The Green Plastic Deck Chair - Val's Story, Chap 18

The lights in the yard woke me up first. I looked at the clock – 11:53 pm.

          I was rolling out of bed when I heard the Ring doorbell. When we installed the new doorbells months before, Jim had picked the sound of a choo-choo train. He thought it was so cute, and I didn’t care at the time. 

          I looked out the bedroom window and saw two county sheriff’s cars in our driveway, their lights flashing. My stomach immediately tied itself in a knot.

          I grabbed my bathrobe and headed to the living room, closing the door behind me so the dog wouldn’t get out. Jim had just gotten out of his recliner, where he usually slept because of his ongoing shoulder pain. I remember so many details, but I don’t remember what we said to each other. I’m pretty sure we didn’t say anything.

          One of us unlocked the front door, and I was the first one out.

          Two officers stood there, one from each car: a man and a woman.

          “Ma’am, I’m Officer Somebody-or-other,” the man introduced himself, or maybe he didn’t. I didn’t want or need the formalities.

          “Are you Christine Kincaid?” he asked.

          “Yes.”

          “Your daughter is Valerie Confer?”

          I knew this had to be about Val, my problem child, but I answered with a meek “yes” again.

          “Why don’t you have a seat?” He pointed to the deck chair that was against the house under the picture window.

          We’d never had a chair there before. But since early summer, when my brother’s dementia forced us to put him in assisted living, we’d been cleaning at his place. When we got home from working at his nasty, smelly house, I’d leave the bag of cleaning supplies on that chair outside, tucking my work boots under it. When Nick decided he wanted to buy his uncle’s house, I let him worry about cleaning. I put away the bag and my boots, but the chair remained.

          I obeyed the officer and sat in that green plastic chair, Jim standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder.

          “I am so sorry to inform you that your daughter passed away earlier this evening.” I do remember those exact words.

          The next day, still in shock, Jim and I had a conversation about that chair, wondering why it had been there and where the officer would have directed me if there hadn’t been anything to sit on. Did they teach them to always try to get the mom to sit down before giving her the worst news of her life?

I made Hubby move that deck chair away from the front of the house a few days later. I only got around to spray painting it blue a few weeks ago. 
Oh, but I made him change the doorbell ring tune that first afternoon. Every time someone came to the front door, and I heard the choo-choo train, I had a trauma attack.