Working from home sucks Pt. 2

I realized that I had stopped in mid sentence once I looked back there at the blog. I had mentioned that I had called one of those disaster repair companies in to completely clean the house. First I had to get the o.k. from the cops because they still considered it a crime scene, which it was. And I couldn't stay there; I couldn't imagine the sight of walking by the blood stained carpet in the living room every morning before I went to work. The stain would be a constant reminder that Anna and Kate wouldn't be there any more. But it would also be all that's left of their physical presence left in my life.

I'd probably lose my mind by having imaginary conversations with the blood stain:

"Hey, honey, did we get confirmation on that cruise to Barbados yet?"

Silence.

"O.k., good. Anna, I really hope that you're really going to work hard to bring your science grade up this semester. We'll support you in anything you want to do, but there will be a lot of jobs out there in a few years for chemical engineers."

Stone silence.

"I know, I know. Music is your thing, you've got a beautiful voice. What? We gave you private voice lessons so that you could develop your voice, and audition for musicals and other stuff."

Silence.

Mom didn't want that stuff, I thought you wanted it."

Silence again.

"You're right. Maybe I should listen to you more often."

Just like talking with Wilson, the bloody volleyball.

So, the cops finally gave me clearance to gut the living room after about a month or two. I was staying in a hotel, avoiding the press, talking only to family and work occasionally while waiting for the CSI guys to suck the room for evidence. For all the magic the guys work on TV, these guys in Oakland County really didn't tell me much that I couldn't have figured out from the crime scene or my family's twisted bodies in the morgue.

"Mr. Grey, from what we can tell, the intruder broke into the home around 2 a.m. using the back door. It was just pulled aside and the lock broken."

Note to self: buy better lock when getting insurance to fix back door.

"After the intruder entered the house, that's when your dogs were alerted and barked. The older one, Shadow, is that correct?" I nodded. "Yes, Shadow attacked the intruder. We found the dog in the back yard with its neck broken and we can reasonably conclude that occurred before your family was killed. The younger dog, Izzy, apparently continued to bark. Your next door neighbors awoke and noticed the terrified tone of its bark, at least that's what they said."

"Yeah, Jim and Nancy own two dogs themselves," I said, "they'd recognize a frightened dog when they heard one. We had foxes in our yards last summer."

"Back to the events that night: forensics determined that your wife was the first to be killed. We can guess that she was awakened by the sound of the dogs and came downstairs. She must have had a baseball bat with her because we found one on the floor with her prints on the handle and a big palm print on the hitting end. My guess is that she took a big swing and he stopped it with his hand."

"Is it possible to break somebody's hand like that?"

"Oh sure, but after the damage that was done to your family, I doubt the intruder did it one-handed. Judging by the damage to your wife's throat, the intruder is right handed, and we believe the murder weapon to be some kind of garden claw."

"Why a garden claw?" I ask. I remember the thought in my mind at that time was, why a garden claw? Did this guy have something against gardeners? Did one of them kill his parents with hedge trimmers while he hid under the bed when he was kid?

"Because there are three relatively parallel slashes across her neck consistent with a tool like this." He shows me a standard photo of a garden claw, one you could buy at any hardware store. It would be hard to track one single purchase down.

"So where did all of her blood go?" I asked.

"Frankly, Mr. Grey, we don't know. Some of the blood ended up on her night gown, some of it ended up on the floor, and DNA tests are still preliminary, but we believe that they're a match for your wife's blood."

"Who else's blood would it be?" I remember asking this dumb question.

"Well, the intruder's, for one. Your wife did come downstairs with a baseball bat and got at least one swing off. Who knows how many more? My guess is from the lack of splatter blood patterns on furniture and carpets, except for your wife's death blow, I would guess she didn't make hard enough contact to break the skin."

At this point, I was listening to this jerk-off talking about my family in all of his clinically detached terms, anything to keep himself from reacting emotionally to this awful murder. I've already had my emotional moments at home in private, but I didn't know if I could hold it together when he talked about Anna.

"Could you just give me a summary of Anna's death? I don't need the gruesome details like you did with Kate's death."

"Sure, Mr. Grey. I'm so sorry. Sometimes, families want to know every detail about the crime, and sometimes, they don't. You struck me as one who did. I should have asked first."

"It's o.k. Can we get this over with?" I could feel tears well in my eyes, but not just tears, rage. Boiling fucking rage against the animal who did this.

"In short, your daughter came to the defense of your wife and was knocked against the stair bannister. After the intruder killed your wife, he then went and killed your daughter. And then your younger dog."

This was when the detective stepped in, Detective Abernathy.

"Mr. Grey, right now, we're working on all possible leads. This has been a frustrating case with all of the press, and kooks now calling in false leads. However, we're keeping certain information from the press to quell an even greater panic. What I tell you cannot leave this room, you understand?"

The metro Detroit area has been in a panic mode because this appears to be now the 5th and 6th murders where the victims have been drained of blood. The Free Press dubbed him or her the Vampire Killer. Real original.

"From what we can tell, this so-called Vampire Killer has not just killed 6 people in the Metro area. He has been killing homeless people in all three counties for the past six months, ever since spring began and they left the shelters. We think that the reason he's stopped killing homeless people and started on your regular everyday person is because the homeless are terrified. They won't stay outside at night. Day time is fine, but the killings occur only at night, and since the homeless have moved inside to shelters, our Vampire Killer has run out of victims."

"How many has he killed so far?" I ask. I'm sure that I don't want to know the answer.

"With your family counted, it's up to 118."

Working from home sucks

So I'm working at home now. I feel better about not having to face the pitying stares and faces at work every single day. The awkward silences, the hugs, the hands on the shoulder. All the constant touching, it just makes me cringe. I hope that they feel my unease when they touch me because it does nothing to help me ease my pain. It just makes it worse, reminds me of gaping hole in my life.

Being at home also reminds me of that still unfilled hole in my life, so I don't know which is worse. When I tried working in the living room / dining room where there was some beautiful sunlight coming in, I couldn't do it. It was as if I could almost smell the blood, even though I had

Went back to work today

It was getting so that I couldn't stand being in the house any more so I had to get out of it. I had to go somewhere, and I felt like shit, looked like shit and smelled like shit. Hadn't showered or shaved in a couple of days. Didn't return anybody's phone calls and the couple of times somebody came knocking, I just ignored it. One time, it sounded like Steve, my conference buddy. I even thought I heard his voice: "Mike! I know you're in there. Let me in. I just want to know you're all right and that you haven't done anything crazy. We're all worried about you, Mike." Bang! Bang! Bang! Much more insistent pounding on the door this time. Then it stopped. I saw a figure going around the side of the house, but since it was day light, I could see exactly who it was. How touching, Steve was coming to check up on me, making sure I hadn't killed myself. For some reason, I'm still not sure why, but tears just burst out of my eyes. I sobbed and sobbed, more than I had at Kate and Anna's funeral. Was the horrible reality of their deaths finally hitting me now some two weeks later?

I didn't let Steve in, but I called him on his cell a couple of hours later to tell him how appreciative that I was that he stopped by, and that everyone would see me in the morning. I also asked him to ask everybody not to make a big deal out of me coming back to work. But then I thought, how do you welcome someone back to work from a tragedy like this? I must have thrown away over a hundred sympathy cards that I received (which in retrospect was stupid b/c some of them might have had money in them), and I doubt there are cards with just the right sentiment inside:

"Sorry that you lost your loved ones, but I'm sure they'll catch the bastard
who did it"

or

"In your time of grief, I hope that thoughts of sweet revenge will console you."

or my favorite

"When the catch the murderer, I hope he gets the death penalty and you're
the one to throw the switch."

What do people say to you when they see you at work? "Hey, Mike, how are you doing?" Do they really want to know? Or are they just making small talk because they're too damn uncomfortable to say something else? Or too stupid to say anything original? Plus, how many times can I answer the same questions over and over again without going insane and wanting to strangle someone or lock myself in a maintenance closet on the 4th floor?

Maybe it's just better to stay in my office at work and stay on the convention circuit so that way I have to interact with as few people who know about the murders as possible. Or, maybe I can ask Christine if I can work from home for a while. I practically do everything from the road anyway, why not from home when I'm not at conventions?

As it turned out, work was about as bad as I had feared. There were awkward glances and stares, sympathetic smiles and nods, and a few brave souls who came by my office who came to offer condolences (again) and ask about any updates on the case. Steve had warned them but apparently not strongly enough. After the second person came by, I shut the blinds and locked the door and put my head on my desk for God knows how long. My phone woke me up.

I'm hesitant to write about this here because any of my family or Kate's family could read this, but right now, I don't care. The phone call was from Christine, my boss and also my lover for the past four months. It didn't start out with any bad intentions, it just happened. Christine and I have been friends for a long time. I recruited her to the company, but she worked her way up on her own. When she became my boss last year, I was thrilled for her but also jealous. During the past year, we had grown closer as we worked together more and more often. I saw her more than just a friend, and she did the same. Our first night together was after the company picnic and softball game. We'd both had a few too many at Marinelli's that night and had a cab take us to the Northfield Hilton where we spent the night together. She was gone before I awoke, and for a moment there, I had thought the whole night was just some fantastically erotic dream. But then I found her note and knew that we had jumped over the line of no return.

"Mike, are you o.k.? Do you need the rest of the day off?"
"I wanted to talk to you about that, Christine. I was hoping, for the mean time, that I could work at home until I get out of this funk."
"That's not a problem, Mike. In fact, I was going to suggest it."
"Good. I appreciate you looking out for me."
"You know I do, Mike. Always."
"Thanks, Christine."
"Give me a call when you're ready to talk, Mike."
I paused. Talk? About what? About the murders of my family? About me seeing the ghost of my daughter? Or about our future together? "You can count on it, hon."

So I packed up all the things I might need, put them in a box, and headed out of the office. Steve walked out with me and asked if I was quitting. I told him no, but that I couldn't work here right now with everyone walking on egg shells around me -it made me want to scream. I wanted my old life back, I wanted everything to go back to normal, my old routines, sleeping in the bed with Kate (even if there was just sex once a month on a Saturday night), going to Anna's soccer games or choir recitals. I wanted that all back. But as I thought about all that was gone, anger burned inside me. I had to find out who had killed my family and why. It just wasn't fair. And that person had to pay.

Anna in the window?

This is the image I saw in the window tonight. It still creeps me out when I look at this.

I took it with my phone. It was the closest thing I could grab, b/c the last time I saw the image, it disappeared when I got up to look out the window.

I know it's Halloween and everything, but this is my backyard. There shouldn't be anybody back there.

And sometimes, when I look out the front window, I see a silhouette by the pine trees. I don't know if the light and shadows are playing tricks, but I first started seeing this shadow last week. Maybe I really am losing my mind.

But this can't be Anna. I don't believe in ghosts, but I don't know what this is.

I saw her again

I really am beginning to wonder if I am losing my mind from grief, or if Kate and Anna's murders have somehow made me come unglued. Maybe I've popped a gasket in my head, and what I'm seeing is something I wish I could see so badly that it is coming true. Or at least making me see a vision that seems real. Am I the only one who can see her?

Friends and family keep calling, leaving voice mail messages since the funeral. Checking up on me to see how I'm doing. "Please call me, Michael," my mother had said on the VM. She's 82 years old and she's worried about me. I'm the one who should be worried about her. She's in a condo all alone with that yappy little dog Kate insisted on getting her so she wouldn't feel lonely moving into a smaller place. Everytime I see that little rodent, I want to kick it across the room. Maybe then it will finally shut up.

Seems that work goes on without me. My boss called and said that they've gotten everything under control with the Johnson case, that I can come back to work when I'm ready. There's no rush, he said. Of course there's no rush to get me back. The new golden boy Anthony will run with my case that I'd built and win. I put the work into building the Johnson defense, finding the expert witnesses, collecting testimonies and lining all the ducks up in a row. Hell, I don't know how many long hours and endless days I've put into this firm hoping to make partner by the time I was 40. Then by 45. What's next? Wait until I'm 50? By then, it won't make a difference. I still can't believe that Kate and Anna are gone, and our dreams of an early retirement have vanished.

I'm too old to start over. Who's gonna want an overweight, balding workaholic who never had enough time for his family?

My dreams

I have to write this down. No one would believe me if I didn't, and I'm not sure I'd believe it myself after what I saw last night.

I thought I saw Anna last night standing in the backyard, but she couldn't be there. She's dead.

Maybe it was the vodka. Maybe I'm having a nightmare. If it was one, I couldn't wake up from it no matter how hard I tried.

I dreamt that I saw Anna outside my living room window last night. She looked in the window at me, her face seemed so sad, I don't even have the words to describe it. I'm so terrible at this.

She looked in and saw me. I smiled at her, because in my dream, she seemed so alive, so there in the darkness. She looked like an angel to me. And then her face lit up like it used to when she was younger, back before high school. Back before the fighting started.

I remember being happy at that moment - seeing her smile back at me. For one second, Anna was alive and standing in the back yard and smiling again. I felt like she was back with me and that we could sit and talk about boys and school and her girlfriend drama like we used to. Oh God, why did you take her from me?

I wanted to get up off the couch and let her in. She had to be cold out there, she was wearing her favorite dress - the pink and white sundress that made her look an angel. My angel. But I couldn't get up. I couldn't move, and I wanted to let her in, but I think the only thing that moved was my hand. I reached out to her, but I couldn't get up. And then she was gone, as if she was never there.

After I awoke, it was daylight. I had a killer headache, because I can't seem to stop drinking. Drinking to forget. Drinking to forget the crime scene pictures. Drinking to forget that Anna and Kate are gone. Drinking to forget that I am all alone now. How cruel that dream was. Can I drink to stop the dreams?

I should stop this. It's torture. And I need to figure out what to do next.