Chapter 4: Childhood Shadows

4

My father was a police officer. He was away on assignment more than 200 days a year.

Every time he came home, I was overjoyed, pestering him with questions.

That day was my fifth birthday. Dad and Mom said they’d take me to McDonald’s.

I clutched my Happy Meal toy, legs swinging off the back of Dad’s old Schwinn. I sat on the back of Dad’s old bike, holding a pinwheel. The pinwheel spun and spun.

So did the gears of fate.

I remember only the loud "bang, bang" of gunfire.

I fell from Dad’s bike.

All I saw was a sea of blood.

Dad and Mom lay in a pool of it.

I don’t know how long passed before an uncle ran over, scooped me up, and covered my eyes:

"It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t be scared."

...

The uncle took me home.

I stopped talking. Food turned to dust in my mouth. All I did was stare at the ceiling, counting the cracks.

The uncle’s family had a son a little older than me—Caleb. He talked to me every day, cheered me up, played cops and robbers with me.

Later, we went to school together, did homework together, took the SATs and college entrance exams together, and got into the same police academy.

After graduation, we joined the same precinct and became detectives together.

We handled many major cases, shedding blood and sweat side by side.

One year, I was injured during a mission. Before they pushed me into the operating room, Caleb held my hand, crying as he confessed his love.

"Lillian, you have to live. I want to marry you."

When we were in school, neither of us dated anyone else. After starting work, we tacitly avoided talking about marriage. We both knew we were waiting for each other.

After I recovered, Caleb took a special day off for Valentine’s Day and brought me to Maple Heights Church to see the Christmas lights.

It had just snowed, the old maple trees heavy with snow, the church’s stained glass glowing behind us—like a scene from a storybook.

Under the maple tree, Caleb proposed. He fumbled with the ring, hands shaking, and we both laughed when it slipped and landed in the snow. We held each other close, vowing to protect one another for life.

Sometimes, on quiet nights, Caleb would pull out his old guitar and strum a country song for me. We'd dance barefoot in the living room, laughter echoing off the walls of the little house we'd rented. All those small American dreams—a picket fence, coffee at sunrise, a future—were right there, almost within reach. It felt safe, real, the way life ought to be.