Too short a time to know you

your quiet today

As Linda pressed send on the message, she instantly realised that she’d used the wrong “you’re”, she knew that there would be a response ridiculing her grammar again. She put her phone down next to her keyboard and looked back at the computer monitor. As her fingers began dancing over the keys again, her mind wandered back to thoughts of Tim. In these times of plague, not as many people were coming into the office and the regular messages from him had brightened her days and replaced some of the other interactions with her colleagues. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d sent a good morning message, which is nothing unusual, it just made her day go a lot slower.

He had managed to permeate her thoughts a lot over the last month or so in ways she hadn’t expected. They had met at work when Tim, a detective with the local police had come in to talk with all the employees following a series of frauds. Initially, Linda’s boss, Phil had identified Linda as the best person to talk to since she had been in the accounts area long enough to aid the investigation and identify who had access to what systems. Phil hadn’t bothered asking Linda if she would mind doing this, that was his style. Phil was not one of those people you enjoyed working for, his managerial style could be best described as a cross between a bully and all-out tyrant.

When Tim had first come to the office after the auditors noticed money missing there was a morning tea to mark someone’s birthday. One of the “non-bakers” in the office had brought in some Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Living up to the cop stereotype Tim helped himself to one of the deep-fried treats. When he overheard Phil saying, “I don’t like Krispy Kreme doughnuts”, Tim replied, “what type of psychopath doesn’t like Krispy Kreme’s?” So many people in the meal room that heard Tim say that would have thought “how right you are”.

Over the next few weeks, Tim worked with Linda quite closely, very soon two things became apparent:

The first thing was that Phil was the only person who had access to the right accounts to move the money around. This was something the forensic accounts identified in no time. This resulted in Phil not coming to work one day or any days after that.

Although management never put out an email or notified anyone, in a few weeks there was a story in the newspaper about the charges he was facing in court. Beyond the few sycophants that had ingratiated themselves to Phil, no others were sad to see him go.

The second thing that also became apparent was that Linda was really enjoying spending time with Tim. They got on exceptionally well and had so many things in common. His policing stories were funny, confronting, sad, and generally interesting. It helped fuel a desire Linda had held when she was younger to join the police force but had never gotten around to.

More than that, Linda enjoyed that he listened to what she said. One time, she suggested that a particular account was set up different to others, it turned out that was Phil’s undoing. They shared interests in other aspects of their lives, including a mutual love of good whiskies from around the world.

Initially, Tim had followed up on a couple of matters relating to the investigation, with emails or phone calls. As he ran out of reasons to contact her about the investigation, the contact invariably became more social. Both would speak openly about their relationships, Tim was married and had a young son, Linda and her boyfriend had been seeing each other for some time and had been living together for over a year.

Tim had always been respectful, never making lewd suggestions and although he had complimented Linda’s looks, he certainly never took the conversations beyond what would be considered acceptable boundaries.

Linda enjoyed how, despite his chosen career, when Tim was around Linda, he would adopt a shy, awkward persona. He made it clear that he enjoyed Linda’s company as much as she enjoyed spending time with him, but he lacked the bravado or arrogance that sometimes comes with being a cop and would never push things beyond the boundary of what was proper. It was as though he had his persona for the world when he was working and then the frail vulnerable little boy the rest of the time. In fact, he was so shy at times, Linda wondered how he ever managed to ask his wife out in the first place and pondered whether she had made the first move.

After Tim and Linda had connected on social media, they appeared to both relish the chance to investigate the other person. Tim made cracks about Linda’s fashion choices from a decade ago, and Linda called him out for some of the TV shows and bands he followed.

In one night, Linda got about thirty notifications of Tim liking her photos, she had to go back and check which ones to see if he was being sarcastic. Then once they were not tied to talking through work channels, they messaged a lot more. Linda appreciated their witty repartee and found herself smiling as she read his messages.

They had both commented that perhaps they messaged a little bit too much, considering they were both in relationships. They would cut back for a day or two and then launch into day-long message wars dissecting the plot of a movie or Linda peppering Tim with questions about a recent case, to satisfy her interest with the seedy underbelly of the local crime world. Tim sometimes shared gory details, but only after matters had been through court, that didn’t stop Linda pressing for more information anyway.

One day, whilst at the market, Linda bumped into Tim, they started chatting and after a few minutes, Tim’s wife appeared. Linda recognized her immediately from Tim’s social media and always thought how lovely she looked. However, upon being introduced it became apparent that Tim’s wife was not keen to chat with Linda and their conversation soon ended. Shortly afterward, Tim sent a message apologizing for his wife’s abruptness and explained that she felt a little bit threatened by Tim talking to a young attractive woman.

Only once had Tim slipped, and made comment to Linda that he had wondered what it would be like to kiss her. This caught her a bit off guard and she brushed it off with “I couldn’t tell you; I’ve never kissed myself”.

She too teased herself with a fleeting thought of his arms wrapped around her and their lips meeting. It would be a passionate, emotion-filled kiss that would reverberate through her whole body. She then reassured herself that the only thing that would make the kiss that way would be the fact that it was forbidden and threatened too many people’s happiness. She put that fleeting image away and never mentioned it to him.

Linda looked back at her phone, wondering if a message had come through and she had missed it but there was still no response from Tim. There weren’t the three dancing dots indicating that he was typing back, in fact, it showed that her last message was still unread. Inhaling deeply, Linda returned to the request for tender she had been working on, and then her phone began to ring.

It startled her for a second, she looked and saw it was a colleague Margaret calling her.

Answering the phone, Linda said, “Hey Marg”. Her voice was slightly rushed, and she replied “Lindy, what was the name of that Detective that arrested Phil?” For a second Linda thought that maybe people had discovered they had been chatting and the rumor mill was going into overdrive, so Linda answered, “Ummm, Tim… Ummm…” but Margaret cut her off, “Was it Donovan? Tim Donovan?” wanting to continue to play it cool, Linda said “Yeah, that sounds right”, even though she knew it was Timothy Michael Donovan and his date of birth was the 15th of February 1992.

Margaret gasped, and said, “Oh no, he was so nice. Turn on the news, something terrible has happened”. Linda felt the air leave the room, her heart racing and the sense of dread washing over her body “What’s happened Marg?” but she knew what the answer was going to be before she spoke, “He’s been killed, Lindy.”

Linda hung up the phone and went to the meal room, the news channel was already on the TV, it was on mute. The banner on the bottom of the screen read “Detective shot and killed during drug raid”. The footage showed a house on the Southside, there were police cars and ambulances everywhere, their lights flashing. Linda looked at the table for the remote control, but it wasn’t there.

Her anger, sadness, and shock combined, and she shouted, “where is the fucking remote control?” as she spun around, she saw it on the counter near the microwave. She stormed over to it and pressed the mute button. She grabbed the nearest chair and sat facing the television.

What happened next is a blur. Linda remembers TV reporters giving their commentary, discussing that this had been a routine drug warrant that had gone bad. They used Tim’s name as a soundbite, but with each mention Linda found herself getting sadder and angrier. “Detective Donovan had served for 8 years and was highly decorated”, all that Linda could think was how they were talking about someone they didn’t know, that they would never get to know.

The Police Chief gave an interview and was visibly shaken, he talked a lot more personally about Tim and how he left behind a wife and son. Linda thought about all the other people whose lives Tim had touched that were now facing living without him too.

At one point the reporter asked about the suspect who had shot Tim, the Chief replied very matter-of-factly, “He was shot and died at the scene. That is all I will discuss on that.” Linda felt a nanosecond of joy knowing that the man who had robbed the world of Tim had been served some justice too.

Despite her emotions, Linda had physically kept herself together, then Tanya her supervisor came in and asked, “Are you ok?” Linda felt the dam wall burst, tears flowed, she couldn’t talk, her head moved into her hands. As Tanya wrapped her arms around her to comfort her, Linda wondered how she could explain this. This was not a rational reaction, nothing about how she and Tim had been with each other was normal or rational or explainable. “Do you need to go home? Let me get you an Uber?”, Tanya asked. Linda could only nod. After a few more minutes, she collected her bag, went downstairs with Tanya, and she helped Linda into the back seat of the Uber.

Linda saw the driver occasionally glimpse in the rear-view mirror at her crying non-stop in the back seat, there were moments Linda thought he was going to speak, but then he would think better of it. A few blocks from home, Linda started to think about how she would explain being this upset to her boyfriend, Michael. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound like she had been having an affair with Tim and by the time she had arrived at her apartment building she still didn’t have an answer. Linda managed a “thank you” for the Uber driver and then headed up to her apartment. Michael wasn’t home yet, so she went straight to their bedroom, lay on the bed, and wept. Over the next few hours beyond replying to Tanya’s text messages checking on her, Linda just lay there remembering all her conversations with Tim, smiling, and then crying uncontrollably.

When Michael came home, he found Linda still on the bed, still in tears. He asked her what was wrong, with her finally answering that an old friend of hers had died and she wasn’t handling it well. He made her some dinner, but she couldn’t eat, she felt ill, even with Michael there she felt alone.

The next few days were filled with loss. The top story was Tim’s death, photos of his family, photos of police officers crying, tributes flowing from City Hall, and individuals that had also known Tim through his work. Linda thought about going to the funeral but knew that would likely cause more drama and, wouldn’t help her heal. The footage on TV assured Linda she had made the right decision, she would not have coped being there, the cathedral was at capacity and only limited numbers were allowed, Linda would have been turned away, left as a bawling mess on the street.

The day after the funeral, Linda made an appointment with her psychologist; she hadn’t seen her shrink in over eight years. It was an opportunity for her to speak honestly about her feelings for Tim with someone that couldn’t blab about it. It was cathartic to talk about how he had brightened her days at work, in a job that she had not enjoyed for a while. He had given her confidence in herself and inspired her to do more. Her shrink listened intently, and whilst she offered some coping mechanisms Linda knew that this was not a loss she would get over in a hurry.

Over the next few weeks, Linda got better. Occasionally a “ping” from her phone had her thinking it was going to be a message from Tim, the instant of elation would be wiped out by the reality of the situation. She started to unlearn her Pavlovian response to that noise. The sound of sirens would now fill her with a sense of dread, whereas before it was just one instrument playing in the orchestra of the city. She went back to her psychologist a few more times and acknowledged that Tim had connected with her on a level that not many others in recent times had, but it didn’t mean he was the only person that could. The shrink suggested that Linda needed some closure, they discussed ways that she could achieve that.

One Autumn afternoon, as the leaves were at their reddest before they fall to the ground, Linda went to the cemetery. She found Tim’s grave and stood there looking at the headstone, there were others visiting graves nearby, and Linda hadn’t rehearsed what she was going to say. The only words she uttered were “thank you”, as she began to cry, she turned and walked away.

We will never understand why some people can come into our lives for a short period of time, make a life-changing impact and then leave. It is one of the greatest joys and tragedies of this life.