“I will always try my best not to depend on you to get me level, Maggie; I will always seek to bring you the best state I can be in … but there are going to be some terrible days, and I won't be at my best.”
Maggie Thornton remembered that conversation, and her response.
“I promise you the same – we'll just try not to be terrible at the same time!”
Mrs. Thornton therefore had only seen only of the news what was necessary … she couldn't afford to get all upset, as upsetting as it all was.
She also had a long day … she was working that contract she had gotten during the week with Mr. Worley's mentoring center, and the young women – precocious middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students – had fallen in love with her almost as hard as Harry Lee had. She had gotten up and delivered the Wednesday food she and her cousin Margie had made for the battered women's ministry, and then went on to do cooking classes for two hours … but the girls wanted to talk and so she stayed. …
But only until 5:30, although she was begged to stay longer.
“I have a wonderful fiance who will soon be my husband,” she said. “Gotta go get some things ready.
That too, was something they needed to know if they were going to avoid being easy pickings, 20-30 years down the line, to whatever would rise from the corpse of LookyLou LookatYou.
That company would now die, of course. It had crossed the line of killing White women and children publicly … the stories were coming out online and the fury across the country was rising.
And, of course, two officers from the Blue Ridge precinct had been seriously injured, meaning that the convention and its obsessed conventioneers had now personally crossed the captain of the Blue Ridge precinct.
If that wasn't a deadly mistake, Mrs. Thornton didn't know what was.
But here was the deal: Captain Lee was not one of those men who enjoyed taking out his foes. He was ridiculously good at it, but he was not the kind of man who was made happy by the vindication of his own position by the way he could devastate those that opposed him. Victory was tempered by his regret that he had to take it to the highest level, always.
And then there was just that he wasn't the kind of man who could just shrug off 1,029 injured and 377 dead, no matter who they were, if it was within his sphere of responsibility though not at all under his control.
Mrs. Thornton had said to him that the death and injury toll could have been much higher, but for the work the precinct and a whole slew of city workers had done.
“I know that … but I am so angry, Maggie, so angry … none of those people had to die, and we have to go back out tomorrow to a job for which we have not been properly equipped.”
He was likely to be even more upset by Wednesday night … she didn't know about the results of the City Hall meeting, but she knew that death and injury tolls had climbed up again, and that a city worker and two officers were among the seriously injured.
So, she went home and put together the things she had prepared in advance to make Shield Soup with super-hot peppers added … she roasted some Trinidad Perfume peppers for dessert, and had all that ready by 9:45, knowing that Captain Lee's meeting would be over around 10:00.
After all the cooking and washing up, Mrs. Thornton got her favorite hand cream down and used it liberally … after all the hard scrapping that had gone into Captain Lee's day, a soft touch would mean a lot to him.
10:23 – Captain Lee knocked at the door, and Mrs. Thornton opened it. He smiled, instantly.
“See, this is what Cousin Ironwood has been saying I've been missing all these years that he has been married … but it took me 27 years to meet you after Vanessa's death, and you were worth the wait.”
They embraced, and she could feel how tense he was.
“I know it has been a hard day for you, Henry,” she said, and when she called him Henry, he knew she was really concerned.
“I can't imagine what I look like,” he said.
“Gorgeous,” she said, “but really tired, and sad.”
Captain Lee smiled again.
“You're so kind, Maggie.”
“How do you feel?”
“Getting better now.”
A kiss … and she stroked his face tenderly while they kissed, and felt his pleasure and increasing relaxation.
“Sit on down,” she said when at last they broke their embrace. “Did you want the full Shield Soup, or just the broth?”
“Full soup. I'm not hungry because it has just been too much for me to think of eating, but I have to keep my vitamins and especially my protein up.
He went to wash up, and then sat down and waited as she got his bowl together … she could see the stress beginning to leave him just a little.
“How did the meeting go?”
“We got done what we had to do,” he said. “There is going to be big trouble tomorrow in the political arena, but it is what it is. The plan is not to have another two or three dozen people injured or dead tomorrow; the rest will take care of itself.”
“Just so – but you're still going to need your strength, so here's your soup, and in case sleep doesn't come easily or come at all, I've gotten hold of some beautiful relaxation audio.”
“Would you mind putting that on now?”
“No.”
As wrought up as he still was, and troubled, the combination of the soup, the sound of murmuring waters, and the calm atmosphere knocked Captain Lee right out … by the time Mrs. Thornton had washed his dishes, he was sound asleep on the couch. Mrs. Thornton put the audio on “loop,” covered him with a blanket, and stroked his face tenderly before going off to her bed… he smiled in his sleep.