from time to time. On the plus side, whenever Marty drew attention to this odd tendency, everyone grew receptive to whatever was going to come out of Jim’s mouth next. They seemed to be in awe of the deep-thinking part of Jim’s brain.

“You’re not upset that you didn’t get to go along with the others today, are you?”

Jim frowned and then he realized what Fisk was talking about. “No, no it was my idea to stay behind. I needed to be here to look into Dave Miller’s alibi and I was able to get a lot more done than if I was searching that apartment with them.”

“Good.”

A chair rolled and Jim sensed Fisk pulling it near and then sitting.

“Do you need something, Boss?”

“No, I—well, I’m impressed that you knew to stay back today.”

Jim shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“I know you’re not a civilian aide, as you very clearly pointed out to me from the beginning, but that’s a big step, knowing when to excuse yourself and when to put yourself out there.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, are you sure everything’s okay? How’s Christie?”

Jim smiled, but it was the kind of smile with a sigh behind it. “She’s good. The babies are good. I’m in trouble.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

“I missed her doctor’s appointment this morning because of the homicide and it turns out her doctor is putting her on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy. She called me a little while ago and told me.”

“Why the bed rest?” Fisk asked. “You said everyone’s fine.”

“It’s a precaution. Twins automatically make it a high risk pregnancy and Christie’s doctor feels she would be better off not taking any chances.”

“I see,” Fisk said, probably nodding—at least that was what he was doing in Jim’s imagination. “So…what kind of bed rest?”

Jim shrugged. “I was hoping you would know. You got kids, Boss?”

“Yeah. Three. One’s married, the other two are in college.”

“Your wife ever have bed rest?”

Fisk laughed, but it had a bit of a shudder in it too. “No. No twins, no complications.”

“What does it mean, anyway? Bed rest. Will she have to stay there all the time? Will she be able to get up to use the bathroom and eat or will I—?”

“You up for that? Cooking and cleaning and shopping for her?”

Everything Jim had been thinking when Fisk had interrupted was suddenly in the open. “I—probably, yeah. I think.”

“Your parents nearby? Hers? Anybody else in the city who can help?”

“My parents are in the city,” he said, a hand coming up to his mouth as he thought. “My sister. Her sister. A retired neighbor who is friends with Christie. They help each other out from time to time. But I think I can…”

He didn’t finish his sentence and Fisk didn’t push him. “If you want to wrap things up early, you can go ahead and do that. Sounds like you need to get home. Help Christie get situated.”

“Okay,” Jim said, feeling for his laptop so he could shut it down. “Thanks.”

He didn’t know what would be awaiting him at home. Would Christie be mad at him for missing the appointment? Just how much of an invalid was she going to be?

“Christie?” he called as he entered the front door.

“In here,” she answered from the bedroom.

Squaring his shoulders, Jim hung his coat and dumped Hank’s harness.

“Hey,” she said as he entered the bedroom. “You’re home early.”

“I wanted to make sure you’re all set.”

He felt the edge of the bed, checking to see if she had anything lying there, and then sat beside her.

Christie began talking before Jim could even get his thoughts straight. “I need to get some things set up in here so I can be more—”

Jim raised a hand to stop her. “Just a minute. First explain what this means, okay? You have to stay in bed all the time?”

“No,” she said, her voice growing cooler. “I’m not on complete bed rest. I can do a little around the house and go to my doctor’s appointments—unless things change. I can’t go to work and I should stay in bed as much as possible, but getting up now and then is fine as long as I don’t overdo it. Really, Jim, I wish you had been there with me to get the full explanation. All your questions would have been answered this morning and you would have known everything right when I did and—”

“I had a case.”

The silence could have meant anything, but Jim suspected it wasn’t friendly. Christie’s jerky position shift confirmed the feeling in his gut.

“Don’t interrupt me!” she said, the cold in her voice spreading across the room as she spoke.

Jim felt his face going into that blinking look of disbelief he knew he got whenever every response that presented itself to him could only make things worse. He opened his mouth to speak a couple of times but then closed it, knowing this moment wasn’t about anything he had to say anyway.

“Great,” Christie said when it became apparent Jim wasn’t going to break that silence. “So now you’re in I-can’t-believe-I-have-to-deal-with-this-irrational-female mode, is that it? You don’t have anything to say?”

“Christie,” he said, hearing the pleading note in his own voice. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I’m sorry that—that I made you mad.”

“No, Jim, you need to understand why you made me mad and I don’t think you do.”

“I know why.”

“Do you? Why don’t you spell it out for me, then?”

He started doing the stretch that was about to lead to a much-needed neck crack, but Christie put a hand on his arm, startling the tension-releasing motion out of him.

“And don’t do your pathetic little my-wife-is-stressing-me-out neck crack. Just answer the question.”

He took a deep breath and then, head bowed, let it out slowly. “I missed your appointment and I—I interrupted you. I already said I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t good, Jim. Luckily I will be able to work from home—at least on a limited capacity—so that will pass the time,but I need to know I can count on you. I’m completely dependent on you now and I need to know you won’t be taking off to a homicide when I’m here in labor.”

“I won’t, Christie. It was just one appointment—”

“Two. You missed one a couple of weeks ago. Of course you’ve already forgotten, but this is important. I know you’re a cop, but you have a wife pregnant with twins and we need you here, too.”

“I know. I will do my best to—”

“That’s not good enough. God, Jim. Do you even know all the stuff I do around here? How are we going to do this?”

“I can handle it.”

“Really? You’ve barely shopped since—well, you just don’t do it. And how will we even get to my appointments? To the hospital when I’m in labor? I can’t be driving myself.”

Jim’s head sank onto his clasped hands. “You’re not talking about my job,” he realized out loud.

She shifted, seeming to roll to her side. “I know.”

“I will do the shopping and whatever else I can do around here.” He raised his head and faced Christie, something burning inside him as he spoke, gaining momentum. “But do not make me out to be a slacker because I can’t drive you to the fucking hospital! God, Christie! What are you doing?”

He stood and paced to the doorway, breathing hard.

“Jim, come back here.”

Now her voice sounded almost gentle. Jim stopped, his hand searching for the door frame. He wanted to turn and go back into Christie’s waiting arms, holding her and letting go of everything that had happened during the last five minutes, but that warm feeling had crept to his eyes and he knew he couldn’t even trust himself to speak.

“Oh my God,” Christie said, almost under her breath. “Jimmy? Just come sit here with me and we’ll talk, okay? I’m sorry I said that. I just got scared.”

After several even breaths, Jim turned in the doorway, but he didn’t walk toward Christie. “We—we’ll take a cab,” he said, trying to smile.

“Jimmy.”

Jim had grown used to imagining the expressions voices suggested to his mind. Christie’s voice made him picture her with brows drawn, lip almost trembling as she fought back tears.

His hand gripped the doorframe, steadying him. “I just—I—I’ll do the best I can. I’m not perfect—I never was, even before—but you have to trust me.”

“I trust you. Please come here.”

He went to Christie’s side of the bed, kneeling beside her on the floor and putting his arms around her, kissing her. Then he stood, brushing the knees of his suit.

“Can we just start this conversation over? I think we can do better.”

“Okay,” she said so Jim could hear her smile.

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 8

Jim reached up into his storage space in the basement of the apartment building and pulled out another box. It was heavier than the last three, he noticed, starting to feel hopeful. “What about this one?” he asked his neighbor, Cara.

Cara opened the box in Jim’s arms and began to remove what sounded like some sort of packing material. “Yes,” she answered. “There it is. I can’t believe you’ve been keeping a TV down here in storage.”

Jim reached for the box, sliding it onto the dolly he had borrowed from the janitor. “Yeah, I just stuck it down here when we bought the new one a couple of years ago.”

“So she’s breaking down and allowing a TV in the bedroom, huh?” Cara said, an ironic chuckle escaping from her throat.

Jim knew the lovable wrinkled face of his neighbor so well that hearing her laugh almost tricked him into believing he was seeing her, sharing in the connection usually felt only through eye contact. Cara had lived in the building for over thirty years, becoming the substitute mother and grandmother of many of the tenants. Even Jim had been drawn to her from the moment he met the kindly widow and she was one of the few people he had felt comfortable with immediately after the shooting because she had approached the topic with an openness and understanding that had left him with no need for the defenses he was already beginning to erect around almost everyone else.

“Yeah,” Jim said, starting to feel around for the boxes he had taken out to find the TV. “Being on bed rest is starting to get to her.”

“To your left,” Cara directed casually.

Finding a box, Jim hefted it over his head and started to slide it back into the storage space.

“Must be nice to be so strong,” Cara said. “Watch it or I’ll have you over doing chores for me. I might decide to have you rearrange my furniture just to see you do it.”

Smiling, Jim felt for the next box. Cara’s phrasing often left him wondering if her flirty undertones were intentional or if she was speaking in innocence. Either way, he thought it was adorable.

With the storage space re-packed and locked, Jim took hold of the dolly with one hand and placed his other hand on Cara’s shoulder. She was so tiny that being guided by her elbow would have been awkward.

“Thanks for loaning me your eyes,” he said as they started walking toward the elevator. “It would have taken me forever to find the right bin and then the right box without you.”

“But you’d’ve managed,” she said. She always had that kind of faith in Jim.

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to,” he admitted. “And thanks for offering to check in on Christie every day. It makes me feel better about going to work, knowing she has you just down the hall if she needs anything.”

“Oh, you know I’d’ve come over, invited or not. I’m excited about these babies of yours so it’s nice to be a part of all that. My own grandbabies live so far away I like getting to be in on it from the beginning with you. You’ll make wonderful parents. I can always tell.”

They reached the elevator and Jim narrowly avoided upsetting the dolly by banging it into a corner as he turned to maneuver it into position inside. He sighed, unwelcome thoughts filling his mind. If Cara was anyone else, Jim would have kept his thoughts to himself, but something about her always made him long to be open.

“So if I’m having trouble with this dolly,” he began, “how will I push a double stroller? I’ve been trying to figure out how to push it and still use Hank and it just seems impossible. I like to think I’ll be able to take a walk with the girls without Christie once in a while.”

“If you could figure out how to be a cop again, you’ll figure this out too. There’s a way around everything and you’re very smart.”

It wasn’t an answer that solved anything, but somehow when Cara said it, things seemed that much less impossible. They stepped out at their floor and Jim walked, pulling the dolly behind. He started to turn it around so he could continue pushing it as he had been doing in the basement, but Cara stopped him.

“See what you’re doing here?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re pulling instead of pushing. Wouldn’t that work with a stroller?”

The corners of Jim’s mouth went down as he thought about it. “I don’t know.”

Hand still on Cara’s shoulder, dolly trailing behind, they walked the hallway to the door of his apartment. “Yeah,” Jim said, nodding. “This feels better. Like I have more control. It might look a little funny, but who cares about that? Hey, any tips about changing diapers while you’re at it?”

His wry tone was deceptive because he really was hoping she would have some help for him in that area.

“You’ll learn soon enough,” she told him. “I’m sure it’ll all amount to practice and common sense in the end.”

“You found it,” Christie said as Jim entered the bedroom. “Good. I know I never wanted a TV in here, but it’s become a must.”

“Where do you want it?” he asked, opening the large box.

“Well, the cable outlet is over by my side of the bed, but you won’t be able to see it from—”

Jim grinned at her.

“Yeah,” she said sheepishly. “I still forget sometimes. Well, why don’t we move that old end table my grandma gave me over to this wall—I mean, the wall over here on my side—and then put the TV there? That would work for now.”

“Okay.” Jim moved the dolly, making a mental note of where he left it so there wouldn’t be a collision on the way back in, and started for the living room to find the end table.

“You remember which one I mean?” Christie asked. “It’s sort of in a corner at the far end and has some magazines and a plant on it.”

Jim nodded, throwing a half smile Christie’s way. “Sounds like waiting room décor.”

“Want me to show you?” Cara asked.

“Yeah. Thanks. Hey, Christie? What do you want me to do with the magazines and plant?”

“Just put them somewhere else. I don’t care.”

Moving furniture and hefting television sets wasn’t as easy as Jim remembered. Now, with the added possibility of crashing things into doorframes, dinging paint, scratching wood, and damaging electronic equipment, the whole situation put him on edge. Cara helped guide Jim—sometimes physically, sometimes verbally—through the process, but she wasn’t as much of an asset when it came time to hook the TV up to the cable outlet. Jim had been the one to arrange the wiring on Cara’s own TV and VCR several years before because she hadn’t been able to figure it out so he eventually ended up doing it himself this time as well, his fingers working through all the cables and wires, experimenting and going from memory until the TV worked.

“Thank you so much, Cara,” Christie said when Cara was ready to leave.

“My pleasure.” The way she said it, Jim felt convinced that it really was her pleasure to do things for them. “So, grocery shopping this evening, Jim?”

Jim nodded. “Sounds good.”

Christie shifted in bed, sounding like she was going into a sitting position. “Jim, you don’t need to make Cara go to the store with you, do you? She’s done enough for us today.”

“Nonsense,” Cara said. In his mind, Jim could see the wave that accompanied the word. “I need him as much as he needs me. He borrows my eyes and I borrow those nice bulgy arms of his and we all get our food brought up. Works for me.”

“If you’re sure…” Christie said, her tone still dubious despite Cara’s assurances.

“Why did you do that?” Jim asked her when Cara had gone.

“Do what?”

“That whole grocery thing.”

“I didn’t want you to take advantage of her.”

“I don’t take advantage of people.” He turned and started for the door. “You heard her. She needs me as much as I—”

His foot made contact with something unexpected, and then he and the dolly were tangled on the floor, making a loud crash that was sure to disturb the downstairs neighbors. Wrist throbbing from its bang against metal, Jim kicked the dolly away and stood.

“Oh, Jimmy, are you okay?”

He felt his lips grow tight as he cradled his sore wrist. “Damn it, Christie! You couldn’t have warned me? You saw me headed straight for it.”

“I’m sorry. I just—I forgot. I thought you knew—”

“You thought I knew?”

“Well, you put it there. Come here and let me see your wrist. Are you hurt?”

The concern in her voice was unmistakable. His flash of anger subsided and he longed to be comforted.

“You on your side of the bed?” he asked walking toward her. The fall had disoriented him so he was surprised when his knee made contact with the foot of the bed when it did. It wasn’t where he had thought it would be.

“Yeah. You gonna to come sit with me?”

He crawled across the bed and then nestled against Christie, who took his arm gently and held it where she could see it. “Does it still hurt?”

He shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“You might’ve bruised it,” she said, her fingers settling on a tender spot so that Jim winced. “There it is. I knew you hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine,” he said, sliding his arm from her grasp so is hand could trail down her front to where he knew his twins were hiding. “They active today?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” she said, laughing with her words. “Feel here.”

She took his hand and pressed it against the side of her rounded stomach.

“I don’t feel anyth—”

“Just wait,” she ordered.

And then he felt it. Not so much a kick as a stretch.

Being able to feel his babies moving was possibly even more exciting than listening to their heartbeats. Leaning down, Jim kissed the spot where he had felt the movement while his hands continued to feel around for the other twin.

“She isn’t as hyper as her sister today,” Christie explained, anticipating Jim’s question.

“Is she okay?” he asked anxiously.

“I’m sure she is.”

“Let me check.”

“The Doppler again?” she asked, sighing. “Oh, all right. Go ahead.”

So Jim took the device from his nightstand and, before too long, was able to find both heartbeats. He had become adept at knowing how to locate them.

“Feel better?” Christie asked.

“I do. You know, I just like to be sure.”

“Such a good dad already.”

Her voice was developing a sleepy note. Jim slipped from the bed and headed out of the room, sliding his feet carefully because he didn’t know exactly where the dolly had fallen.

“To your right,” Christie said groggily. “A little more. There.”

“Thanks,” he said in the quiet voice of someone who is making it clear he knows the other person is getting ready to sleep. He rolled the dolly out of the bedroom, setting it carefully against the wall at the end of the hall so he wouldn’t be tripping over it again.

He thought of those unseen babies inside Christie. He could feel them and hear them already. How much closer to them would he be able to feel once they were on the outside? During his painstaking internet research, he had encountered many stories of blind parents—particularly fathers—who had had a hard time connecting with their babies when they were young. Maybe they just didn’t touch them enough, Jim thought, heading for his computer so he could research some more. There had to be non-visual ways to feel connected with a small baby.

He sighed. If only he could have been experiencing this with his eyes. Sometimes he imagined Christie was pregnant back in the old life and that he was the one showing off her ultrasound photos at work. He saw himself in the birthing room, camera in hand, ready to photograph his girls the second they emerged. He saw his babies bundled, one in each of Christie’s arms as she held them for the first time. He saw Christie, exhausted and radiant, smiling as he took his proud daddy pictures. Where was his old camera, anyway? He would have to make sure someone would be there to capture the moment for posterity.

Logging onto the internet, he found the Blind Parents list he had been reading through online. This was by far the most useful resource he had yet discovered, full of the wisdom and experience of hundreds of people who had done it before him. He was often humbled by their insight, realizing that many of them were blind single parents or blind couples. At least Christie could see. But…a few of the blind parents expressed thankfulness that their spouses couldn’t see because it was always a temptation for the sighted spouse to feel superior and better able to care for the children; quicker to doubt the blind spouse. All was equal among the blind couples as they finagled ingenious ways of doing things sighted people took for granted.

If they were both blind…Jim brought a thinking hand to his lip and mulled it over. He would never wish it upon Christie, of course, but the idea of Christie knowing first-hand what he was going through and figuring everything out right along with him was a sweet one. But if she couldn’t see, he reminded himself, many of the mundane things she now did for him, reading his mail, taking care of the bills, giving guidance when he wasn’t sure of something, would have to be figured out a different way. There was no way around getting help from time to time and Jim was always grateful when that help didn’t have to go beyond his wife. And, he realized, people were dubious enough about him being a blind father but, if they were both blind, social services might even try and take the children away. He had read about that happening online. He had also read about blind couples who weren’t allowed to adopt non-disabled children because they were thought not to be able to handle it. Jim’s hand went into a fist just thinking about how underestimated blind people were.

He took a deep breath and then started typing his first post to the Blind Parents list.

“I haven’t been blind for very long and my wife is pregnant for the first time—twin girls. As you can imagine, this is a lot for me to take in. I’ve been reading through the posts here and have learned a lot of techniques, but if anyone has any advice for how to deal with newborn twins, I would appreciate it. I don’t know much about babies to begin with so I need to start with the basics…”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 9

“It hits you different now, huh, Dunbar?”

Jim’s hand tightened on Hank’s harness and he turned to face Marty as they walked. “What do you mean?”

“When it’s a kid.”

Jim nodded, relieved to be heading away from the gruesome crime scene they had just spent the last two hours going over. Karen’s comment about Jim being lucky not to be able to see things on the job came to mind now, but he couldn’t take any comfort in it. He knew what he could imagine was often worse than what he used to be able to see. It was like when he used to watch horror movies. The suspense and the suggestion of what may have been there had always kept him on the edge of his seat far more than did the gory certainty of what had been shown.

Now he experienced crime scenes differently, taking note of the tension in the air, the unintentional verbal reactions of the others, and the words the others chose to use to describe it all to him. Their descriptions were usually terse so Jim had to rely on his gut and his imagination. Marty was right. When it was a murdered child, his mind did start to go haywire, particularly now.

“Same thing happened to me,” Marty said, sounding strangely sympathetic. Jim wondered if he had been showing his reaction on his face and if Marty was trying to be comforting as a result.

“Oh yeah?” he said, keeping his tone light.

“Having a kid gives you a whole new perspective on the job—this kind of job, anyway. More places for your imagination to go. Any one of the kids we see could be yours.”

Jim took a deep breath, trying not to let Marty see how his words had shaken him—although the same thing had been going through his own mind for months.

“The random ones, yeah,” Tom agreed from Jim’s other side. “But most of the kids we see were in rough situations to begin with or their families knew some shady people. That gives your kids the advantage right there.”

“You can’t start getting paranoid,” Karen added.

Marty’s sigh was full of the exasperation Jim had learned all too well to detect. “What do you and Tom know? Statistically, our kids may be safer because we don’t hurt them and we don’t associate with people who would, but it doesn’t make a cop feel any better when he’s out on the street, seeing what we see, knowing what we know, and thinking about his own kids at home. Am I right, Jim?”

“You’re right,” Jim said, nodding in Marty’s direction. “How can your mind not go there with this kind of job?”

“Especially in your situation,” Marty said in a tone so casual that Jim didn’t know if Marty was even aware of the full implication of what he had just said.

Some part of Jim was gratified when people like Marty grew so comfortable they no longer considered his feelings when they spoke (although Marty never had), but it still rankled because of the truth mixed up with the ignorance. It’s a little different for you, the husband of the slash and rape victim had said, implying the given that a blind husband could never be the real “man” in a relationship. The protector. Five years of marriage meant nothing in the eyes of people like that, nor did being a father. It was all about the blindness when it came to measuring who was a real man and who wasn’t. Marty had come a long way toward making the best out of being forced to work alongside a blind man as if they were equals, but—he’s already on modified assignment. He’s blind. Marty still didn’t get it and nothing short of Jim’s sight being miraculously restored would convince him that Jim had any business being a cop.

“Some people are just like that,” Christie had warned before Jim had been reinstated. “Some will never accept that you can do your job. Others will get used to the idea. Are you going to be okay, working as a team with people who don’t think you should be a cop? It’s going to happen, you know.”

Jim had assured her that he wouldn’t pay any attention to the doubters, but Christie had been right. More difficult than learning to do everything a new way on the job had been learning not to lose his temper when the comments came; both the deliberate and the accidental words that cut him down, sometimes making him wonder how he dared to show his face in public at all. But things could have been a lot worse. He had ended up under the wise guidance of Lieutenant Fisk and had been partnered with someone who had been willing to give him a chance, which was all he had ever wanted from a partner. Tom was slowly turning into someone with real friend potential and even Marty wasn’t such a bad sort, as long as you stayed on his good side.

Jim wouldn’t have lasted two days back on the job in some squads. He just wished he didn’t feel so beholden to this one for having come around. No matter how good a job Fisk said he was doing and how much they all appreciated him for his ability to close cases, Jim couldn’t shake the feeling at times that they were the ones doing him the favor for allowing him to come to work every day and letting him add his considerable brain power to their own.

“Hey, I got an invitation to Christie’s shower,” Karen said, dragging Jim back to the present. “That was nice of her to invite me. This Saturday, huh? Your place?”

Jim nodded. “Her sister is throwing it, but we didn’t think it was a good idea for her to go someplace else for the shower.”

“What are you going to do that day, Jim?” Tom asked, sounding highly amused.

“I—” Jim frowned. “I’ll be making myself scarce.”

It had been such a long time since a full day out of the apartment and left to his own devices had presented itself to him that he found the thought of it daunting. When he could see, he had welcomed such opportunities. He would go see Terry, shoot pool, have a few beers, talk for hours, whatever struck him as a good idea at the time.

He sighed and then straightened as a strange thought hit him. For the first time in nearly two years, he realized he missed Terry and the friendship they had had before that horrible day at the bank. Friends like Terry had never been very common in Jim’s life—not since his army days, anyway. He had an abundance of casual friends, most of whom he hadn’t spent much time with since the bank, but Terry had stood out as someone he could really talk to and now, with the prospect of a whole day to spend making himself scarce, he wondered how to occupy that time since Terry was out of the question.

“Here’s an idea,” Tom said. “How about on Saturday, while all the girls are doing their thing, you and Marty can come to my place and I’ll barbeque some burgers and we’ll catch a college football game on TV or something.”

“Yeah, I’d be up for that,” Marty said. “Jim?”

Jim felt a genuine smile spreading across his face. “I can do that. Thanks, Tom.”

The smile kept coming back as Jim rode the subway home that evening. He hadn’t wanted to push anything with either Tom or Marty, but he had often wondered if the two of them ever did things together outside of work and, if they did, if he would eventually be included. The occasional beer “with the fellas” after work was fun, but this was a Saturday. It meant more that they were making a special point of getting together with him over the weekend.

“That you, Jim?” an unexpected voice called from the living room as Jim opened the front door of his apartment. It was Christie’s sister.

“Yeah,” Jim replied. “Hi Marissa.”

Her footsteps came toward him and stopped. “It’s getting close now, huh?” she asked. “Twelve more weeks—if she goes full term. Christie looks like she’s ready to pop.”

“I heard that!” Christie called from the bedroom.

Jim cracked a smile and he could hear Marissa laughing under her breath.

“I don’t get a hug?” Marissa asked.

Jim extended his arms and they embraced. She felt like a slightly shorter version of a not-pregnant Christie, but her smell was completely different. Different shampoo, different lotion—fruity, unlike the floral scents Christie preferred. Jim knew she didn’t look much like Christie. Her dark hair was curly, her eyes were brown, and her face was cute and roguish; attractive, but not at all like the refined and obvious beauty everyone noticed the instant they saw Christie.

Marissa was the only person in Christie’s family who knew that Jim and Christie had briefly been separated, and she also knew why. Jim hadn’t found a way to broach the topic with her even yet, although he never encountered her without wondering just what she thought of him. Had he not been shot and blinded, she may never have forgiven him. Perhaps she hadn’t forgiven him even yet, but pitied Jim too much for being blind to tell Christie to dump the two-timer. Marissa never gave any sign of being aware of his past indiscretions, but her friendliness only strengthened Jim’s unease around her.

“What brings you by?” he asked as Marissa released him and stepped back, out of their hug.

“Oh, this and that,” she said. “I’m helping to get the place ready for the shower on Saturday.”

Jim felt himself flush at the thought of this sighted sibling, who already knew the worst there was to know about him, poking all over the apartment to make sure it was orderly enough for company. A maid came twice a month and Jim had been doing his best to keep it clean between times, but now he wondered if he had missed anything. He should have anticipated this. He should have asked Cara to give the place a once-over to make sure he was keeping it up to Christie’s standards, but he couldn’t do anything about that now.

He loosened his tie, trying to smile. “How ready is the place?”

“It’s pretty clean, Jim. A few things out of place here and there, but you’ve done a good job. Christie’s been telling me about how hard you’ve been working around here and that’s really impressive, especially since—”

Jim sighed when he realized Marissa wasn’t going to complete her sentence, his expression freezing into a bland mask of patience. He had grown used to people self editing whenever they got too close to the topic of blindness, but he wished they would just come out and finish their thoughts for once. At least Marty finished his thoughts, Jim thought, almost smiling to himself, thinking of how insulting Marty could be and yet how grateful to him Jim was because of how he came out and said what he really thought.

“All I can do is try,” Jim said to fill the gap in the conversation.

“Your cribs have arrived,” she said next.

“I know,” Jim said, thinking of how many times he had nearly fallen over the large flat boxes over the last couple of days. “I’m going to assemble them and get things ready for the babies right after the shower.”

“You’ll need help with the cribs,” she pointed out. “Those things are impossible.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

He didn’t mean to be curt, but it struck Jim as odd that Marissa couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence when she was complimenting him for accomplishing something but then she had no qualms about pointing out areas in which Jim was going to need assistance.

He went to the refrigerator for a beer.

“Oh, there’s a lot of other stuff—” Marissa started to say, but Jim had already noticed that nothing inside the refrigerator was in its proper place and that covered trays and various other containers filled the shelves.

He faced Marissa. “What’s this?” he asked, gesturing toward the packed shelves.

“Just food for the shower. My mother and I will be here that day getting a lot of the food ready and we thought it would be a good idea to have all the fixings ready to go so we have less to do on Saturday.”

“But I—” he cut himself off, tapping his fingers on the counter. Anything he said at that moment would undoubtedly be an overreaction and the last thing he wanted was a petty argument with Christie’s sister over the special treatment blind people needed.

“Want me to tell you where I moved everything?” Marissa offered. “I didn’t mean to throw you off. I’m really sorry.”

“I told you, Marissa,” Christie called from the bedroom. “You can’t go moving all of Jimmy’s food around.”

“I think she needs a little attention,” Jim said, dropping his hands to his side and heading for the bedroom. Before taking too many steps it occurred to him that he might have to move cautiously in case Marissa had inadvertently booby-trapped any other part of the apartment. He went into one of the positions taught in rehab; one arm trailing lightly along the wall, other arm held in front of his body as a bumper in case of doors left half-open. He didn’t like to walk this way in familiar settings, but at least it might spare him the humiliation of taking a tumble in front of Marissa.

“You okay, Jimmy?” Christie asked, probably wondering about Jim’s careful movement across the bedroom.

He shrugged. “Everything is fine.”

“Are you sure? You seem a little less—at ease than usual.”

Pulling his tie off, he went to the closet to get out of his suit. “Don’t worry,” he said, emergingin only his boxer shorts. “Things will settle down after the shower when we get all the baby stuff organized and all the food put back again.”

“I think you should stick around for the shower wearing just that,” Christie said, a smile in her voice. “I have some friends who would be very grateful.”

Glimpses of Christie’s humor always lightened Jim’s mood. She was serious by nature, so her jokes were a sure sign that she was feeling happy and relaxed, which meant it was okay for Jim to feel happy and relaxed as well.

“I would,” he said as he pulled on a pair of jeans. “But I have plans.”

“Really?”

“Tom invited me and Marty over.”

“So you’d rather spend a day with Marty than stay here in your boxers with a bunch of women?”

He pulled a shirt over his head. “Yeah. I’m sure you understand.”

“I’m sorry about Marissa,” Christie said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I knew she was coming today, but I had no idea she would take over like this. Will you be able to handle the extra food for a couple of days?”

Jim sat on the edge of the bed and found Christie’s cheek with his hand. “I’ll be fine—as long as she shows me where everything is.” Bending down, he kissed her.

“How was your day?” Christie asked.

A grisly crime scene and the body of a four-year-old boy popped into Jim’s mind, all the more vivid because of how the knowledge of what had happened had been filtered through his imagination. He straightened his back.

“It was fine,” he said, feeling his mouth tighten. Christie didn’t need to know some things.

“I know that look,” Christie said. “Tough case, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, grateful to Christie for not pushing the issue further. “You and the babies feeling all right today?”

“We’re good, but it’s getting a bit crowded in here. Uncomfortable. How am I going to make it through twelve weeks?”

“Watch it,” Jim said, a protective hand cupping the roundness of her belly. “You better hope you get as many of those twelve weeks as possible. I keep reading about most twins don’t make it to full term.”

“I know.”

“Jim?” Marissa’s voice said from the doorway. “I need to get going soon so now might be a good time to show you what I did to your refrigerator. Really, I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I just didn’t think.”

Jim stood and walked toward his sister-in-law. “Don’t worry about me. Just show me what you did and I’ll be fine.”

He followed the sound of her footsteps into the kitchen.

“How should we…?” she began hesitantly.

Jim opened the refrigerator. “I need to know by touch, so just tell me where you put things and I’ll find it and—I guess that’s it.”

It didn’t take as long as Jim had feared. Marissa had organized fairly well and in a logical way that made navigation easy, once he knew her system. Still, feeling around for things in front of a sighted person who wasn’t very used to him being blind was never a comfortable thing for Jim to do.

“Okay,” he said, straightening up and closing the refrigerator door. “Thank you, Marissa. Um—while you’re at it, would you mind telling me if you moved anything else in the apartment so I don’t go finding it the hard way?”

“This whole thing must have taken some getting used to,” Marissa said.

Jim laughed, feeling at ease all at once now that Marissa was openly addressing the elephant in the room. “You aren’t kidding,” he said. “But my mind’s eye has sharpened a lot and familiar places are easy as long as nothing gets moves around.”

“Must be hard at work, though.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But I have an understanding squad, and my partner, Karen, doesn’t mind guiding when I can’t have Hank with me.”

“I’ve heard about Karen,” Marissa said in a tone that put Jim on guard. “Christie tells me she’s a beautiful girl and has been very—helpful.”

Had the innuendo come from Christie or was Marissa adding her own interpretation? But here, again, was a case of a difficult topic finally coming to light between them.

“Karen’s great,” Jim said, choosing not to react to the suspicion in Marissa’s voice. “She and Christie hit it off. You’ll meet her at the shower on Saturday.”

Jim leaned against the counter, waiting for Marissa to say something, but her long silence was eerie and Jim imagined her staring into his sightless eyes, looking for something there to support her suspicions.

“She’s a good partner,” Jim added, trying to keep any defensive note out of his voice. “Is she pretty? Sure. I can tell when someone is pretty, but—that has nothing to do with anything. Believe what you want, but I’ve been stupid enough for one lifetime and, at the end of the day, all I can think about is going home to my wife.”

He longed for eye contact at that moment to see how his assurances were going over. It meant a lot to him for Marissa to believe him and learn to respect him again. Then he felt her hand on his forearm, first patting and then giving a little squeeze. It was the same kind of gesture Christie often used when she knew Jim was needing some kind of affirmation that would usually be visual.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Marissa said quietly, probably so Christie wouldn’t overhear from the bedroom, Jim guessed. “Christie didn’t seem worried about Karen, but I had to wonder—”

“I don’t blame you,” Jim said, covering the hand on his arm with his other hand so he could connect back. “She’s your sister. You want her with someone who won’t do that to her. I know that Christie has forgiven me, but I hope you have too. I’d really like things to be good between us.”

“Jim,” she said, her voice tinged with surprise. “What a silly thing to say, after what you’ve been through…”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Okay,” she said, starting to pace in the kitchen. “I can’t say I wasn’t angry with you when it happened—and then I was mad because you got shot and needed her. I know you didn’t plan it that way, but it just seemed a little convenient, you know? But God, Jim. Look at you. You’re blind now and you’ve come so far; adjusted so well. Christie is very proud of you. I’m glad this came up today because it’s been in the back of my mind for a while, this little doubt, wondering if you’ve really changed after all. Hearing it from you just now, I can see why Christie trusts you again, and I’m glad.”

“What was that all about?” Christie asked after Marissa had gone.

“You heard us?” Jim asked casually.

“Not really, but you guys sounded so serious.”

“She was just telling me what she got you for the shower. I like your sister.”

Christie laughed. “I know. You’ve always liked her.”

“I’m just saying.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 10

He sensed a shift in the air, but didn’t hear the door open.

“Jimmy?”

He pulled the shower curtain aside so he could hear better. “You okay?” he asked his wife.

“Yeah. I wanted to let you know your mom’s here.”

Jim groaned, ducking into the water to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. “So you had to get up to answer the door?” he asked.

“I was already up,” she said. “I was fixing myself something to eat.”

Jim sighed. “I was going to get breakfast for you. You were asleep, so I thought after my shower, I’d—”

“It’s fine, Jimmy. Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t get out of that bed from time to time, I’d go crazy.”

“You’re not overdoing it?”

“I’m not overdoing it,” she assured, and suddenly her voice was quite near. Cold air hit him as he heard the curtain being pulled.

Grinning, he made a grab for it but missed. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said, something playful in her voice. “Just getting an eyeful. You’re a beautiful beautiful man, James Dunbar.”

His eyebrows shot up. “And my mother is in the next room!” he retorted in a fierce whisper. “This is—disturbing.”

“I’m just looking.”

“What’s she doing here so early, anyway?”

“Says she wants to help with the shower.”

“She wants to help me shower?”

Christie laughed at Jim’s joke. “My shower,” she said, and then added in a low voice, “although I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

He shook his head. “Fine. I’ll be out in a few minutes. You should be back in bed.”

“That’s okay. I’m getting set up in the living room for the day. Don’t worry. I’ll be lounging around with my feet up.”

“Good.”

“You gonna be long in here?” she asked. “I’m going to take a bath before it’s time for people to start arriving. Normal people. Who come when they’re supposed to be here.”

He skipped his shave, something he often did on quiet weekends, and dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Had Marty and Tom ever even seen him out of a suit? Only once, he recalled, when he had gone undercover as “Ted the Drug Dealer.”

“You’re going out in that?” his mother said as Jim entered the kitchen. She sounded like she was sitting at the bar.

“Hi, Ma,” Jim said, walking toward her. “You’re early today, aren’t you?”

“You don’t have a nice sweater you can wear out?” she persisted. “It’s the middle of November, for God’s sake. You’ll freeze.”

“I’ll wear a jacket—and it’s not that cold out.”

He stood beside his mom and, reaching a hand toward her, found her shoulder and then leaned in to kiss her on the cheek.

“You’re all scruffy,” she complained. “Where are you going today, anyway?”

“A friend’s house. Tom. A detective I work with. He’s going to barbeque burgers today.”

“He’s going to barbeque in November?”

“That’s what he said,” Jim said, going back into the kitchen so he could find something to eat for breakfast. “I don’t really think all our plans hinge on where he actually cooks the burgers or if we have burgers at all. Our day will not be ruined if we end up ordering a pizza instead.”

“You’re fixing breakfast?” his mother asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’d be happy to make you something to eat.”

“It’s just a bagel and cream cheese, Ma,” Jim said, trying to look amused. He wasn’t. He had always known his mother was—he preferred to keep it positive by thinking of her as “nurturing”—but this constant need to help him had been wearing especially thin since he had lost his sight. All it did was emphasize to him how helpless others still perceived him to be.

His mother sighed, a sound that brought years of maternal martyrdom to the front of Jim’s mind. “I had hoped you would spend some time with Dad today, Jimmy,” she said.

Jim lowered his bagel, deciding not to take a huge bite after all. “And do what?” he asked, frowning.

“You never see each other.”

Jim laughed, but a bitter sound he didn’t like was mixed in. “Tell him not to take offense. I never see anyone.”

“That isn’t funny,” she said. Jim could see her in his mind as she spoke, her lips tight with disapproval, her head wagging back and forth in a disgusted mannerism Jim knew he had picked up from her.

“You have to admit that was a little funny, wasn’t it?” Jim asked. “Sometimes you have to laugh at things.”

Her sigh was as deep and full of martyrdom as the one before it had been. “I suppose,” she admitted. “Some things aren’t easy to laugh at, though.”

“And that’s why you do it,” Jim said, taking a bite out of his bagel. “What’s more ridiculous than my situation?”

“Honestly, Jimmy. Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

The laugh came more readily this time and without the bitter note. “See?” he said. “I’m laughing.”

Jim was gradually learning about the power of a good healthy laugh. It hadn’t come to him all at once and finding the humor in the midst of all the frustration was still a challenge at times, but a well-placed joke at his own expense now and then was magic. He liked teasing Karen whenever she betrayed that she had forgotten he couldn’t see. He liked pretending he hadn’t known all along that Tom was black. He even liked using the blindness as an icebreaker with people he didn’t know, catching them off guard with a self-deprecating joke to get them to open up. Galloway had told him this kind of humor was healthy—as long as Jim wasn’t being a smartass. Jim thought it was healthy too, so it was distressing when people too close to the situation, like his mother, couldn’t find humor in his blindness when he was blatantly giving permission. Laughter beat pity any day.

He jumped at a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” his mom said, and Jim heard her rubber-soled shoes padding across the hardwood floor.

“Hi, Ruth,” Marissa’s voice said to Jim’s mom. Then more voices joined in and Jim stood where he was, trying to figure out how many people were there. A low affected laugh made it through the chatter. Christie’s mother. And was that a disapproving sniff? He hadn’t even known Christie’s grandmother was coming, but something in his gut told him that three generations of Christie’s family had just arrived.

He had hoped to be long gone before the apartment was overrun with women, but it seemed everyone was keen to grab a visit or help set up hours in advance. Jim’s thinking hand came up to his face and he found himself running a finger back and forth across the stubble on his chin. Why hadn’t he shaved? This didn’t feel like a casual Saturday anymore.

A voice cut through this thoughts. “There he is.”

His expression set in a smile that felt grim and he faced his mother-in-law. “Rebecca,” he greeted, hoping he was properly gauging where her voice had come from.

“I thought you’d be long gone by now,” she said, a throaty laugh intertwined with her words.

He felt himself relax at Rebecca’s humorous tone. “The shower isn’t for another three hours,” he pointed out. “I thought I was safe.”

Something grabbed at his arm. He tensed, but then realized it was Rebecca. She gave him a squeeze and kissed him on the cheek before breaking into another laugh. “You’re not safe at all,” she said. “Careful. My mother’s headed your way.”

No two generations of Christie’s family were alike and they seemed to grow scarier the further back they went. Christie’s grandmother was a tiny shriveled woman who had looked ninety for as long as Jim had known her. She was acutely aware of her lineage and was a member of both The Mayflower Society and The Daughters of the American Revolution. She was rich and always impeccably clothed and coiffed as befitting a woman of her age and background. This was why Rebecca was such a shock. She had had a wild and scandalous past, marrying and divorcing four times in rapid succession and raising her two daughters on her own. Christie and Marissa had been born to privilege, but their upbringing had been anything but traditional.

Jim heard a series of tap-tap-thuds that signaled the approach of Christie’s grandma and her walking stick. “James,” she said, drawing out his name. “You’re looking healthy, but you’ve let yourself go, haven’t you?”

“Gigi!” Marissa exclaimed, her voice filled with a shock that almost made Jim smile.

“Well, he has,” the old lady asserted. “He hasn’t shaved, his hair is messy, and he’s in a very sloppy outfit.”

“I prefer to think of it as comfortable,” Jim said, smiling toward the raspy old voice. “Hi, Gigi. It’s good to see you again.”

Gigi, as everyone called the formidable Mrs. Bradstreet (Jim had called her “Mrs. Bradstreet” for years before being coaxed over to using her nickname), was famous for being outspoken. Jim didn’t know if she was naturally unpleasant or if senility had lessened her ability to self edit. Whatever the case, he made it a point to maintain a respectful stance with her, ignoring her biting words.

“I think you look fantastic,” Rebecca said. “I wouldn’t mind having something like you around the house to look at.”

She had always been on the verge of flirty with him. When he and Christie had first started dating, this had made him uncomfortable, but he had developed a sincere fondness for his mother-in-law over the years, possibly because he had so little interaction with her. She traveled a lot. This was only the second time she had seen Jim since he had lost his sight.

“Where is Christine?” Gigi asked.

Jim’s mother answered before Jim had a chance to. “She’s taking a bath.”

There was that disapproving sniff again. “Taking a bath when we came all the way to the city to see her. Typical.”

“She didn’t know we would be here this early, Gigi,” Marissa explained, the patience in her voice wearing thin. “We’re here to help set up for the shower. Christie can’t be up and around for that anyway.”

“I don’t see why not,” Gigi said. “I was up and about through all four of my pregnancies and I was fine. All this coddling and bed rest. I wouldn’t have stood for it.”

“She’s having twins, Mother,” Rebecca said. “It’s different.”

“Twins,” Gigi said with another sniff. “That’ll teach her some responsibility, at least. Caring for twins is no picnic—especially as a single parent.”

It took a moment for the words to sink it. That couldn’t have been what she meant. The silence that spread across the room told Jim that the others were puzzling over Gigi’s words too.

“Christie isn’t a single parent,” Marissa said hesitantly. “She has Jim.”

Another of those sniffs. Jim cringed at the sound, no longer able to find it amusing.

“We all know who will be doing all the work,” Gigi said. “Having babies with a blind husband. What was she thinking?”

Nothing anyone said would help. The words were out there, perhaps confirming what everyone had secretly been thinking but would never come out and admit. Jim opened his mouth to try and say something, but no words would come. Even breathing seemed suddenly difficult so he turned and walked to the bedroom.

The door was closed, which told him Christie had probably finished her bath and was getting dressed. He entered the room, closing the door behind him.

“What’s wrong?” Christie asked, her voice coming from its usual place at her side of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” Jim asked, walking over to her and sitting on the edge of the bed. She was on top of the covers and, as he ran a hand over her, he felt that she was dressed.

“I feel pretty good,” she said. “I noticed my family was here so I thought I’d rest for a few minutes before having to face Gigi.”

“Smart girl,” Jim said, kissing Christie on the forehead.

Someone knocked twice on the bedroom door and then opened it. “Jim?” Marissa said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. “Are you okay?”

“What happened?” Christie asked.

Jim sighed and shook his head.

“You didn’t tell her?” Marissa asked.

“Wasn’t going to,” Jim said shortly.

Christie clutched at Jim’s hand. “Tell me what?”

“Gigi,” Marissa said.

Christie let out a long sigh through her nose. “Oh.”

Jim ran his hand absently along Christie’s belly. “Don’t worry about it. She’s old. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

Jim felt Marissa sitting beside him on the edge of the bed. “But it was really bad.”

“Okay, now you’re really going to have to tell me what she said,” Christie said.

Jim turned toward Marissa and shrugged, hoping his face was giving her permission to tell Christie what had happened. For some reason, he couldn’t convey this wish verbally, nor could he tell Christie himself.

Marissa seemed to understand.

“Gigi pretty much came right out and called you a single parent because Jim’s—”

Christie sat up straight with a gasp. “I—why would she—?” She took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around Jim’s shoulders and kissed his rough cheek. “I am so sorry she said that.”

Jim felt himself flush, but part of the horror of that comment began to recede with Christie’s kiss and Marissa’s outrage. “Really, it’s okay,” he said. “I just—I just need to know you don’t feel that way.”

“How could you even say that?” Christie asked. “You’ve been working so hard.”

“She’s right,” Marissa said, a smile in her voice. “I’m actually a little jealous. Mark isn’t exactly a hand’s-on dad, so whenever Christie tells me all that you’ve been doing to get ready, I can’t help but to wish some of that could rub off on my husband.”

Jim nodded. “Thanks for saying that.”

“It’s true, Jimmy,” Christie said. Her voice betrayed her. The slight catch, the tremor…

“Don’t cry,” Jim said, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her as close as he could.

“I’m not,” she said with an unconvincing laugh. “I’m just so mad at her. And now I have to go out there and be pleasant all day?”

“Just ignore her,” Marissa said.

“I can ignore a lot from her,” Christie said, some spirit returning, “but if she starts in on Jimmy like that again…if she makes it sound like he’s some deadbeat…”

“Thank you, Christie,” Jim said, smiling in spite of himself. There it was again, that feeling that things had entered the realm of the absurd and that all that could be done now was to give in to it and laugh.

“This isn’t funny, Jimmy,” she said, pulling away slightly, probably so she could get a good look at his face.

“I know,” he agreed. “That’s why it is funny.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 11

Jim felt his watch, half expecting the hands not to have moved at all since the last time he had checked. They seemed unusually slow that day but finally, the shower was just an hour away. He turned to where he knew Christie’s mother was sitting. “Sorry, Rebecca. I’ll be taking your friend with me.”

“Do you have to?” Rebecca asked and Jim could hear the jingle of Hank’s collar as his mother-in-law fussed over his dog. “I’ve never seen such a sweet and adorable dog in my life. I don’t think you had him yet last time I saw you.”

“I didn’t,” Jim confirmed.

With surprise, he realized the last time Rebecca had visited, he hadn’t even started going through rehab yet. He had been awkward, self conscious, devastated—but determined not to show it. He hoped he was giving off a different vibe now.

“I’d love to see you work with Hank sometime,” Rebecca said. “I mean, out on the street. That must be amazing.”

Now Jim’s smile came easily. He didn’t have to fake it when praise for Hank was the topic of discussion. “He is,” he agreed. “You can always watch us out the window when we go.”

He got Hank’s harness and the dog was at his side before Jim even had to call him. Hank knew what the harness meant.

Voices approached from the hallway outside the apartment. Jim’s head came up at the sound of laughter, both male and female, and then someone knocked on his door.

“Dunbar!” Marty’s voice said when Jim opened it. “Good. You’re still here.”

“Hi, Jimmy,” Shannon said, kissing Jim on the cheek and stepping past him. “Come on in, Marty. You can set the cake over here on this table and the gifts can go with the others. Thanks again for the help.”

A puzzled frown spread across Jim’s face. “Marty?” he said.

But Marty was already inside, apparently carrying things around for Shannon.

“Who is this?” Rebecca asked. Her tone confirmed the suspicion Jim had had all along about what Marty probably looked like. It was the same borderline-disturbing flirty voice she used with Jim.

“This is Detective Russo,” Shannon answered. “Marty. He works with Jimmy over at the 8th Precinct. He was just walking past the building and saw me with my hands full and offered to help. I told him I was going to a shower here and he asked if it was for the twins and…here we are.”

“What were you doing walking past my building?” Jim asked.

“Nothing,” Marty said, sounding embarrassed. “I was on the subway and it hit me that York St. is just a couple of blocks from your building so I thought I’d swing by and see if you wanted to head over to Tom’s together. I was just about to call, but I ran into Shannon and she was able to tell me which apartment it was so I thought I’d just come up.”

Jim shrugged. “That’s okay, Marty. Thanks.”

“I feel better knowing Jimmy won’t have to go over there alone,” Jim’s mom said.

Marty laughed, but it didn’t sound snide. “That’s not why I’m here,” he said. “Jim would threaten to break my nose if I tried to play chaperone. I just thought…you know. It was on the way. You almost ready, Dunbar?”

“Yeah. I just need to find my jacket…”

Shannon introduced Marty to everyone, which gave Jim the chance to look for his jacket in peace. Several strange coats seemed to be hanging from the coat rack so it took him longer than usual to find his black leather jacket—the same one he had worn undercover the day Hank had been lost.

“It must be so exciting to be a detective,” Gigi was saying to Marty in gushing tones. Since when did Gigi gush over anyone? Marty was possibly even better looking than Jim had supposed.

“It has its moments,” Marty agreed. “I’m sure Jim’s told you some stories.”

Jim took a deep breath, trying not to think about how no one in this group seemed comfortable discussing that sort of thing with him anymore. So, he reflected, Gigi thought Marty was an exciting cop while Jim barely counted as the father of his own children.

“You ready?” Jim asked Marty.

“Yeah,” Marty said. “It was really nice meeting all of you. Christie, you look beautiful. Good luck.”

Jim kissed Christie and then he and Marty left amidst all the good-byes. Jim found himself starting to relax as they headed for the elevator.

“Nice place,” Marty said. “Where are you gonna put the kids?”

“We have this room—it’s kind of a bonus room—that’s how it was listed when Christie bought the place, anyway. Too big to be a closet but too small to be a full bedroom. It has a window and a little closet and we’re going to empty it out and get it all set up.”

“You mean you’re going to do that, right?”

Jim smiled and angled his head slightly in agreement. “That’s what ‘we’ tends to mean around here these days.”

“So what’s the deal with Christie’s friend?”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. “Christie’s friend?” Jim asked, frowning.

“Shannon. Sexy blond with the—”

Jim held up a hand and shook his head. “You really don’t want to be finishing that sentence, Marty,” he said. “The ‘sexy blond’ is my sister.”

Marty groaned and they rode the elevator in silence, not speaking again until they were out on the street.

“What?” Jim demanded when he heard Marty sighing beside him as they walked.

“Your sister?” Marty said. “How did I not see that coming?”

“Just watch it. She has a baby.”

“But she wasn’t wearing a ring!” Marty pointed out. “The kid’s father’s not in the picture?”

“That’s right.”

“So she’s single?”

“A single mother.”

“That’s cool. I have a kid, too.”

“Marty.”

“Fine. I’ll stay away from your sister.”

“Thank you.”

“But she really is—”

“Marty.”

“Fine. But she could do a lot worse. I’m just saying.”

The only other time Jim had been alone with Marty outside of work had been when they had gone looking for Hank together. Today had a very different feel. They were relaxed and headed for fun rather than hopelessly searching alleys. Jim felt more on a par with Marty now as he walked beside him without needing to depend on his guiding elbow.

“We have a choice,” Tom said as he greeted them at the door. “Navy at Notre Dame or Buffalo at Kent State? Up to you.”

“Notre Dame,” Jim said at the exact moment Marty said, “Buffalo.”

They all laughed.

“It doesn’t really matter to me,” Jim said. “You guys choose.”

“Notre Dame is a better game,” Marty admitted. “My brother went to Buffalo, so…you know. But let’s watch the Fighting Irish.”

Jim walked through Tom’s apartment tentatively, half expecting a restraining arm to pop up, blocking his path. This was what usually happened when he entered a strange environment with Marty and Tom. Someone was always there to tell him he and Hank had gone as far as they could go without interfering with a crime scene. The room was carpeted, so Jim couldn’t get a good feel of its size from sound of his footsteps.

“This is the living room,” Tom remembered to say. “Uh—there’s a couch straight ahead. And an easy chair ahead and to your left.”

Jim took a deep breath through his nose, attempting not to be obvious about trying to get his bearings by smell. “I hope Hank doesn’t scare your cat,” he said, finding the couch with his foot and sitting down.

Tom’s laugh had the easygoing sound that always made Jim feel comfortable. “Don’t worry. She always hides when people—how’d you know I have a cat? Can you smell her? I didn’t think she smelled.”

“It’s that bionic nose thing again,” Marty said with a cynical laugh. “Dunbar has superpowers, remember?”

It had taken a while for Jim to understand why blind people disliked the assumption that they had special abilities to make up for their lack of vision. Now he knew that such an assumption would mean life was fair and that something was always given when something else was taken away. It was a lie; something sighted people seemed to need to cling to in order to feel comfortable with blind people.

“I don’t smell anything you can’t,” Jim corrected. “I just get a different impression of my environment than you do. If you think about it, you can smell the canned cat food, you just didn’t notice it because you can see and that distracts you from your other senses. No superpowers here.”

“Her food,” Tom said, sounding relieved. “Well…that’s good. I’m glad it wasn’t…you know. Anyone mind if we have pizza instead of burgers?”

"As long as there's no cat food involved, it's fine with me," Marty said in a certain dry tone he used sometimes.

Pizza, beer, the game, the “fellas”—contentment welled up in Jim. When had he last felt so relaxed? So normal? He had never anticipated reaching such a level of comfort with the same people who had made work so stressful those first weeks back on the job. Here, it was different. No expectations, nothing to solve, no one to impress. Sometimes they howled with laughter over nothing. Sometimes they sat back with their beers, not feeling obligated to say anything at all. Sometimes they talked and joked, no one being overly careful of anyone else’s feelings. Until today, Jim hadn’t known he had missed this kind of a day; this chance to be completely himself for a few hours without anything to worry or nag at him.

He had suspected something for a while and today confirmed it. There was a big difference between being accepted as a person and being accepted as a cop. Tom and Marty definitely accepted Jim as a person. He no longer had any doubt about that.

“So who was that lady who didn’t want you to come over here alone?” Marty asked. “The one with the Thanksgiving sweater.”

“Yeah, that’s helpful,” Tom said. “Have the blind guy identify her by her clothes.”

Jim had to smile at that, but a sigh came with it. “She still wears that sweater? That’s my mother.”

“Ah. That’s what I thought.”

“So what’s the story with your family, Jim?” Tom asked. “They all overprotective?”

This wasn’t where he had hoped conversation would lead, but the questions had an open quality to them, kind of like the Crider kid when he had asked Jim about being blind. Some instinct told Jim his answers today would be met with the same kind of open-mindedness.

He shrugged with one shoulder and wrinkled his nose as he thought. “They’re just not all that—comfortable.”

“They don’t think you can do anything,” Marty added with a scoff. “They’re right. You’re completely useless, but you don’t need a babysitter.”

Jim laughed along with the others. Even Marty wouldn’t have joked about Jim being completely useless if he had thought it was true. Why couldn’t he have this kind of moment with the people he had known before losing his sight? Maybe it was because the people in his past life had Sighted Jim in mind when they saw him now and Blind Jim suffered in comparison. This was why Jim had allowed so many friendships to fade away after the shooting. The easy comradeship of the past felt forced. It couldn’t be the same. Until today, Jim had thought he could no longer have the old kind of guy time, that he was too much trouble for anyone to seek out for casual comradeship, that he was too different from everyone else to be thought of as “one of the guys.”

“When are you gonna fix up that room?” Marty asked. “You don’t have much time. Christie looks like she could squeeze ’em out any minute now.”

“She really huge?” Tom asked.

“Enormous,” Marty confirmed. “Jim, you keep that old mental image, okay? It might take her a while to get back to what you remember. When Jordan was born, Sheila just seemed to spread out all over the place and she never really got it back. Not like your sister, now. How old is her baby?”

“Ten months,” Jim said shortly.

“She looks good,” Marty said, that tone back in his voice. Jim shook his head.

“What am I missing here?” Tom asked. “You met Jim’s sister?”

Marty gave a lecherous whistle. “Oh yeah.”

“Easy, Marty,” Jim said, but he couldn’t stop a smile from appearing across his face at Marty’s sheer gall.

“Seriously,” Marty said, all joking out of his voice. “You really that protective of her?”

“You just got divorced, man,” Tom said.

Jim turned to Marty. “That was recent?”

“Yeah, you know,” Marty said. “Around the time you showed up at the 8th.. I was having a great year all around. So, why are you protecting your sister from me?”

“Who says she’s the one I’m protecting?” Jim asked, deadpan.

It took them a moment, but once they could tell Jim was joking, Marty and Tom burst into another of their hearty laughs.

“So, what’s wrong with her?” Marty asked when they had calmed down.

Jim looked upward, thinking, and then faced Marty. “She’s my sister. I just thought of a way to make her unappealing to you. Shannon looks an awful lot like me, Marty. If that doesn’t turn you off…”

He heard a low laugh and Marty set his beer on the coffee table. “Sorry, Dunbar. We aren’t in an episode of Seinfeld, so I don’t see you when I look at her. What’s the real reason this idea has you so spooked?”

The smile faded from Jim’s face. He didn’t object to his sister seeing someone like Marty. Once you got past his sarcasm and his inconvenient sense of humor, Marty was a good guy. Loyal. Even kind. Jim remembered how Marty and Tom had gone to great lengths to make sure that kid who had worked at The Le Sabre got her act together and went home to her family. A less scrupulous cop could have found any number of ways to have taken advantage of someone in her situation. Most would have, at the very least, just turned her back out without helping her get her life together. And it was Marty who had had the guts to stand up to Jim with the hard truth about the gun. Karen and Tom had undoubtedly agreed with him, but had been scared to tell a blind man he couldn’t have something he had worked so hard to keep. As much as he had hated hearing Marty’s words at the time, they had stayed with Jim since that day, proving to Jim that he had earned his place in that squad with his intellect and his skill and that the others were willing to come together and watch out for him even without the gun. He had Marty to thank for all of that.

Shannon talked a lot. She knew too much. She could spout off tales of embarrassing moments from Jim’s past or she might get sentimental and spill her guts about how she felt about Jim losing his sight—even though she never did that when Jim was around. She could even go into a little spiel comparing Sighted Jim to Blind Jim just so Marty could have a good idea of who her brother really was. Jimmy used to be so macho and overprotective. He used to box. He used to play football with the rest of his squad. He used to get into fights. He used to…used to…used to. But Jim had to smile to himself. Marty would tell her Jim was still like that—with the exception of the sports. As much as Marty thought Jim shouldn’t be a cop, he was still far more in touch with what Jim was capable of than were most of the people who knew Jim as he used to be.

“Where did you go, Dunbar?” Marty asked.

Jim straightened, dropping his clasped hands from his mouth. How long had he sat like that, not answering Marty?

“You okay, Jim?” Tom asked.

“Yeah,” Jim said, managing a smile. “I’m good.”

Marty sighed. “I get it. The sister is off limits. I can take a hint.”

Jim laughed. “Eventually.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 12

Tom always seemed to get nosier after a few beers. Today was no exception.

“So, you read Braille, Jim?” he asked.

Jim thought of rehab and of those old-fashioned Braille typewriters he had been taught to use and of the even older-fashioned slate and stylus and of his rough fingers painstakingly going over tiny bumps on a page, trying to distinguish the pattern of each character. Learning the Braille alphabet had been easy enough. Even Grade II Braille hadn’t been much of a challenge—when it came to memorization. He had a good memory and thought Braille was logical enough to grasp without too much difficulty. But his big fingers, hardened by years of being an active and hard-working man, couldn’t seem to tell the difference between them. Christie had nearly given up in her attempt to get Jim to improve. He hadn’t been much of a reader back when it had been effortless so why should he go to such great lengths now? Braille had become more of a labeling system than something to be used during times of leisure.

He popped the face of his watch open and felt for the time. “You mean like this?” he asked Tom.

Marty pulled Jim’s watch arm toward himself. “That’s Braille?”

Jim nodded. “Of course. What’d you think it was?”

“I mean…real Braille? Cuz these all look kind of the same. Two dots at twelve, three, six, and nine and one dot at each of the other numbers. That’s not what those numbers would be like in regular Braille, is it? It can’t be.”

Jim extracted his arm from Marty’s grip and closed his watch face. “Right as always, Marty. It’s called a ‘Braille watch’ because you feel the hands. The real numbers would take up too much space.”

“So, do you know Braille?” Tom asked. Now his voice sounded hesitant.

“I do,” Jim said. “In theory.”

Marty made a scoffing sound. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m spoiled by technology, I guess. With scanners and talking software and books on CD, I almost don’t need to read anything for myself.”

“But…” Marty stopped before he could get much out and then seemed to want to try again. “You mean you can’t read?”

“Of course I can read,” Jim said irritably. He tapped a finger against his forehead. “The knowledge is still in here. I wasn’t illiterate before and I have the concept of Braille down. I just—I can’t really tell the difference between all the bumps on a page—even when I know what to look for.”

“Must’ve been weird,” Tom said after a long silence. “Learning everything over again. Meeting new people and not knowing what they look like.”

“You know what I look like, right?” Marty asked.

Jim shot a sarcastic look in Marty’s direction. “And how would I know that, huh?”

“Well…I assumed Karen told you. Doesn’t she go around telling you what everything looks like all the time?”

Jim laughed, thinking of Karen’s short descriptions, nearly devoid of all adjectives. “We have better things to discuss.”

“Hey, that’s true,” Tom said, sounding like something had just occurred to him. “Jim didn’t even know I was black until he had been at the squad for four months.”

Marty’s voice went high with shock. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, it’s true,” Tom insisted. “Right Jim? Remember?”

Jim’s smile started to feel cringy and apologetic. “I always knew you were black, Tom.”

Tom inhaled sharply. “But you said something about the word ‘groovy’ and…” his voice dwindled to a stop as laughter from Jim and Marty drowned him out. “You got me,” he said, laughing at himself.

“Not that that’s too difficult,” Marty pointed out. “It’s a wonder you’re such a good detective when you fall for stuff like that.”

Tom clicked his tongue. “I know. I should have learned not to trust you guys ages ago.”

Jim wondered if Tom had been so trusting with him because, at that time, it hadn’t occurred to him that the blind guy might have a sense of humor. The thought made him laugh to himself, but his smile faded as he realized he would need to do something before he left.

It shouldn't have been a big deal, but Jim hated seeking out restrooms in strange environments. It didn't get much better once he was inside. Using touch to explore a bathroom before being able to attain his goal was never a pleasant thought, especially today. Scoping out the sink and towels in advance, determining which towel was for guests, finding the soap, the toilet. Stupid moments like this brought home to Jim just how easy his life used to be and caused him to have to consciously decide not to indulge in a mini-moment of self pity. He had always detested self pity in others and was disappointed whenever he felt himself being drawn into that mindset himself. Before losing his sight, he had honestly believed self pity to be beneath him.

He hadn’t had a casual day like this at a friend’s house since losing his sight; not without Christie, at any rate, and never in a home he hadn’t seen. Just asking about the rest room was bound to make blindness impossible for the others to ignore. Jim sighed over the inevitability of having to make it obvious after such a comfortable day. Something like this always had to come up. It had happened even that first night he had gone out for drinks with Tom and Marty. Jim hadn’t quite been able to make it out of there without asking for last-minute subway directions. He hadn’t thought a thing of it as he asked—such questions had become commonplace for him—but as he turned away, he had sensed a distinct shift in the mood around him, like something had just crashed into the others.

Just part of the package, he told himself. Galloway had been pushing the whole “package” concept lately. Sure, being blind sucked sometimes, but didn't his marriage to Christie make it all worth it? Whenever Christie was at her most difficult, Jim couldn’t help but to think the price he had paid for that marriage—against his will—had been too high. But sometimes, when he and Christie dreamed together, planning for their family, listening to the heartbeats of their girls, he had no regrets.

Jim turned to where Tom was seated. “How do I find the bathroom?”

“Sorry, Jim,” Marty said. “He doesn't have one. Just shoot from the balcony.”

“It's down the hall, first door on the left.” Tom's voice made Jim picture him glaring at Marty as he spoke.

Jim stood, wondering if he needed Hank or of he could make it there on his own without being too conspicuous. “Where's the hall?” he asked.

“Well…it's to your—want me to just show you? Is that the easiest way? What do you normally do?”

Jim thought a moment and then surprised himself with a short laugh. “I usually just…figure it out. You can show me if you don't mind.”

Tom was one of those people who naturally seemed to know how to lead a blind person and he had an intuition that let him know when something visual needed to be explained.

“The sink is to your right,” he told Jim. “Toilet is directly across from it to your left. The light switch is…”

“Really unimportant,” Jim finished.

Tom laughed. “I see your point. So you just want me to leave it—dark?”

Jim shrugged. “I really don’t care.”

He followed their voices back to the living room when he was done, feeling both gratified that Tom hadn’t felt the need to wait for him in the hall and self-conscious to be walking through a strange home without dog or cane or guide. The last thing he wanted was to be caught feeling around by those guys, so he tried to keep a normal pace, his arms loosely at his sides but ready to come up at the slightest sign of imminent collision.

“You got it, Jim?” Tom asked.

“Pretty much,” Jim said, readjusting his direction at the sound of Tom’s voice. “Are you still in your same seat?”

“Yeah.”

Jim nodded and, his bearings intact, was able to find his way back to his seat without much trouble, although he did bash his shin against the coffee table just before finding the couch. The impact threw him off, causing him to have to feel for the couch more than he liked to in front of Tom and Marty.

“You okay?” Tom asked.

Jim nodded, his smile tight. “I’m good, Tom. Thanks.”

“So Jim,” Marty said in a certain tone he got when he was about to go into his own kind of nosy mode. “I’ve always wondered something. You told me you can only move freely at home and at work. What about the rest of the time? What’s it like when you can’t ‘move freely’?”

Jim felt himself doing the motion of a double take as he tried to process the question. He never could predict where Marty’s curiosity would lead. He didn’t mind trying to figure out how to answer such a question but…how much information would be too much? When people had the guts to ask basic questions about blindness, he was comfortable answering. But a question like this? This went deeper than blindness. This was about finding words to describe his most vulnerable moments—but without making anyone feel sorry for him. Was that even possible?

“Marty,” Tom said irritably under his breath. “You don’t have to answer that, Jim.”

Jim nodded, more because he was thinking than because he was agreeing with anything. “That’s not it. I just don’t really know what to tell you. What do you think that would be like, Marty?”

No answer at first, but Jim could still hear breathing beside him.

Then Marty finally spoke. “You don’t want to know.” Something in the firmness of his words surprised Jim. His gut told him Marty had just experienced empathy and, after imagining himself in Jim’s shoes for a moment, had emerged shaken.

You don’t want to know. But Jim did know.

A silence spread as Jim felt his blindness separating him from the others. All day long it had been easy to pretend they were on equal footing, just three guys hanging out, but now it was back to one blind guy and the two guys who were being nice to him by inviting him over out of pity because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. A sound from where Tom sat caught his attention. The click of voiceless consonants being mouthed. Then he heard the same thing, but with more of a whisper behind it, coming from Marty.

Jim dropped his hands to his lap in exasperation. “You’re still not good at that,” he said, smiling so nothing else could be detected in his expression. “Maybe you should learn Sign Language or something if you want to keep having these conversations in front of me.”

“Sorry, Jim,” Tom said.

Marty sighed. “Tom was just ragging me for being—well—myself.”

Jim managed half a smile. “Thanks, Tom, but it’s a little late to be teaching Marty manners. Anyway, you can ask whatever you want. I may not always have an answer, but I don’t mind being asked.”

“Sure, Jim,” Tom said, but his voice was subdued.

The silence felt thicker than ever. Jim sighed and felt the face of his watch again. It was almost seven o’clock.

“I should head home,” he said, relieved. “The shower has to be over by now and Christie may need something.”

“I’m really glad you could come,” Tom said, patting Jim on the upper arm. “Seriously, man. You’re welcome any time.”

Jim stood and took hold of Hank’s harness. “I appreciate that.”

“I’ll head out too,” Marty said.

“You don’t have to because of—”

But Marty cut Jim off. “I’m not doing it for you. It’s just time for me to go. I’ll stay half a block behind you if it makes you feel any better.”

Jim rolled his eyes and suddenly everyone seemed to realize it was okay to laugh again. It was better to leave on that kind of note. A few awkward moments hadn’t ruined his day after all. It had been fun and Tom had sounded sincere about his standing invitation. Maybe Jim did fit in with them—as long as Marty didn’t get too curious about topics that were sure to suck the life out of their conversation.

They walked in silence down the sidewalk and the further they went without talking, the more Jim wondered what Marty had expected when he had asked Jim about not being able to move freely. Explaining the blind part was easy. How did he do this? How long did it take him to learn that? What’s it like? Jim knew he could take pride in all he had learned and he loved being in a position to educate because he never failed to impress others when he did that. Jim liked being impressive. But some line had been crossed at Marty’s question, even if Jim couldn’t clearly define where that line was, even to himself.

“Hey,” Marty said when they had covered a block without speaking. “No hard feelings, okay?”

“What?” Jim asked, taken aback. “What are you talking about? I have a thicker skin than that. I liked it better when you didn’t care if there were hard feelings or not.”

Marty’s laugh had an easy feel to it. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean. You’d have to have a pretty thick skin to even think about being reinstated. I’m sure they put you through hell.”

“No more than you did,” Jim said casually, a smile tugging at his lips. “You were every cop they warned me about rolled into one. Still are, half the time. Keeps me on my toes.”

“Happy to oblige,” Marty said in a way that made Jim imagine him inclining his head in a mocking bow. “So, about that room for the babies…”

“Where did that come from?”

“Just popped back up in my mind. What all needs doing to it?”

Jim didn’t even want to think about the job he had ahead of him with that room so discussing it with Marty wasn’t something he had any urge to do.

He shrugged, trying to appear careless. “You know. The usual. I need to get all my crap out of there—it’s nearly all boxes of my stuff. Things I haven’t unearthed in ages, mostly. Then we’re going to have to paint. One wall is exposed brick so we’re leaving that alone. Christie likes it that way. But the other walls need some attention so…”

“You’re not going to be painting it, are you?” Marty asked, incredulous. “I know you’re a superhero and everything, but—”

“No, I wasn’t planning to paint,” Jim said, hearing an edge of bitterness in his voice. “Shannon’s an interior designer and she was going to handle that part for me so I thought…”

“You need help with that?” Marty asked suddenly. “I’m a pretty decent painter and I’m sure—”

Jim stopped walking and faced Marty. “You’re so subtle.”

Marty laughed, but when he spoke again, something pleaded through his voice. “I know how it looks, but I was gonna offer anyway. Seriously. I thought about it right when you told me about the room.”

Jim didn't mean to look skeptical, but that feeling must have shown through his expression.

“Forget about it,” Marty said.

His tone made Jim start—not because he had never heard Marty speak in that sardonic voice before but because he hadn't heard that particular sound from Marty in quite a long time.

Had Marty mellowed? Did Jim even want him to? The old Marty never gave Jim an inch and Jim was starting to appreciate what a rarity that was; the chance to find someone who genuinely expected him to perform as if he was sighted—and who was angry whenever this didn't happen. Marty was an ass, but he was an honest ass. He was the only one Jim could trust to tell him harsh truths the others, even Karen, evaded.

Yes, he was exactly the kind of cop Jim had been warned about prior to his reinstatement. But Jim had also been warned about another kind of cop. The kind who would baby him. Pity him. Jim had feared that more than he had feared the blatant antagonism he had been quick to receive from Marty. Whatever Marty thought about a blind cop, he did nothing out of pity.

Until now? Jim resisted the urge to squirm uncomfortably under the weight of this new thought. Offering to paint that room because he knew Jim couldn't do it? That didn't sound like the surly Marty Jim had come to appreciate.

“We’re at the subway,” Marty said, breaking what had been a long silence.

Jim nodded. “I know.”

“Of course you do.” All of Marty’s old-time sarcasm poured out as he spoke.

“Marty, I—”

“Just drop it, Dunbar. I get it. I’ll stay away from you…and your sister. You’ve been pretty clear.”

They didn’t speak again until they were on the train, which seemed fairly empty.

“Marty,” Jim said, trying again. “I appreciate the offer and I—”

Marty cut in. “You know, it wasn’t about your sister. I really—I just—I thought I could help.”

Jim sighed, resting his chin on his clasped hands. Then he turned toward Marty. “I know,” he said. “I’m not good with help. I should be, but—”

“Yeah,” Marty said. Again, Jim got the strange feeling that Marty had just empathized.

Jim straightened his back and smiled at Marty. “Shannon is going to come over next week—day after Thanksgiving—and get started on the room. You free that day?”

“Yeah.”

“The paint is all picked out and ready to go and she was planning to try and get as much of it done as possible. I know she could really use the help. That we could use the help.”

“I’ll be there.”

“A warning, Marty? Be prepared to follow very strict orders. Shannon is a tyrant and she will own you that day.”

Marty's laugh sounded as relieved as it did amused. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe she is too much like you.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 13

“Watch out, Jim,” Christie said from her place on the bed. “Boxes.”

Jim froze. “Where?”

“Uhh…twelve o’clock.”

“Why did I put them there?” Jim muttered, feeling for them.

“It’s all kind of a mess,” Christie said with a note of sympathy in her voice. Jim knew she was aware of how any lack of order disoriented him.

Not touching the babies’ room until after the shower had seemed like a good idea at the time—holding off on the mess until after everyone had been over—but now Jim was paying the price for the planned procrastination. The apartment was full, not only of baby furniture and gifts, but of the boxes of junk he had been storing since long before he was married. Even Hank had taken to skulking in the kitchen, one of the only places left intact after the upheaval. He seemed as dismayed by the lack of order as Jim was. Hank couldn’t be in harness all the time and getting around without him was hazardous. Worse than that, sorting through all those boxes seemed like a preposterous and sad thing for Jim to have to do.

He lifted his hands helplessly and let them drop. “We should just toss it all,” he said.

“No, Jimmy. I told you. We’ll go through it together so we can be sure to keep anything that might have sentimental value.”

He felt his way to the foot of the bed and sank onto it. “You don’t mind?” he asked. “There’s so much of it and—I don’t even know why I kept a lot of it. Most of the—the—sentimental value may be gone now.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “That’s what we have to find out. And—even if you can’t appreciate all of your old stuff the way you used to, some of it may be worth saving for your girls.”

“But the rest we can just throw away, right?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure. Whatever you want. I just don’t think we should throw it away without knowing what’s in there first.”

He nodded, drawing one side of his bottom lip between his teeth as he thought.

“You okay, Jimmy?”

He swung to face her. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re biting your lip. Means you’re thinking deep thoughts.”

He grinned. “I’m always thinking deep thoughts.”

A crash from the other room made him jump, but then he heard Shannon’s laugh combining with Marty’s.

“I better check up on them,” he said, rising to his feet.

“They’re fine.”

“I just—I need to.”

Feeling from box to box, he made it to the door and then across the hall to the open door of the tiny room.

The laughter stopped.

“Hey,” Shannon said, almost sounding guilty. “What’s up, Jimmy?”

“That’s what I want to know. Is everything okay? I heard a crash.”

Marty’s voice was sheepish. “That was me.”

Shannon started laughing again. “He tripped over the stepladder and fell and—”

“Pink paint in my hair,” Marty finished.

Jim frowned. “Pink?”

“Yeah,” Marty confirmed. “I’d feel much manlier if I had green or blue paint in my hair, but I—”

“I thought we weren’t going to paint the room pink,” Jim said, turning toward his sister. “We talked about this.”

“I don’t know,” Shannon said in a tone that implied shrugging. “It’s not a really girly pink. Just a tasteful dusty rose. Kind of mauvy, actually. I like it.”

Jim shook his head. “Whatever.”

“Hey,” Shannon said, speaking in the feisty tone she hadn’t used much with him since the shooting. “This is the color Christie wanted. I’m following orders here.”

“I told you about that,” Christie called from the bedroom. “I said it was a pale dusty rose.”

“I guess I didn’t know what dusty rose meant,” Jim muttered. “I was thinking more about the dust then the rose.”

“Jim,” Marty said, sounding very man-to-man all of a sudden. “The color’s fine. You wouldn’t hate it. Hell, I don’t even hate it. I would prefer it not to be in my hair, but…it’s fine. Perfect for little girls, but not too frilly. It’s a muted, neutraly kind of pink, if you know what that means.”

“You sure?” Jim asked, but he felt sure he was getting it straight. Marty never lied unless a healthy dose of sarcasm was involved.

“I’m tellin’ you,” Marty said earnestly. “This room is gonna be nice. Shannon showed me all the fixtures and curtains and furniture she and Christie picked out. You have nothing to worry about. It will be just as glamorous as the rest of your place.”

Jim smirked at the sarcasm that had crept into Marty’s voice at the word “glamorous.”

“You gotta admit,” Marty said, “This place doesn’t exactly scream ‘cop’ when you walk through the door. I’m kinda glad to see it all messed up today. Makes me feel a little more at home.”

“That’s great, Marty,” Shannon said. “Now why aren’t you painting?”

Jim smiled. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said to Marty before heading back toward the bedroom.

“He’s nice,” Christie said once Jim had closed the door.

He hefted a box and walked it over to the bed. “What?” he asked, dropping the box on the center of the mattress beside Christie.

“Marty.”

Jim sat beside the box, running his hands over it absentmindedly. “You didn’t just meet the guy.”

“I know, but I just saw him briefly now and then. After all I’ve heard about him since you were reinstated, I’m surprised that he’s such a nice guy.”

Jim opened the box and reached inside, laughing over what Christie had just said. “So am I,” he said. “Marty has more than one side. He’s an all-around good guy who also happened to make my early weeks back on the job a living hell. There are pros and cons to having a guy like that around. It’s good when he gets the hots for my sister and decides to start painting rooms.”

“You really think that’s the only reason he’s here?”

Jim shrugged. “No. And yeah, maybe a little.” He felt around inside the box and frowned. “This box seems to be full of papers. Old receipts? Bills? I don’t know.”

“Want me to look?”

Jim took a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I’m going to have to look at a lot of this stuff today, Jimmy. How else are we going to go through it? If you want this to be a quick process, you’ll just have to trust me with it.”

He pushed the box toward her. “I know. It just feels weird; like I died and now other people are going through my stuff.”

“Are you expecting me to be finding anything—private?” Christie asked, sounding gentle. “Why is this bothering you so much?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what all is in these boxes, just that I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away at one point or another—or maybe I just didn’t have time to go through it and it’s all junk. There will be old birthday cards and letters and—pictures. Oh God, Christie. Several of these boxes are full of old family photos I had meant to organize into albums.”

He had thought mention of the photos would make Christie take that gentle tone again. Bracing himself for more sympathy, he was surprised when Christie laughed.

“You were going to make little picture albums?” she asked. “You?”

Shaking his head, he felt around for another box. “Obviously when I could see,” he said irritably.

She didn’t seem at all fazed by his answer. “I know that. Of course I didn’t think you were planning to do that now. I’m shocked you ever wanted to do it at all. I just can’t picture you sitting at a craft table with your little scissors, artfully arranging photos and mementos into scrap books and adding little sticker thought bubbles to the—”

“I wasn’t gonna make that kind of album,” he said, unable to resist smiling over the visual Christie had just provided. “My parents never put anything into books and I thought—somebody should. I took all the pictures and planned to sort them and arrange them into albums. Normal, plain albums. No lace or borders or little butterflies in the margins.”

“Still,” she said, her laugh mellowing into a companionable feeling coming out through her words. “It’s nice that you wanted to do that. Thoughtful. Maybe I can—”

Jim shook his head. “No. Thanks, but…you wouldn’t know who anyone is or when things happened and—you’re about to be way too busy to even think about doing anything like that. I do appreciate the offer, though.”

“Okay,” she said. “So, these first two boxes really do seem to be junk. This second one is full of appliance owner’s manuals—for things you no longer own. Trash? And do you want to start a shredder pile for the bills in the other box?”

Relieved to have that other subject dropped, Jim dedicated himself to the task at hand, glad Christie hadn’t been able to pry out of him that the thought of those photos being organized right here in the apartment had made him feel a little sick.

That happened from time to time. Jim could be having a perfectly normal day, not even consciously aware of his blindness, only to find himself faced with a dramatic reminder that sickened him with loss as he thought about something he would never do again or something he would be forever missing. The big picture was fine. He was blind. He had dealt with it. It was the little things that could eat away at the façade.

Like the photos.

He never had taken the time to go through them, allowing his mind to wander around in his past, recalling long-forgotten events. Clothes he used to have. Games he used to play with friends he hadn’t thought about for years. His parents, younger than he was now. His dad, big and tough—mean, but in an affectionate way that drew children to him almost as much for the danger as for the fun. His mom, blonde and pretty, wearing the tacky clothes Jim could still remember from his childhood. His younger brother Sean, who had drowned when Jim was nine years old. Was that when his dad had started to spend more of his evenings at that bar? Tiny baby Shannon. There was a photo somewhere of ten-year-old Jim holding his sister in his lap the day she first came home from the hospital. He could still remember his face in that picture as he had held her for the first time, smiling, but with a puzzled scrunch to the eyebrows that clearly showed his doubts about the little interloper.

The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach felt like a recent loss because it was of something that hadn’t occurred to him until now. He had lost any link to his past self. Hundreds of photos existed here in this room, but he was denied even a peek at them. The Dunbar family photos may as well have burned in a fire, for all the good they could do him.

Most of it was junk. Jim made countless trips to the trash chute until old files and records and cards had been cleared out, leaving only consolidated piles that fell into a few categories. Three boxes of family photos were stacked in a corner, then there were souvenirs Jim had picked up throughout the years; worthless, but still able to evoke memories when Jim touched them. Items he had saved from Iraq. Shot glasses he used to steal when he was out drinking with his buddies. One box contained some old toys Jim had played with as a child. The stuffed elephant his grandma had crocheted felt much smaller than he remembered, but he smiled as his fingers traced the wide ears he used to play with in the dark as he had drifted off to sleep so long ago. One box contained mementos of his relationship with Adrienne, the woman he had dated just before meeting Christie. Letters. Lingerie. Props. Photos. What were those photos of again? He whisked that box away from Christie before she had a chance to see too much of Adrienne. Literally.

“I know I wasn’t your first girlfriend,” she said. “Would it be so horrible for me to see what’s in that box?”

He flushed. “I don’t think it needs to be seen—by anyone.”

“So…you gonna throw it away?” she asked with a kind of sarcasm she acquired when she was only partially amused. “Or maybe you can get Marty to go through it with you. Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

Oddly enough, the same thought had occurred to Jim, but he dismissed it with a laugh. The box contained items and photos that would probably make Marty a little envious. As tempting as it was for Jim to elevate himself in Marty’s eyes in that way, these were things he had never wanted to exploit. No eyes but his had ever been meant to see them. What if he had been killed in that shootout and Christie—still hurt and furious about Anne Donnelly—had come across this box?

He hadn’t thought about the box in years, but an awareness of it had lingered in the back of his mind, reminding him of the way he used to be and the things he used to do. Maybe it was better to get the contents of that box out of his home and out of his head. Soon he would have children—his future taking the place of his past.

“I’m gonna take it straight to the trash chute and toss it,” he said firmly. “Now.”

Things were winding down for the day. Marty needed a shower and Jim offered to lend him some clothes but Shannon had managed to stay relatively clean.

“It’s because I’m a pro,” she said as they all gathered to eat the Chinese food Jim had ordered for them. Even Christie was there, lounging on the couch as the others sat on the floor around the coffee table.

“Or maybe it’s because I did all the work,” Marty pointed out.

“That could be it,” Shannon said amiably. “By the way, you still have paint in your hair.”

“Where?”

“Here, let me get it.”

“What do you mean, ‘get it’? Leave me alone.”

They were both laughing and, from the sound of it, maybe even engaging in a flirty kind of wrestling match. It didn’t sicken Jim as much as he had thought it would.

“The color is much better when it’s dried and on the walls,” Marty assured Jim. “You might have liked it.”

“Yeah,” Shannon seconded. “It’s almost as pretty as the way it looks in Marty’s hair. You might have even agreed to it if you could still see.”

Was that a dig? Was Shannon teasing him about being blind? Making jokes about Christie sneaking pink into his home because he couldn’t see it? He turned toward his sister as the corners of his mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile. This was something that hadn’t occurred to him; that Marty’s acerbic attitude might rub off on Shannon rather than Shannon’s pitying attitude rubbing off on Marty. For the first time since the shooting, Shannon was starting to behave like his sister again. Jim raised his chopsticks to his mouth and ate the chunk of orange chicken he knew was clamped between them.

“Now that’s something I don’t get at all,” Marty said. “A blind guy eating with chopsticks.”

Everybody laughed and Jim easily grabbed another piece of food between those chopsticks and held it up for Marty to see. “You think blind people in China don’t use them? It’s not that hard, Marty. Maybe even easier. I can feel around for the food with these and then, once I have it, it’s not going anywhere. Food has a way of sliding off of a fork or spoon, but not these.”

“But rice?” Shannon asked.

Jim shrugged. “Sometimes a challenge, but no big deal.”

“Jimmy can always find his food,” Christie said with a smile in her voice. “Nothing will ever get between a Dunbar and his food.”

“That’s actually true,” Shannon said in an aside to Marty.

“What all did you get done today, Jim?” Marty asked. “You seemed really busy with all those boxes.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, nodding. “I was. We went through the stuff that had been stored in the other room. That reminds me. Shannon…we came across something you might be interested in. I have some boxes of family photos and I thought that you…”

“You have them?” Shannon said, raising her voice slightly. “I looked all over for those a year or so ago and the parents didn’t have any idea where they had gone. I let them have it for being so careless. I’ve been wanting to organize them.”

Jim shrugged. “Go to it. They’re in the bedroom. Take them.”

“Thank God,” Christie muttered. “Can you take them today? Once those are out of the way, poor Hank can start to feel at home again.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Shannon asked.

Jim always got a special smile when he was thinking about Hank. He felt it now. “He’s cowering somewhere. All this disruption is making him a little tense.”

“There you go again,” Christie said. “Projecting your feelings onto Hank. You're the one who’s tense.”

“He’s tense too,” Jim insisted. “He’s a very sympathetic dog.”

“I wouldn’t mind having one like him,” Marty said, obviously while chewing. “Cool dog.”

“I know how you can get one,” Jim said with a wry smile. “No big deal. First you have to go to a bank and wait for someone with an assault rifle to show up. Then—”

Something big but soft slammed against the side of Jim’s head.

“You know,” Jim said, calmly turning toward Shannon and Marty, “that is one of Christie’s good pillows.”

Marty roared with laughter. “Who do you think threw it?”

Jim’s eyes widened as he turned to face his wife. “I see how it is now. You’re allowed to throw pillows but I’m not.” He turned toward Marty. “See, I get in trouble for doing that.”

“Pregnant ladies get to make the rules,” Shannon observed.

Marty’s laugh grew sardonic. “Even I know that.”

“Is all this wisdom rubbing off on you, Jimmy?” Christie asked.

Jim could tell by the smile in her voice that Christie was relaxed and having fun with Shannon and Marty. It hit him suddenly that this felt exactly like a double date; like the kind of evening he and Christie used to spend with Terry and Annie, the four of them lingering over dinner and talking about nothing.

Christie had always liked the concept of the double date but none of the couples they had “auditioned” had ever made the final cut—except for Terry and Annie. Christie had missed what they were enjoying now…this casual camaraderie and easy laughter. Jim had often wondered if they would ever have this kind of evening with Tom and his girlfriend or if Karen would ever be in a position to do it, relationship-wise. The last thing Jim had expected was for Marty to come into his home and fit. Marty…and Shannon.

“Do you think they’ll get together?” Christie asked groggily after she had settled into bed for the night.

Jim crossed the floor—now almost clear of junk—and climbed in beside her. “I have no idea.”

He moved in close until they were face to face and then he kissed her mouth, her chin, her cheek, her ear. He had discovered that the lips were even more sensitive than the fingers when it came to picking up visual images, so he sometimes kissed Christie just so he could look at her. The sweet part was that this usually happened in the dark so Christie ended up doing the same thing back in a way that made things feel equal between them again. They never talked about this, but Jim knew Christie liked to explore his way once in a while to try and understand Jim’s experience the only way she could.

“You did good today,” she muttered when Jim had settled back onto his own pillow.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Having other people painting the room, going through those boxes I’ve been telling you to get rid of for years, not freaking out because your sister seems to really like Marty…”

“You think so?” Jim asked, leaning on his elbow.

Christie was so tired she could only half laugh at that, but her point was clear. “Think about it. Her dad was a cop. Her brother is a detective—and she looks up to you, Jimmy. Always has. Of course she would be drawn to Marty. He’s—you. Well, you, before…”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. “Before. That has occurred to me. As much as he rubbed me the wrong way in the beginning, I couldn’t quite hate the guy because I understood him. He did everything I would have done in his shoes. I like to think I would have handled it with a bit more maturity, but…”

She laughed and stroked the stubble along Jim’s jaw. “But you wouldn’t have.”

“I don’t think I’d’ve been so mean, though,” he muttered. “But I understood him.”

“He’s a handsome, cocky, bad-boy homicide detective—with a good heart. Like you.”

“What does he look like?” Jim asked, feeling shy. He asked Christie for descriptions all the time, but not usually of people he knew better than she did.

“No one’s told you?”

He shook his head, and then wondered if Christie had been able to see it in the dark. How often did that happen when people spoke to him? He smiled and responded verbally.

“No.”

“Well, he’s about your height, lean but strong, dark hair, dark eyes, good-looking.”

“Thanks,” Jim said, but he wasn’t satisfied. Nothing Christie had just said had even surprised Jim because he had already figured out most of it on his own. He had learned that very few people were capable of saying something that gave him a clear visual image of a person. The shape of the face, the way a mouth moved when the person talked, a mannerism that pulled it all together and gave someone character. All this was missing. When Jim could see, the last thing he was likely to notice or care about was eye color and the exact shade of a person’s hair was not what made them stand out. He remembered expressions, body language, smiles.

“What else do you want to know?” Christie asked.

“What?”

“That wasn’t a very good description, was it?” she said. “Um…he talks with his hands a lot. He has a very expressive face. Easy to read. He does that shruggy frown that you do when you’re thinking of how to respond to something. He can seem like a teasing big brother but there’s genuine warmth when he smiles. Nice teeth. Nice butt—”

“Christie!”

“You want me to pretend I didn’t notice? Shannon sure did. I caught her checking him out a few times. But he couldn’t fill out the clothes you loaned him.”

Jim smiled. “No, I didn’t think he could.”

“So, how bad would it be if Shannon were to date him?”

Jim thought about it a moment. “That depends on how he treats her. If he’s too much like how I was before…I might have to kill him.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 14

The smell of paint had faded until it could have been just any room to Jim’s sensitive nose.

Everything was in place now. All the boxes had been cleared, the cribs assembled, the furnishings and fixtures arranged…even the tiny baby clothes were folded in the drawers and hanging in the closet. Shannon and Marty had been over on two different Saturdays to finish the project. Marissa had even helped.

Now that the apartment was back to its usual orderly state, Jim found himself restless and wanting to be in that tiny room full of tiny things. He needed to know every inch of it; to learn it his own way.

Privacy wasn’t an issue. With Christie in bed, Jim was free to spend as much time as he liked, running his hands over the cribs, the changing table, the shelves, the clothes, without worrying about being caught. It was small, but Shannon was creative and had found a way to make everything fit, even the rocking chair she had placed at the window between the cribs. Jim had spent a lot of time sitting in that rocking chair, Hank at his feet, as he took in the vibe of the room. The newness of everything gave him an odd feeling. He had never gone in there much, back when it had been used for storage, so this now felt like a new little world thrown into the old one Jim knew so well. Christie had always meant to fix it up as a guest room, but by the time the rest of the place had been arranged to her liking, she had decided to leave the room until inspiration hit. Imminent twins had caused inspiration to hit at last.

Jim knew it was gorgeous. Marissa had discreetly gone over it with him, telling him about the colors and the crown molding and the decorative toys on the shelves and the beautiful baby quilts Cara had made. She had even conveyed to him the way light filtered in through the sheer curtains. Thanks to Marissa, something of the charm and personality of this new place had settled within his consciousness, awaiting only the presence of two tiny beings to complete the picture. Jim found himself hoping Marissa would think to describe the babies to him from time to time. He suspected she might come close to doing them justice.

“There you are.”

Jim jumped at the sound of Cara’s voice.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, placing a hand on Jim’s arm. “The room came out nice, didn’t it?”

Jim shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know every part of this room by heart,” she said comfortably. “I know you better than that.”

He smiled at her. “Yes, you do. And I’m very happy with the room.”

“You ready?” she asked.

The question made Jim start as a ripple of panic crossed him. “Is anyone ever ready?” he counter-questioned, trying to sound philosophical so he wouldn’t sound nervous. “Being a parent is always unknown territory until you’re faced with it, isn’t it?”

She laughed quietly to herself. “I was talking about stroller shopping. Are you ready for that?”

Jim nodded, biting his lip before giving in to a smile at the misunderstanding. “Right. Stroller shopping. Yeah, I’m ready.”

Christie had been given a stroller at her shower already, but they had decided to take it back because Jim had found it hard to maneuver.

“You’ll have to go and pick one out you feel comfortable using,” she had suggested. So Cara had volunteered to help Jim find a place with a good selection of double strollers and to go with him to test them out. He could have gone alone, he told himself, but not having to was a great comfort.

“I forgot about the Christmas shoppers,” Jim grumbled as he and Cara pushed their way through the crowd on the street.

“It’ll be the same wherever you go this time of year,” Cara pointed out. “Just suck it up and get it over with. I like having Hank here. He knows how to clear a path.”

“Detective Dunbar!” a voice called.

Jim tensed for a moment. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“It’s Artie Steckle,” the voice said, now quite close. “I have Pete here with me. We’re about to do some Christmas shopping.”

“Hey!” Jim said, extending a hand so Artie could pump it enthusiastically. “Artie is the one who found Hank that time I lost him while I was undercover,” Jim explained to Cara as he made his introductions. “And this is his nephew. How you doing, Pete?”

He wondered vaguely if he should try shaking hands with Pete, but not knowing where he was made Jim think of those awkward moments of trying to find each other’s hands through shared darkness. He hesitated, but only for a second. Pete seemed to know where he was and Jim found himself caught up in an unexpected embrace.

“It’s so good to see you, Detective,” Pete said, releasing him. “I’m doing real good. I’ve had some training—I’m using a cane now—and I decided to go back to school.”

“What’s your major?” Jim asked.

“I had to change majors. I’m gonna be an accountant. Dean already has me doing some of his bookkeeping now and, once I graduate, I’ll stay on with him and run payroll and take care of his books so he can keep it all in house.”

“I see Dean once in a while outside the firehouse,” Jim said. “He says you’re doing a great job for him.”

Pete laughed. “I try.”

He sounded different. When Jim had first met Pete, he had thought of him as a kid; a scared kid with heartbreak in his voice. Now Jim sensed confidence, maturity. Even happiness?

“I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch,” Pete said. “I meant to—after all you did for me. I just—well, things all started happening at once and I—”

“You got a life,” Jim said for him. “I get it. It’s okay, Pete. I’m glad you’re doing so well.”

“Thanks to you,” Pete said, his voice growing quiet.

Jim shrugged and then laughed at himself for giving a non-verbal response to a blind guy. “Hey, I didn’t go through rehab for you. You did that yourself. That was a big step.”

“Tell him about what else is happening with you,” Artie said, a great big smile in his voice.

“I’m seeing someone,” Pete told Jim. “Her name is Tammy. She’s in my major and—well—I got lost my first day back at school and she offered to help and—I didn’t realize the cane was such a chick magnet.”

They all laughed at that.

“You think that’s a chick magnet,” Jim said confidentially, “try getting a dog.”

“Chick magnets, indeed,” Cara said with a disapproving sound in her voice that made Jim picture her shaking her head.

“Just making an observation,” Jim told her.

“Good-looking men like you and Pete here don’t need ‘chick magnets,’ if you ask me,” she said, but a tiny undertone of amusement could be felt through her words.

“How else are we going to get around?” Pete asked. It was perfect, the innocence in his voice—the same sound Jim had heard when Pete had earnestly assured Dean he wasn’t about to jeopardize his new job by getting pregnant. Only now it sounded more like an intentional joke and Jim laughed heartily at it.

“So,” Artie said during the next lull. “You Christmas shopping too?”

“Nah,” Jim said. “Stroller shopping.”

It hit him as he spoke that they knew almost nothing of his personal life.

“Your wife’s expecting?” Artie asked in the warm tone Jim had immediately noticed when he had first met him. Something in Artie’s voice had made Jim like him instantly and he still felt the same way.

“Yeah…due in February, but it could be sooner so we need to get this stroller thing settled once and for all.”

“Your first?” Artie asked.

Jim smiled at him. “First—and second. Twins.”

“Wow,” Pete said, sounding as in awe of Jim as he had been when Jim had taught him how to piss standing up. “So—what’re you having? Do you know already?”

“Girls. Both girls. And I actually need to be the one to get the stroller because I have to find one I can use with Hank here so we’ll need to take a few of them for test drives.”

“Got any names picked out yet?” Pete asked.

Jim and Cara both laughed at that. Cara knew, better than anyone, of the trial facing the Dunbars as they struggled over that very issue. According to the most recently agreed-upon rules, they each got to name one twin, but the other had veto privileges. All Jim knew for certain was that one of his girls was not going to be named Athena. He had made that pretty clear. They worked on their lists separately now to avoid bickering and then ran names past Cara, who offered feedback, but managed to stay neutral most of the time.

Jim sighed at the end of his laugh. “We’re narrowing it down.”

“Humph!” Cara grunted.

“Easy,” Jim warned.

They parted ways, but Jim found himself thinking a lot about Artie and Pete throughout the rest of the day. His past encounters with both of them played in the back of his mind as he found the stroller that worked for him and as he showed it to Christie back at home.

When Artie had first refused to accept the reward money for finding Hank, Jim had assumed it had been out of pity; that Artie couldn’t see profiting off of a blind guy. That thought had rankled right up until the moment Artie had asked for the favor. Jim could vividly recall what had gone through his mind as Artie had made that request. He had been relieved that Artie hadn’t seemed to pity him. Gratified that Artie seemed to think Jim could be of some use to him in another way. Slightly embarrassed that he had seemed, in Artie’ eyes, to have it all together as a blind man. Horrified at the thought of having to face someone in Pete’s situation; to hear in his voice all the fear and hurt Jim didn’t like to recall having experienced himself. He couldn’t be a mentor, sharing his own experience, talking about things he had learned to keep inside so he could maintain the impassive face he presented to the world.

The more Artie had described Pete, how smart he was, how promising everything had been for him until his sight had started to fail, the less Jim wanted to have to do with the situation. Blind people made him nervous. Not once he actually met them; they seemed like anyone else, then. But the thought of them had unsettled him from the moment he knew he had joined their ranks. He was lumped together with the whole lot of them, from successful lawyers to beggars on the street. Blue-eyed Jim had not been a member of any minority group before the shooting. To find himself in one now—and one about which he was ignorant—would always be surprising to him, no matter how well he adjusted. But something had told him he couldn’t turn his back on this boy.

And now Pete was no longer someone to cringe over, wondering how he was getting by, remembering that little break in his voice as he had said, “no offense, but I’m not a cripple.” That had been hard for Jim to hear. The unspoken words, like you, had lingered in the air for a moment after Pete had spoken. Denial. Cutting down what Jim had taken pride in having learned in rehab by putting it under the “cripple” label. Jim took a deep breath. That exchange with Pete still got to him when he allowed himself to think of it, but it had been worth it because now Pete was happy. He was just a normal guy.

“You okay, Jimmy?” Christie asked.

Jim lifted his head, realizing he had zoned out while changing for bed.

He turned toward Christie. “I’m good. Just thinking.”

“I know you’re thinking,” she said. “That’s why I’m asking if you’re okay. You’ve been preoccupied all evening.”

“I ran into someone today…”

He had never told Christie about Pete, although she remembered Artie well. He briefly told her about Artie’s request and how he had spent time with Pete, talking to him about getting help and cleaning his apartment.

“I had no idea you did that,” Christie said, her voice full of reverence. “Come over here, Jimmy. I want to kiss you for doing that.”

Sheepishly, Jim obeyed. “It wasn’t a big deal,” he said, leaning over Christie for his kiss.

One hand on his face, the other around his neck and pulling him close, Christie kissed Jim. “Don’t tell me that wasn’t a big deal.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and took the hand Christie seemed to be offering him and squeezed it. “I owed Artie,” he said.

“But what he asked of you—it wasn’t easy and you did it. I know you don’t like talking about what happened to you and how it’s affected every part of your life, but you did it. You became a blind role model for that boy and you changed his life.”

Jim shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts. “I don’t mind talking about it,” he corrected. “Telling people how I do things—that’s fun sometimes. But—”

“But you had to get through to him before you could start talking about how you do things. You had to tell him how you feel about being blind and I know that didn’t come easily.”

Jim colored as something he had forgotten came up in his mind. “You want to know what I told him?”

Christie squeezed his hand. “I’d love to know what you told him.”

“I told him that I got through it because of my wife.”

He heard a small sound from her, like her breath had caught in her throat for a second, and her other hand joined the one Jim was already holding so she could give him a double squeeze. Then she gently pulled him to her in a hug.

“You really said that?” she asked. Her voice sounded thick, like she was suddenly fighting off a cold. Usually, when he heard tears in her voice, Jim felt guilty because he had caused the hurt behind them. This time was different. Even beautiful.

Her head rested against his shoulder and he settled into position beside her, his hand gently stroking a stomach so big he could swear it was growing under his touch. “He asked me if I ever wanted to blow my brains out,” Jim explained. “I told him I thought about it every day and that if it hadn’t been for my wife and a safe home to come home to, I would have.”

She shivered. “God, Jimmy.”

“You didn’t know that?”

He felt the shake of her head. “I didn’t know it was to that extreme. I knew you were down, but suicidal?” She shivered again.

“I wasn’t serious,” he said, pushing down on the side of her belly in case anyone was feeling kicky inside. “I said I thought about it, but I don’t think I would have followed through. I’m glad I’m still here.”

[shmeep]

Expectations

Chapter 15

“Twice a week?” Christie asked blankly. “You mean on top of my weekly ultrasound?”

Jim could hear Dr. Nelson flipping through Christie’s chart. “We can do one NST at your weekly appointment, but we need to be monitoring fetal stress often now that you’re nearing the home stretch, so you’ll need to make at least one other trip in a week. Possibly two.”

“So,” Christie said, her voice taking on a sly quality that told Jim she was going to try to get away with something. “You put me on bed-rest but you have me constantly coming in for all these appointments. Since that hasn’t done me any harm, couldn’t I be up more often? Maybe I don’t need to be resting all that much.”

Dr. Nelson laughed, as she did at all Christie’s attempts to get out of bed rest. “You’ve made it thirty-three weeks. Are you telling me you can’t take it easy just a little longer?”

“I guess I can,” Christie said, sighing. “But with Christmas this week…”

“Just take it easy,” Dr. Nelson warned.

“Take it easy,” Christie mimicked as they approached the sidewalk. Her impression of Dr. Nelson was dead-on and brought a smile to Jim’s lips.

“It’s not funny,” she said.

Jim’s arm around Christie’s shoulders registered the slight shiver that ran through her body in the cold December evening. “She’s right,” he said, hoping his smile softened his authoritative tone. “You need to rest—and to get out of this cold.”

Christie stopped walking. “No, Jim. It’s beautiful out here and I’ve missed the entire Christmas season. I like being out in it. Couldn’t we eat out somewhere before we go home? What harm could it do? I’m already out and dressed.”

“I don’t know,” Jim said, making a face. “Seems like we should be following orders here.”

“I know,” she said, and now she was pleading with him. “We need to do what’s best for the babies, but it’s a couple of days before Christmas and I want to feel the vibe a little. I’ve never spent so long away from all the lights and decorations and I—I’ve missed it
all so much…”

It didn’t hit Jim until Christie’s voice had dwindled to a stop. She had just reminded herself that Jim was missing “the vibe” as well.

Jim hadn't given it all that much thought this year. Last year had been much harder. Forcing himself not to dwell upon everything he longed to see had required much more energy. Now, with that first hard Christmas under his belt, he had moved on and was even learning to find new beauty and to enjoy environments vicariously through others. Christie’s joy in the season was contagious and, although she didn't know it, her sadness over how much Jim was missing was strangely comforting. Still, it did come with a sting.

He kissed her forehead. “I know,” he soothed. “I think we can risk one meal out. Might be our last one before having to worry about babysitters.”

He felt her nod.

Hank led the way to a small French restaurant they liked, Christie seeming to follow him as much as Jim did.

“Should I be worried about fatty food?” she asked bitterly, setting her menu on the table. “Jim, I’m kind of glad you can’t see me these days. I’m hideous. I can’t see my feet. I seem to go on forever.”

“I know how big you are,” Jim told her. “Having two people inside you will do that. But you’ll never be hideous.”

“Thank you,” she said meekly. “And thank you for bringing Christmas into the apartment. I shouldn’t be complaining when you went to so much trouble to do that for me.”

Jim knew all their Christmas decorations by heart and he had trimmed the tree and decorated the apartment with just a little help from Marissa, who had come by as Jim was finishing the job. She was able to add a few touches Jim had forgotten. Christie was delighted with the result and was spending too much time out in the living room, looking at the tree. Keeping her in that bed was growing increasingly difficult.

By unspoken agreement, they lingered over their meal, sitting side by side in their booth so Christie could take hold of Jim’s hand from time to time and so Jim could rest his arm around her shoulders and sneak a kiss during conversational lulls. They sat this way occasionally in quiet restaurants, now that eye contact across a table was no longer possible.

“I'm glad you like the decorations,” Jim said, stroking her hair as he spoke. Something about this moment felt indescribably sweet—and familiar. Like something out of a dream.

“I do,” she said, kissing him. “How’d I get so lucky?”

He could feel the smile on her lips. Could almost see her. For a second he thought he knew what this moment reminded him of, but then the sensation of déjà vu retreated into an area of his subconscious he knew he couldn’t reach and he gave up trying.

“Do you feel ready?” she asked, her voice dropping to a tone that would have sounded sultry in another setting.

Jim shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’m going to be the best dad ever, and I can’t wait for it to start. But then…I don’t know. Did my dad ever feel that way? That’s a weird thought.”

“You can’t think that way. Neither of us is from a perfect home, but we both learned what not to do, right? And Jimmy, you’re nothing like your dad.”

Jim shook his head, feeling that Christie wasn’t getting what he was trying to say—probably because he couldn’t find words to match the concept in his head.

“It’s not that my dad was so awful,” he tried to explain.

“I know.”

“I mean, he meant well in his way—and he was proud of me. I always knew that. I just—I don’t want Madeleine and Amelia to ever think I’m proud of them for what they can do and not for who they are.”

Christie sighed and rested her head on Jim’s shoulder, her hand running through his hair in a way that always soothed him. “Jimmy,” she said, something halting and hesitant in her voice. “That sounds like it’s coming from more than your childhood. Am I right? You think your dad was only proud of you when you could see?”

Jim turned his head, pretending he was looking her in the eye, and shrugged. “I doubt he’s doing much bragging these days.”

Christie didn’t even try to offer a contradiction. “He should be,” she said. “I brag about you all the time to anyone who will listen. I’m always proud of you. You know that, right?”

“Do you brag or defend?” Jim asked.

It was one of those questions he instantly wished he could take back. Jim couldn’t tell if his words had made Christie angry or sad or if they had just put her into an argumentative frame of mind. He never knew what would trigger one of her moods but, whatever it was, he was bound to do it one way or another. This time he felt he deserved whatever he was about to get for ruining something Christie had meant as a compliment.

But another of Christie’s quirks was that she could sometimes surprise him by not taking offense at all, even when it was warranted. “Both,” she admitted. And then she laughed. Jim laughed with her out of sheer relief over the unpleasant scene that had just been averted.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

“For what?”

“For bragging. For defending. I hate putting you in the position of having to defend me, but I understand that it has to happen sometimes.”

He felt her shrug. “It’s nothing new. I’ve always had to defend you for something or other. You’ve never exactly been easy.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t use that word to describe you, either.”

“There is one thing,” she said, her serious tone making Jim’s spine straighten. “I don’t recall agreeing to the names ‘Madeleine’ or ‘Amelia.’”

He tightened his arm around her shoulders, enjoying a good laugh with his wife. “They’re on my list.”

“We can discuss ‘Madeleine,’” she said. “But what about ‘Taylor’? Or ‘Campbell’?”

He felt half his face scrunch up as he thought of a diplomatic response. “I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t use last names as first names.”

“But they’re family names.”

“So is ‘Gertrude,’ but you don’t see me putting that one on the table.”

“You would if you could.”

“Fine. It’s on my list.”

“Okay. Then I’m putting ‘Tennyson’ on my list.”

“Tennyson?”

“My favorite poet.”

“Fine,” Jim said, a harsh laugh escaping. “You comfort little ‘Tenny’ Dunbar when she comes home from school, crying because all the other kids are making fun of her name. What’s wrong with normal girl names?”

“Nothing. I just don’t want to be boring.”

“Boring is good. James. Christine. What’s wrong with names like that?”

“Nothing,” she admitted. “But we have a plan. You have your list. I have mine. We each name a kid.”

“But we still have to agree.”

“I know, Jimmy, but I’m getting a little worried. We aren’t even close to agreeing and the babies could come at any time. What happens if we don’t have this figured out by the time they get here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe…” she began hesitantly. “I don’t know, Jimmy. Maybe we don’t have to agree. You pick one and I pick one and we hope for the best.”

He sighed through his nose. “Let’s not rush it. As long as we have time, we’ll try and agree. Okay?”

Christie was none the worse for her dinner out, although Jim checked on her so many times over the next two days that she was starting to get annoyed.

“You’re sure we can’t avoid having them over?” he asked her on Christmas morning. “You really should be taking it easy.”

“If anyone says that to me one more time…”

They had managed to keep to themselves on Thanksgiving, but people seemed to want to spend Christmas with them.

“You’re not up for it,” Jim protested, knowing it was futile. Guests on Christmas Day were inevitable now.

Christie didn’t seem to mind. “They understand how it is,” she soothed. “They know we’re not cooking or doing anything very special. And the place looks great. Very festive.”

“But don’t you think it’s rude for them to want to come over when they know you need to stay in bed?”

“I’ll stay on the couch and—no. It’s not rude. They probably think they’re doing us the favor by not leaving us here alone on the holiday.”

“I wanted to be alone.”

“They’re your family. You tell them.”

But Jim couldn’t tell his mother not to come over, laden with the cheap gifts she always felt compelled to buy for them.

Jim and Christie were able to have their own small gift exchange before the Dunbars arrived. Christie had ordered a computer game for the blind for Jim and the rest of the gifts were clothes. Karen had helped Jim pick out earrings and a matching necklace for Christie and he had chosen a sweater for her himself, loving it because it was so soft. He liked the idea of Christie feeling like that sweater.

“I wish I could wear it today,” Christie said when they were setting the gifts aside to make way for company.

“Why can’t you?” Jim asked.

“Remember the part about having two people in me?” Christie asked.

Jim started. As intimately aware as he was of the size of Christie’s abdomen, he had genuinely forgotten she wouldn’t immediately be able to wear that sweater. The Christie he saw in his mind didn’t match the Christie he saw with his fingers. He sighed, realizing it was impossible to reconcile the two. He would never know what she looked like, carrying his children.

“But do you like it?” he asked shyly.

“It’s gorgeous. I love it. Hopefully I’ll be able to wear it in a few weeks—if I’m not still too fat.”

Jim’s family arrived in the afternoon, everyone seeming more at ease than usual in the comfortable setting, eating the meal Jim had ordered. Shannon and Bradley helped maintain the feeling of normalcy. A baby to play with and a sister to tease went far in diluting any strained parental vibe in the air. Jim had to laugh when a stumble he took over a misplaced chair was met with a snort of sisterly laughter. Shannon had come a long way since meeting Marty.

“Shannon!” Jim’s mom exclaimed.

Jim ignored his mother and, within a couple of minutes, was able to maneuver himself into a painful collision with his sister that nearly knocked her over. Even Shannon wasn’t quite sure if it had been intentional as Jim pretended to nurse his injured elbow.

During the gift exchange, Jim waited eagerly for Shannon to open his gift to her and he was not disappointed by the awkward silence that filled the air once she had done so.

“I picked it out myself,” he told her earnestly, knowing she was viewing the paint-spattered shirt Marty had left the day they had painted the babies’ room.

“It’s…” Shannon began, but she couldn’t seem to fill in a description. She was wondering, Jim knew, if Jim had accidentally wrapped the wrong thing or if someone had played a trick on him, swapping out the real gift for the paint shirt. She was undoubtedly torn between pity and the urge to tease and she didn’t know what to do next.

Jim concentrated on making his expression hold a look of naïve anticipation as he awaited Shannon’s reaction. “Do you like it?” he asked eagerly.

“What is it?” Jim’s dad asked. “Take it out of the box, Shannon.”

“No, I think…Jim? Do you know what’s in this box?”

Jim smiled at Shannon. “Go ahead and look at it.”

He heard the wrapping paper shift as Shannon removed the shirt from the box and he was able to pinpoint the moment the paper fluttered from the shirt. Shannon gasped.

“‘My Blessing’?” she read. “What the hell does that mean?”

Jim grew serious. “He’s a good guy—and he’ll be here in a little while for dessert.”

“He said he might stop by,” Shannon said, sounding dazed. “But I thought—”

“I know you’re seeing each other,” Jim said, dropping his voice. “I work with the guy. He and I had a talk the other day and…”

He stopped, startled, as Shannon flung her arms around his neck and gave him a tight hug. “I told him you’d be cool about it,” she said, letting go. “He wasn’t so sure. But…does this mean you didn’t get me a real gift?”

“It’s right here,” Christie said from her perpetual spot on the couch. “He had to have his little joke first, but we did get you something other than Jimmy’s blessing.”

Marty arrived as Shannon was getting ready to serve the pie she had brought for dessert.

“So this is Bradley, huh?” Marty asked after everyone had greeted him.

Jim, who was holding his nephew, turned Bradley to face Marty and made him wave his hand in greeting.

“You haven’t met him yet?” Jim asked.

“Nah, she didn’t want me to unless…”

Jim smiled. “So you’re meeting him. Wanna hold him?”

Marty seemed to hesitate before lifting Bradley out of Jim’s arms. “He’s…you.”

“Cute kid, huh?” Jim said, feeling his smile spread.

Marty laughed. “Cute little Dunbar,” he said, sounding like the words were making him cringe.

“Hey!” Shannon had approached. “You’ve got him. What do you think? Isn’t he gorgeous?”

“He looks like Jim,” Marty said.

“And like me,” Shannon added.

Marty groaned.

“I told you so,” Jim said, allowing himself to smirk openly.

The evening wound down, and Jim found himself sitting with all the women while Marty, still holding Bradley, had a quiet but intense-sounding conversation with Jim’s father. Jim strained to hear what they were saying, but all he knew was that they were talking shop. The way Jim used to with his father. It used to be one of the only topics they had in common but now even that had become so awkward they generally didn’t speak at all. Jim tensed as he heard his name in the conversation.

“Jim never told you about that?” Marty asked, raising his voice slightly. “That surprises me. Hey, Jim. Come here a minute.”

Jim joined his father and Marty at the dining room table.

“I was just telling your father about what happened with the Korean grocers and…”

Jim tensed, wondering if Marty was about to elaborate on what had happened in the locker room after that case had ended, but he relaxed when he realized Marty was sticking to the case and the different approaches he and Jim had used. He even kindly left out the part about the perp running right by Jim.

“Jim thought it was an isolated incident and unrelated to the pattern. I disagreed—”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jim muttered.

Marty ignored him. “We both ended up being right and both cases got solved.”

Jim cocked his head to one side as it hit him that this was the first time someone was able to tell his father firsthand about what he did on the job.

“And you were able to work all that out…together?” Jim’s dad asked.

“Well…” Marty said, sounding like he was smiling.

Jim laughed. “We weren’t really working together much in those days, but we each had a theory and we each worked it. He got his guy, I got mine. I can’t say we didn’t step on each other’s toes a bit but…”

“It all worked out,” Marty finished. “Jim and me—we came to an understanding at that point and we don’t go our separate ways like that anymore. Jim, you never told your dad about the Tuxhorns? About Marlon Condell?”

Jim heard his father shift. “I read about that one in the paper,” he said. “You worked it?”

“Worked it?” Marty answered for Jim. “He was in the room when the guy blew his brains out.”

“Are you talking about brain splat in front of my baby?” Shannon asked, joining them. “Here, give me my baby back. Jim, come with me. I need to ask you something about the nursery.”

Jim stood and followed his sister through the apartment, neither of them speaking until he had stubbed his toe on Hank, who had been napping beside one of the cribs.

“What is it?” Jim asked.

“Nothing. The room is perfect.”

Jim shrugged, inclining his head toward Shannon to urge her to explain herself.

“He told me not to tell you he said it,” she said slyly. “But I really can’t resist—and you’ve been so nice about us and everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Marty said, and I quote, ‘Jim’s one hell of a detective.’”

Jim nodded, feeling his lips turning down in deliberate nonchalance. “Exact quote?” he asked.

“Yeah. I feel a little bad telling you, but why shouldn’t you know he said that? And Jimmy, thanks for letting Marty and me…”

“Letting you?” Jim cut in. “That’s not exactly how this thing went down. All I did was—”

“Your blessing is important to us. Marty wouldn’t date me without it, you know. He never said it in so many words, but he’s that kind of guy. You guys work together and he has too much respect for you to date your sister unless you tell him it’s all right.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, grinning. “He’s just dripping with respect for me.”

“You don’t know, Jim,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He’s not what you think. He looks up to you a lot and—”

“Looks up to me? Maybe he’s accepted that he’s stuck with me in his squad and he’s come to realize that I’m not such a bad guy outside the job—and it doesn’t hurt that he thinks my sister is hot—but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he looks up to me.”

“You impress him. He wonders how you do it. How you go on. I don’t know what went on with the two of you when you first got there, and I’m sure he’s still keeping face and acting stupid like a man, but you blow him away. What’s so funny?”

How could he explain it to her? His biggest fear, when he had begun to suspect there was a spark between Marty and Shannon, had been that Shannon would expose all of his vulnerabilities to Marty. It had never occurred to him that it could be the other way around.

“I don’t think you should repeat any more of those conversations,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s nice just this once, but you want Marty to trust you, right?”

“But—”

“I have a certain—very grudging—respect for Marty and…I have to work with the guy. I know you mean well, but…let’s keep the hot side hot and the cold side cold, okay?”

“What does that even mean?” she asked.

But Jim left the room, smiling even as he shook his head.