Yes, I recognize that everyone grieves differently. I am pretty happy that Tim is not in prison for attempted murder. I just want to tell it like it felt at the time, so here goes:
Another bone of contention between Tim and I following the accident was our reaction to how the police handled the investigation. To say they did a piss poor job would be generous. We posted flyers. We looked for witnesses. I thought about turning in a time slip to the city to see if I could get paid, since I felt like I was doing someone’s job.
The police department was lax in contacting us to answer our questions, or give us any information on how the investigation was going. I could hardly believe it at the time. But looking back, I can see they didn’t call because they had nothing to report…they hadn’t been doing a damn thing.
I asked Tim to call often. I wanted to make sure this was not dropped. After a single conversation with the man in charge of the conversation, I decided it best for my mental health- already in major compromise at the moment- to never speak to this man again. He was rude, harsh, and disengaged. I also feared hearing the horrific details of the accident once again. I hadn’t even been told the extent of her injuries until after she had been buried, so I was still processing what I had let happen, and couldn’t take much more.
Tim avoided calling. He wanted to let it lie. He felt the police would do what was necessary, and there was no point in riding them. I felt very differently, and was upset that he didn’t feel the same passion for justice about this that I did.
I kept thinking about past conversations with Cory. She needed and deserved Mark Wahlberg in the Lovely Bones. She would want Tim to be mad as hell, unable to cope, ready to go hunt that woman down, and bash her brains in with a crowbar in the middle of her yard, among the potted flowers and garden gnomes. She would want him to demand justice from the lazy cops who don’t seem to care unless the body on the road is one of their own. She would want blame to be laid. She had a lot of living left to do, and it was taken from her. She would want the man she considered her father to make someone pay. If it took violence to assuage her death, so be it. Wasn’t her death a violent one? Tit for tat.
But not this quiet surrender, not this gentle acceptance that makes it look like she didn’t matter. Not the stoic “Nothing will bring her back” bullshit. She meant more than that. Her life was worth more. The lady needs to pay. The cops need to pay. I need to pay. We should all suffer for the parts we played.
Maybe we watched one too many action movies, but Cory asked me both after watching The Lovely Bones and Taken, if I thought Tim would do that for her. I told her of course he would, negating the fact that I’ve never seen Tim throw a punch in my life, and he tends to drive like an old lady. Cory needed to know she mattered to a man, and especially to a father figure. She needed to know that if she were kidnapped in a foreign country, and sold into sex slavery, that a man other than her 78 year old grandfather would come looking for her.
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