Heaven, INC: Chapter 48: BEFORE CARMELLA BECAME A SINGLE MOTHER OF ONE

Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven
where the love of our Lost Ones shines down upon us
to let us know they are happy.
— ESKIMO PROVERB

A STREET,
GOLDEN HILL
12:42 P.M. PDT

CARMELLA HUNG UP THE CELL. “So I guess the vic’s husband went nuts when the doctor gave him the news she died in surgery. Tore the waiting room up pretty good, even smashed a plate-glass window with his hand— according to Mendez, glass nearly severed it and now he’s in surgery and will be lucky if he regains usage.”

Elmond said, “One day you go to bed, married and fully functioning. Next day, you wake up widowed and short a hand. What a world.”

What a world indeed. And, crazy as it seemed, breaking a window and nearly cutting off your hand, when Ted was shot, Carmella could have seen putting her hand through a window. Anything to drown out that pain, that heartache so intense she couldn’t breathe, seeing Ted laid out on the bank’s cold, marble floor.

The thing of it is, it’s the suddenness that gets you, the abrupt and total change.


CARMELLA MET TED on a blind double-date, and her first impression of him was that of a typical cop asshole, and something she vowed never to be, and so when Sherry broke it off after a few dates to see a pilot from Southwest Airlines, Carmella figured good riddance. Then what happens, but Ted showing up at Perry’s Coffee Shop, down on Pacific Highway, where she’d waitressed nights while studying for a Criminal Justice degree at State. Initially, first dozen nights he showed up, Carmella was content filling Ted’s coffee cup, but soon found herself growing steadily more interested. Ted's stories of homicide cases were, frankly, fascinating, and his passion for his work transformed him to Carmella, as the patina of Ted’s asshole-ness fell away, replaced by a tenderness Carmella discovered hidden under a lot of tough cop bravado.

They were married in an outdoor ceremony on the beach, nothing fancy but very special. Tony’s band played the reception, Jimmy Francisco on guitar. It seemed like such a long time ago.

Oh, and it certainly wasn’t a typical marriage, of course, nothing conventional. Sure, they bought a house in suburbs— in this case, a four-bedroom in Tierra Santa— and had a kid— Kevin, born in the spring of their third year together.

Ten years passed so fast . . . In the blink of an eye, they're gone.

Yes, the marriage was never conventional, because how can it be, two cops married, one homicide, one vice? But damn, was that marriage overbrimming with love, the kind of thing, you see two people around each other, so happy, you think to yourself, "I want some of that."

And it was a testament to their marriage, to the faith within it, that Carmella worked vice for four years, with occasional sting operations where she played prostitutes— easily the worst thing in Carmella’s life, but she wasn’t gonna look weak doing a job; the only saving grace was when Jimmy Francisco had been forced to play a male prostitute at a plastics convention, something we’ll save for another time. Point of the matter is, while Carmella kept it together and did her job, Ted held it together on the homefront, even when assholes like Jerry DiGraggario would bring it up when Carmella wasn’t around, the digs and the sly innuendos, amid the bullshit cop talk.

Ted would laugh at them, saying, “They’re just bitter because you’re mine, Carm. But mostly, they’re jealous that you’re the best shot in the department.”

Winding down through the hills overlooking San Diego’s harbor, Carmella was struck by the irony of it all.

Prior to meeting Ted, Carmella had never shot a gun in her life. Herm, her father, had been an ex-combat medic in Vietnam. His intimate experience with gunshot wounds and graphic description of their horrors had instilled a profound aversion in Carmella to guns, something she worried about leading up to academy. Luckily, their first date, believe it or not, was a trip to the local shooting range. Carmella remembered being nervous that day, but trusting in Ted as he handed her first a pistol and then a rifle and she rattled off at targets shaped like Islamastani terrorist . . .

Look, it’s not like Carmella hit every target with every bullet the first day . . . but she came close.

Somehow, someway, shooting just made sense in Carmella’s head and within six months, she was competing in tournaments in places like Fontana, Carson City and Reno. The woman was good, and it wasn’t long until everyone in the department knows it. You get male cop egos involved, the inherent male power in a police department, they had to put up with a lot. Most commonly, comments about ‘who wears the gun in the family’ and what not. Carmella, being Carmella, had of course brought it up on occasion, most notably a certain police picnic that ended up with Jerry DiGraggario getting a face full of bean-dip and Ted falling over the keg in laughter.

Yeah, Carmella missed Ted something fierce and it made her think about the Sorensons. About a woman, dying alone in a meadow, and a husband clenched in grief.

God, sometimes . . . What a world.