Page 119 of Donovan's Men

“If I don’t share now, I might never.”

Even I understood that, first of all, repressing things wasn’t healthy and that, secondly, Donovan wouldn’t tolerate it anyway.

“I mentioned my wife. Tammy.”

Donovan and I nodded.

“We had a pretty good marriage.” He spun his coffee cup ninety degrees. “I had a few same-sex relationships in college.” He chuckled. “Heck, I had all kinds of relationships in college.”After a moment, he looked up to meet our gazes. “But never a threesome. That’s just you.”

I felt absurdly touched by that. I knew Donovan wouldn’t—couldn’t—reciprocate. But I was okay with that. If not for his knowledge, perhaps we’d be floundering more than we were.

“Anyway.” He looked back down at his mug. “I met Tammy the same week I started with the Vancouver Police Department. Unrelated,” he quickly added. “And we just…hit it off. My first serious relationship. We married a couple of months later. I worried about how she’d cope with being a cop’s wife, but she managed fine. She had her own life—job, friends. When I worked the night shift, she had ways to keep herself busy.”

“Was she unfaithful?” Donovan asked the question.

Tyson met Donovan’s gaze. Slowly, he shook his head. “I never had any reason to doubt her fidelity. We saved enough for a decent home, back when you could get one for a quarter of a million dollars, and we worked hard to pay off the mortgage.” He sipped. “We were also trying to have kids.” He winced. “Well, but not really hard. I mean, we’d stopped using birth control, but neither of us panicked when she didn’t get pregnant. She was…philosophical. If she got pregnant, then it was meant to be. If she never did, that was okay. Neither of us had a driving need to be a parent.”

I offered a sheepish grin. “My sister was the opposite.”

Tyson glanced over at me.

“But that’s not relevant.” I waved for him to continue.

He sighed. “I get it. Some people will do anything to have a baby, and some…I guess I just figured it wasn’t mean to be. Then my dad got sick. Lung cancer.”

I winced.

“And they diagnosed stage three. So he had hope. I mean, he really wanted to live. Dying terrified him.” He glanced up anddirectly at me. “It doesn’t scare me. I figure if it’s my time, then that’s just how life was meant for me, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” In dealing with victims of trauma, I faced two common reactions. Those who questioned everything.Why me? What did I do wrong? Why was I spared when a coworker died, or why was I injured when others were okay?

The other reaction was more of what I termed fatalists. That the universe had a plan for them and nothing they did or said would’ve changed the outcome. Whether they were spared or injured—that was the way God, or just nature, intended for things to happen.

I fluctuated between the two camps—never quite settling on one or the other.

“And my dad needed help.” Tyson’s hand shook as he rotated his mug another ninety degrees. “I asked him to move in. And he did. He wasn’t rich, but he had some savings. He insisted on paying his fair share, and he rented out his condo to bring in a bit more money.” He sighed. “Cancer is expensive. I mean, we have universal healthcare, but it doesn’t cover everything. And we spent plenty of money trying all kinds of things to make him better. Not quack cures,” he added quickly. “Just things that might help.”

“When did he die?”

“About two months after Tammy got fed up and left. She offered me an ultimatum—my dad or her. Without a moment’s hesitation, I chose my dad. I knew, by that point, that he was dying. That his death was imminent. The cancer had spread, and his doctors wanted to put him into palliative care. I wouldn’t hear of it. I arranged to sell his condo, then I took a leave of absence from work and…nursed him…until the end. And as bad as you can imagine…yeah…well…”

I gripped his hand.

“Part of me worried Tammy’d come back, but she didn’t. The day my dad died, she served me with divorce papers. We sold the house, and I took my share and moved to the condo in New West. I buried my dad and went back to work. As if nothing’d happened.”

That was pretty awful, but he continued, “I returned to find a new man in our division.” He glanced up at Donovan. “A Black man.”

While Donovan remained impassive, I stiffened.

“I’m not going to go into details…because it’s not my story to tell…but I didn’t intervene when I should have. And things worked out in the end. I guess. But I’m still really angry at myself. But I was mired in grief, drinking heavily, and…I just didn’t do the right thing. Neither did I do the wrong thing. I just…didn’t do anything.”

“Have you made amends?” I pitched my voice low.

He shot a glance over at me.

“Did you apologize to the man?”

He shook his head.