CHIEF MATT ROME

“LUCY”

A knock at the door gives Chief Matt Rome the one thing he never expected again: a second
chance.
Chief Matt Rome sat in his car and stared straight ahead at the building that
housed the East Bay Police Department, unable to bring himself to walk
inside. His ex-wife yammered into the phone, her voice more agitated and
elevated with each sentence. It felt like the world was sitting on top of his chest,
and his breath felt shorter as he finally heard her stop for air.
“What the fuck do you want from me then Jodie!” He exploded in the pause.
Silence.
Good, maybe she hung up, and he didn’t hear the click.
“Be his fucking father and fix it Matt!”
Now there was a click.
She had him dead to rights.
This was his fault.
The kid was his responsibility.
His responsibility to protect.
His responsibility to rescue.
Fail ... fail ... fail.
And for the first time in as long as he could remember ... he cried.
He cried for his son, for her, for himself.
He cried for what was once the three of them.
Voices outside his window startled him, and he rubbed his eyes to try to dry the
tears. He picked up his phone and pretended to be in a deep conversation on it,
looking through the window to see two of his officers walking past. He put his

finger up to tell them to give him a minute while he finished his fake
conversation.
Satisfied that his eyes were dry, he stole a look in the rearview mirror to confirm
it before getting out.
He saw his son’s eyes staring back at him, and he bit his lip so hard to keep the
next wave of tears at bay that he drew blood inside his cheek.

***

Rome sat in his office, lost in thought, when a knock came at the door.
"Yeah?" he yelled, making no movement toward the door.
"Chief, it's Marc; you got a minute?"
Rome caught his reflection in the picture near his desk.
He and the boy standing in the river, fishing poles in hand.
Would this ever stop?
The knocking stopped for a moment, and he was thankful that Marc had gone
away. No one needed to see him like this.
A momentary reprieve...and then another knock.
McKinley's been through some shit. If anyone was going to see him, let it be
him.
"Come on," he said.
Marc walked in, and he felt him looking at him while he stared at the picture.
"Hey, Chief, everything alright?" he said, closing the door behind him.
Rome turned to him, his eyes puffy and red.
"No. No, it's not.”

***

In nearly a decade working for the man, Marc had never seen him cry. Rome had
a way of making the world look easy to manage. Water off a duck’s back,
nothing sticking to him. Whatever it was though, it wasn’t good.
"What can I do to help, Chief?"
Rome choked on his first attempt to say something and reset himself, wiping at
the tears that had started to dry on his cheeks.
“Nathan's in a hospital right now."
"Can Mary do anything to help?"
The man looked at him as if he had reconsidered going further. Marc noticed
that the room smelled like booze. Anyone sober could pick up the smell of it like
a bloodhound on a hunt.
"Not that kind of hospital. He got moved to ... to ... the mental hospital at
Bryson. He lost his grip on reality, couldn't function anymore."
All the light was gone from the man. Forever a gregarious and likable leader, this
made everything about his personality the last few weeks add up. There were
three options at moments like this: platitudes, questions, or keeping your mouth
shut and listening.
Marc opted for the latter.
Rome looked at him as if he were waiting for one of the other two options to
happen, then continued his story.
"Jodie, and I noticed it before the divorce a few years back. He wasn't the same
as his friends. There was so much unhappiness in him. He couldn't shake it."
"How long has he been there?"
"Month now. He got beat up pretty well the first couple of days. When I went to
see him, he had bruises and cuts all over him ...”
Rome bit back the words.
"It's ok, Chief. I'm not trying to make you hurt worse by telling the story again."

Rome reached into his desk and pulled out the pint of vodka from it, and took a
sizable belt.
"I know you got ten months now, so I'm not offering, and I expect that you'll
keep this between us. No one you understand. Just us."
"Of course."
"It just helps me take the edge off a little. I don't have to think about him quite as
much for a minute. It's not that I don't want to; it's just that I'm not strong
enough yet."
Marc lifted some papers off the chair in front of him and sat down, looking up at
the photo of the father and son.
"How old is he there?"
"Ten. That was my favorite year. I was still Batman to him, and he was still
Robin. We were a great little team."
His eyes filled up with tears again, and Rome had to sit down on his chair.
Kids were such powerful things.
They could cause an incalculable amount of joy and an infinite amount of
despair.
The parent was forever exposed to it, like a life sentence.
"When can he get out?"
Rome shrugged.
"When he's better ... if he gets better."
"How can I help, Chief? I want to help."
The man nodded softly at him; his eyes closed as if searching for answers
somewhere deep within him.
"I don't know. I'm sure there's something, but I have no clue what it is. I'm at the
bottom right now."

Marc knew the feeling.
He knew what it felt like to have your soul dressed in the darkness, to have your
mind feel like a San Francisco fog had rolled over it, rendering it unable to take
flight. He knew the coping mechanism and knew that it was plotting against the
man.
It would offer peace in return for a piece of him.
The trade was always imbalanced.
The worst part was even when you thought you had reached the bottom, there
was still further to fall. It only felt like the bottom because you had never been
that low before.
Marc remembered that ten-year-old boy coming into his dad's office, asking to
hear people's stories, and listening like a 60 Minutes interviewer, bringing
authentic smiles to people who worked in a miserable business. He felt his heart
break for the man and a selfish wish deep within him that nothing like this would
ever happen to him.
A flood of anxiety washed over him. If something like this did happen to him,
would he be able to not run to that pint, liter, or handle and try to negotiate relief
with it, however fleeting, in exchange for no long-term commitment?
The bottle wouldn't be able to make that deal, though. It was a loan shark. The
interest rates were usurious, and if you didn't continue to pay it what it wanted,
it wouldn't just break your legs.
It would break your spirit.
There was no payment to satiate it. It would only be satisfied with total control.
"This will sound ridiculous, but do you want a hug?" Marc asked him.
The man laughed through the tears.
“Yeah ... fuck yeah, I do."
Marc walked up to him and clasped hands with him, then pulled him in for a
hug, tears racing from both of their eyes allowing each the opportunity to carry
the other man's troubles for a while and forget their own.

***

Rome stood in front of the kitchen island, a filet knife poised over a Mahi-Mahi
that had been caught and delivered as a present by his friend Paul Jackson the
owner of FishTales Marina and Bar earlier in the afternoon. The fish was
gorgeous, 20+ pounds of edible enjoyment, but at the moment in a slight state
of disrepair, with its head sitting off to the side of the cutting board and belly
open.
The doorbell rang, and he yelled for them to hold on a minute.
He scrubbed up, and dried his hands on a towel on his walk to the door. He
looked through the peephole and didn’t recognize the woman standing there. It
looked like she was holding something in her right hand but he couldn’t tell what
it was. Rome unlatched the door and opened it.
“Hi, how can I help you?”
The girl turned to face him and he saw two scared kids.
One just shy of drinking age, and the other, very new to the world and its ways.
The older one looked at him, as her eyes welled up with tears.
“Are you Chief Matt Rome, Nathan Rome’s father?”
Right there Rome knew.
It didn’t take a career in law enforcement to figure this one out.
“I am, and who are you?”
“I’m Emily.”
She pointed down to the baby who looked up at the two of them with wide eyes,
and a quivering lip. Emily bent down and rocked the baby slowly in her carrier.
“Hi Emily, and who’s this?”
Emily looked at the baby for a long moment, the kind of moment that a person
decided their fate in.
“This is Lucy.”

Rome bent down to look at the little girl and smiled.
The smallest curve across the baby’s lips mirrored his in more ways than one.
“Would you and Lucy like to come inside and talk?”
Emily nodded.
Rome held the door open as the girl carried the baby into the house and sat
down on the couch.
“Something to drink?” Rome asked.
Emily shook her head, willing the words to come out of her mouth but not
finding a way to do so. Rome could see tears start to fall down her cheeks.
“Nathan and I went to high school together.”
She paused trying to connect the words together, but stumbling again and
again.
Rome decided to help her out.
“Is this his?”
Emily nodded again.
“You’re sure?” Rome asked.
“Yes.”
Rome looked at the little girl and let her grab his index finger.
He smiled with everything in him for the first time in forever.

***

“Jodie, do you have a minute?”
His ex-wife’s voice sounded irritated at the intrusion into her day, but she
managed to mumble out a “sure.”

Rome was unsurprised by the response.
“You’re a grandmother.”
No response.
Rome took more than a little pleasure in delivering the news. It was juvenile, but
everyone still had a little seventh grade in them.
“What do you mean?”
He could see her feet up on the lounger at the pool, her sunhat flopping lightly in
the breeze, and her something vegan lunch on the table next to her, trying to
process the gut punch he had just delivered.
“How, I mean, he’s been gone for a while?”
“Happened before all this. He never told us. Honestly, I don’t think he even
knew.”
Rome held the baby in his lap and bounced her ever so lightly with his knee. The
noise she made was intoxicating. A high he hadn’t felt in nearly two decades.
“Be clearer Mathew.”
“The girl came here today. She is here now. Her name is Emily, and the baby is
Lucy. She needs help, and I have agreed to help her.”
“Without talking to me?!”
Rome smiled and looked at Emily, who looked terrified of the voice on the
phone. He hit mute and made mocking looks towards his ex-wife’s voice. Emily
appreciated the tension release and giggled.
“Last I checked you were my ex-wife. All I have to do is send you money. Not
ask your permission.”
He could envision Jodie’s face, contorting into a mask of anger, her eyebrows
creating a steeple to rival the world’s great churches, and her nostrils flaring
wide trying to help her pull a breath of air deep into her lungs. It was the second
least mature thing he had done so far today, but he forgave himself and found a
way forward.
“Can I talk to this hooker?” She said.

“Uh, I, I, um, am here ma’am.”
Rome motioned for Emily to relax.
“Watch your mouth Jodie. It means we have a granddaughter. You, do not have
to do anything. I tried to be nice here and at least tell you about it so you knew.”
Nothing.
A silence so heavy, that even the birds outside were uncomfortable and stopped
chirping.
Then a click.
Emily started to cry.
“I’m so sorry Chief Rome. I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life.”
Lucy’s eyes were bright and transfixed on his.
“Quite the contrary Emily. Quite the contrary.”
***

When they left he walked into the backyard, sat on a tan mesh patio chair, and
looked out across the pond in his back yard. Clouds formed in the west and a
dark line headed towards him. He heard the constant drone of motorcycles on
the main drag of town, and the air smelled like a summer carnival, his neighbor’s
Katsura trees in full bloom, making the air smell like cotton candy and caramel
corn. It made him hungry whenever he walked outside.
He pulled the flask out of his pocket and spun the cap, adding a whiff of
bourbon to his nostrils, but he paused as he went to put it to his lips.
He started to lift it again to the same result.
Rubbing the back of his neck he tried to process what had just happened to
him.
A door knock and a whole new life started.

Like there was someone else directing his movie and saw the opportunity to add
a twist.
Had he needed a twist?
Yeah.
Bad.
He screwed the cap back on and set the flask on the small round table.
It had become such a big part of his life since the divorce, it felt like turning his
back on an old friend and he could feel it imploring him to let it help with the
situation he found himself in.
His lips tightened and he felt his eyes close.
HIs hand reached back up to the table, knowing exactly where he had placed it,
and felt the stainless steel against his fingers. He ran them over the etching on it,
drawing the message in his mind.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF
So many people he owed something to. So many people that counted on him.
Now two more.
Panic tugged at his insides and his breath got shorter, his lungs trying to make
do with less oxygen. He closed his eyes tighter and begged for someone to take
the pain away.
Anyone, please fix me!
He opened his eyes and looked again at the flask with fresh eyes, an inanimate
object taunting him now, making promises. There was a solution there.
He needed to steady himself or he would be no good to anyone.
With anger in his heart for what he had lost, for what had been taken from him,
and even for what had been given to him, he grabbed the flask unscrewed it,
and made peace with the world around him.
***

Rome always wanted kids.
He had two younger sisters, and where many big brothers when they were
young would have neglected them in favor of football games or baseball cards,
he saw it as a set of new friends to play with. It was never a burden to him, even
when it was a tea party with stuffed animals, or reading books to them to help
his parents get chores done around the house.
His dream had always been to have four, but dreams don’t always come true.
He and Jodie had tried hard just to have one. It wasn’t her, and it wasn’t him, it
was just them, something that didn’t quite line up for them scientifically.
It wasn’t just science that conspired to vex them either. As the years passed it
didn’t take long for the relationship to sour, before turning into apathy and
ambivalence.
But they had their son, the beacon of light who would make it all worth it.
Except ... that it didn’t.
Nathan had been a terror from the start, the type of kid that people see in the
grocery store and whisper about on the next aisle. The type of kid that makes
said people grab a pack of condoms before checking out.
Every time he came to this place he would sit in the parking lot for at least a half
an hour while he tried to summon up the courage to go inside. He would tell
himself the stories of what could have been, and he would make himself sad,
angry, and bitter.
Today like most days, he unscrewed the cap on his flask, a faded silver number
from two decades prior that someone had given him for a wedding present. He
took a belt of the Vodka and he felt a fire flow down his throat, like a dragon had
just given him CPR.
Courage inserted, he opened the car door and walked up the well manicured
lawn to the wrought iron gate. He pushed the button on the monitor in front of
him and waited to be connected to the guard on duty.
A broad and serious female face came on the screen and asked him to state his
business.
“Chief Matt Rome, here to see Nathan Rome please.”

There was a shuffling noise and a flurry of key strokes, and the woman came
back on and nodded slightly. Then he heard a loud whirring noise, followed by a
click, and the iron gate began to open inward, summoning him to the depths of
hell.

***

Runny Shepard’s Pie for lunch for parent’s day, the potatoes never being given
the chance to congeal properly, either from too much milk, or a desire for
absolute power from the cream corn.
Whatever it was, it sucked.
Rome chose his spoon and tried to find a bite that made him less miserable
about it.
Nathan ate freely without complaint, a surprising twist to his time here, Rome
thought. The kid who once famously had turned up his nose at chicken tenders,
now comfortably eating everything that wasn’t nailed down.
He looks good...healthy.
“Thanks for coming out dad,” Nathan said between bites of a dinner roll with an
entire pad of butter on it.
How is going to react to this?
“Always, Nathan. We miss you, a lot. So excited for you to get home.”
Nathan nodded and managed a small smile.
“Not too much longer they say. Two, maybe three weeks.”
Rome put the spoon down and duplicated his son’s take on the dinner roll,
tearing into it like he hadn’t eaten all day.
“I have something to tell you,” Rome blurted out.
Nathan seemed surprised to hear this, and sunk back into the hard plastic
cafeteria chair, his fingers steepled like he was sending a prayer up.

“Ok, I’m a little nervous. I almost wish people would start bad news without a
warm up. No stretching needed. Just run.”
Rome chuckled.
“Fair enough. It’s news however you choose to view it.”
Nathan sat quietly now, unsure of how to react further until he heard what his
father had to say.
“You have a daughter.”
The band aid is pulled now.
His son didn’t move a muscle.
“Did you hear me? I know that’s kind of a big bomb.”
“Nuclear.”
“Ok, yeah, nuclear is an adequate bomb size,” Rome said.
A loud outburst filled the cafeteria from the buffet line, and a tray clanged to the
ground spilling its contents out across the floor. They watched as a young
woman tore at her hair and screamed at the two people behind her, who looked
bewildered by the outburst.
“What’s her name?” Nathan asked, as if the action was so commonplace it
didn’t warrant mention.
Rome did the same and said softly, “Lucy.”
Nathan smiled.
“I love it.”

***

It had been decades since he had to burp a baby, the awkward motion, the fear
of patting too hard, or not hard enough and thereby just shaking the little one
with no result. She felt tiny in his hands, and he held her against his shoulder
and changed the cadence of his step to try to keep it entertained.

Finally a bigger burp than he expected came loose and he smiled, a feeling of
accomplishment that he hadn’t experienced in ages. He held the little girl out
and connected with her aquamarine eyes, bright and cheerful, full of promise
and potential. She looked at him and cooed and he gave her a soft squeeze that
melted any ice that had built up on his heart.
The doorbell again.
He wasn’t expecting anyone else, he had told Emily that he would watch the
little girl for an hour while she ran a couple errands.
Maybe it was a package?
He looked through the peephole and exhaled a deep sigh of disgust. It had been
such a nice morning.
Turning the handle he opened the door and looked at his ex-wife standing there,
her hair matted with sweat back in a ponytail, and her gym clothes, a pair of
skintight pink leggings, and a thin white long sleeve top. For being a ruthless
bitch she still looked great. He tried to push any thoughts of that sort out of his
head and try to learn why she had come to wreck his day.
“Oh my God, she is adorable,” the woman said holding her hands over her
mouth. Her face tightened and Rome knew she was putting on her “brave face”,
her tough girl persona that she used in courtrooms and boardrooms.
“Yeah she’s incredible. I’m watching her for an hour while Emily goes out to run
some errands.”
“So Grandpa, you’ve made a friend huh?”
“Yes Grandma, I have.”
He watcher her shudder at the word, and he took a perverse satisfaction in it. To
her the word meant death. It meant old age, the loss of the one thing she held
dear ... her looks. To him Grandpa was endearing. Maybe Grandad, or Pop. Pop
sounded kind of cool. It was easy to say, easy to write on a Christmas card.
“I just came by to see how you were doing is all. I know this is a lot. I didn’t react
well the other day. I wanted to apologize.”
Rome stood there confused and continued to bounce, like he was on autopilot
when the baby was in his arms.

“Am I asleep? Is this a dream?”
“You’re a dick.”
He smiled.
“So are you going to take my apology or not?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’ve caused each other enough hurt. Why add another log to the fire.”
She stood there looking around the inside of the house.
Their old house.
He realized he hadn’t invited her in, and stepped to the side to do so.
“Do you want to hold her?”
For the first time in as long as he could remember, his ex-wife, the mother of his
son, had nothing to say. No smart ass comment, no whip tongued crack.
Silence.
“Yes please,” a small whimper escaping her lips.
Rome handed her the baby and she took it in her arms, Lucy now screaming at
the top of her little lungs.
“Rusty huh,” Rome said unable to hold back his laugh.
Even his wife, for whom humor now came at a price top high to pay, started to
laugh, a sound Rome hadn’t heard in years. It was a laugh he remembered from
college. A laugh that he had picked out from the crowd, like a bird finding
another through its song. He had walked up to her at a party and their eyes had
found the others. They would hardly be seen apart after that.
Jodie handed her back to Rome and the baby stopped crying.
“Wow, I suck.”
“Nah, I think she and I just have a bond or something.”

“Bonded dislike of me?”
Rome laughed harder this time and waved the woman back into the kitchen, but
with no clever comment to volley, he chose to offer her a coffee instead.
She nodded and took a seat at the kitchen table, an old wood block one that
was built at a time when people cared about every nail that went in.
“I always loved our backyard.”
Rome looked outside at two deer that were hanging out at the edge of the tree
line looking for food.
“Me too. What you don’t enjoy the ocean views from the top floor?”
“No, it’s great. It’s great. I guess I miss the trees.”
He handed her a coffee with the perfect amount of sugar and cream added to it.
“You remembered?”
“I only made you that coffee for decades. I think the formula is seared onto my
brain.”

She took a sip and looked at the baby who was now nestled sleepily in her ex-
husband’s arms.

“You were always so good with kids. It’s supposed to be the mom, but not you
though.”
Rome stopped her.
“Are you going to go see Nathan? He needs the support.”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes now and tried to find anything else in the room to
look at, settling on an old picture of him and Nathan at a waterpark.
“I can’t.”
Rome felt heat creeping up from his gut.
“Why?”

“Because, Matt, I’m ashamed ... I’m scared ... I’m angry,” she hissed.
What would have any other time elicited an equal and opposite reaction in him,
was restrained by the sleeping baby.
“Relax, relax. I understand. I felt all those things too ... but he’s our son. It’s a
terrible place. He needs light there, even if he doesn’t know that he needs it.”
Tears fell into her coffee and she tried to keep up with drying them off. He
walked to the counter and brought back two paper towels for her.
“I, I, uh, um, am sorry.” Her voice was weak and it stuttered as she tried to
match his eyes.
The solution was obvious, Rome thought, but that didn’t make it any more
enjoyable just because you knew the answer to the problem.
He took another sip of his coffee and looked at her as if it was the first time.
He saw through the show, the production, and the bullshit.
He saw the woman standing on the lawn that day in college and remembered
that at one time she had been the love of his life.
“Let’s go together,” he said.
She looked at him stunned, unable to find the words to respond.
He walked over to her and pulled the chair up next to hers.
Then he pulled her in close for a hug that felt like the first one.

***

After Emily had come to pick up Lucy and Jodie had left, Rome stood under the
warm water with his eyes turned up to the ceiling, letting the water wash away
the pain. The heat felt good against the skin, and he stood there until it
protested and started to turn cool. He got out and toweled off, then went to the
closet to get his uniform.
And there it was again.

A pull somewhere in the back of his mind. A nagging voice telling him that he
wasn’t complete ... that there was something missing.
He stared at the uniform for a minute, then walked back down the hall to the
kitchen and opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator. He looked around the
kitchen, at the ghosts of the light that had just filled the room not an hour ago
now. Ghosts that taunted him. Nothing could stay. Nothing was stable, or
secure, or guaranteed.
Except the cabinet.
He pulled one of them down and looked at it. Such a curious triumph if there
ever was one, to package destruction in such a hip looking glass vessel, a small
tag draped over the neck of the bottle, showing happy dancing and shaking to
an imaginary beat.
He opened it and set it on the counter.
Then he took out another one. More serious looking. What men took to ease the
pain of regret.
He opened that one and sat it next to the first.
And he did the same for the other eleven in the cabinet, a hodgepodge of multi
colored bottles open now and staring back at him, their contents asking for
another chance, as if they knew their fate. They told him tales of restful nights,
pain free days, and an escape from the hurt of future bad days ahead. Anything
to let them stay.
He poured the first one down the drain, and watched it race out of the small
opening, the liquid at the top of the inverted bottle trying to free itself from the
abyss below. He stared at the second one. The one the ads claimed cowboys
used around the campfire to talk shit about the cattle they had run that day, with
their hats tilted just so to the night stars.
This one he hurled across the room into a wall, watching with delight as it
exploded into a hundred pieces, and brown liquor flew all over the walls and
floor.
Rome smiled.
The smile of the free.

The smile of the brave.