Page 61 of Oddly Fine

“Why don’t you sit down?” Hayes suggested softly. He saw the fight in Beckett’s eyes, that automatic urge to resist and do the exact opposite. But Hayes didn’t press him to comply. He just waited until the fight had drained out of him and he sat back down. For a moment, it looked like he might resume his argument with Maggie. His jaw clenched, and just as Hayes readied himself to intercede, Beckett’s face was suddenly wiped clean of expression and he straightened his shoulders.

“Maybe you’re right, Mags. Maybe I just don’t want to shoulder the guilt—I don’t know. I don’t—” he stopped to take a deep breath. “Truth is, I don’t know what I’m feeling. The only thing I know for sure is that there’s no harm in making sure the cops check it out, right? Just in case—”

Maggie pulled away from her husband, and studied Beckett’s expression carefully before giving him a brief nod.

“Who was the last person to speak with him?” Hayes asked.

Ma Thérault hesitantly raised her hand. “He called me when he came back from vacation a few weeks ago. Said he’d be by for Sunday dinner, but then he texted me that he wouldn’t be able to make it,” she said, her voice trembling slightly.

“I’m sorry to ask this, but did Franklin sound—different?” Hayes asked gently.

She shook her head and wrapped her cardigan tighter around herself. “He sounded perfectly normal.” Her husband rested his hand on her shoulder in a silent show of support.

“Then we stick with that story,” Jackson said out of the blue. “Right?” Jackson asked, turning to Beckett.

“Right,” Beckett agreed, though he didn’t sound nearly as resolute as he had a few minutes before. He reached for Hayes’ hand and gave it a squeeze as he took a deep breath to center himself.

Hayes wanted to wrap the man up and take him away. He wanted to remove all the pain and the guilt from Beckett’s shoulders. He ached from the intensity of feeling so helpless, but he knew there was little he could do. He was intimately familiar with grief, and it had to be faced head on. Otherwise, it would eventually destroy everything that was worth living for.

“The main thing is that we remember we’re family, and family sticks together. No matter how difficult these times might be—we have each other,” John said, giving his children a fatherly look of warning.

Hayes waited patiently for Beckett’s family to respond, knowing that message couldn’t have just gone over their heads and—

“Jesus, Dad, what do you think this is? The Godfather?” Beckett whined, in a tone not unlike that of a disgruntled teenager.

“Please all rise for Archbishop Thérault,” Jackson mocked, putting his hands around his mouth to form a megaphone.

“We are all the children of the Lord,” Maggie intoned in a deep, dramatic voice.

Hayes tried to hide his smile behind his hand. Even Ma Thérault began to chuckle.

“Did I mock any of you assholes?” John asked, looking insulted.

“That’s two dollars in the swear jar!” Maggie said, pointing towards her father, smiling mischievously.

“In this family, we swear, goddammit!” Beckett exclaimed authoritatively, mimicking their father.

“That’s enough—” John grumbled as he started to move around the kitchen, his usual limp more apparent now. He seemed annoyed, but if Hayes had to guess, he’d have put money on the fact that John had done it on purpose to lighten the mood. “Cops are gonna be here, any minute. We should clean up around here before—”

“John Jeremiah Thérault, are you lecturing me about cleaning up?” Cynthia demanded in outrage. Immediately, all the siblings and partners jumped to their feet, picking things up from the table and busying themselves with the breakfast cleanup. Hayes placed a hand on Beckett’s forearm to still his movements.

“That was rather clever of him,” Hayes said, nodding towards John.

Beckett’s familiar grin eased Hayes’ tension. “In this family, we laugh at the shit we probably shouldn’t laugh at.”

“Yeah—I noticed.” Hayes smiled, relieved that everyone’s mood was beginning to shift back to normal. But he also knew that it wouldn’t last. The cops would be here soon, and grief would return with a vengeance. But if there were occasional moments of peace and laughter amidst the hurricane of hurt, they might just get through this relatively unscathed.

“What can I tell you—” Beckett said, shrugging, then, fanning his hands out, as if miming a rainbow. “Our new motto might be live, laugh, toaster bath,” he suggested with a playful smirk before spinning around and shouting at his mother to toss him a dish towel so he could help dry the dishes.

The cops showed up just as the latest pot of coffee finished percolating. The family’s Golden Labrador barked once to announce their arrival before dropping her head back down on her nice, cushiony bed in front of the fireplace, promptly going back to sleep. John greeted them at the door, hand extended to offer firm handshakes to both officers. He led them into the living room where everyone had gathered. Maggie and Rubio were sharing the couch. He had an arm around her shoulders again, and was gazing at her lovingly as she played with the frayed hem of her jeans. She still looked—rattled. Hayes didn’t blame her. He mostly felt for her. Jackson was sitting on the loveseat with Katerina who looked far more put together than any of them. She was another member of Beckett’s family who Hayes didn’t know well, and she appeared to be rather stoic. Hayes could certainly relate to that personality trait.

“You’ve gathered the entire family, then,” the first officer observed, his tone neither judgmental nor confrontational.

“My youngest flew home this morning,” John confirmed, gesturing towards Beckett.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” the second officer said. She was much younger than her partner, perhaps in her 30s. “My name is Officer Carrier. My partner, Officer Lowery, and I have been assigned Franklin’s case.”

She had a heavy French accent, not like the one they’d heard while on vacation in France, but far more rounded—distinctly French-Canadian in origin. “We’re sorry we couldn’t give you more information last night.” She looked directly at Ma Thérault somewhat challengingly, as if they’d had words about that. “But my partner and I needed to confirm some things with the M.E. before we concluded anything.”