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'Hi, Lucy,' she greeted with a smile that, like the Cheshire Cat, would be the last thing that time would take away from her. 'Is he..?' She made a little pause, giving Lucy the occasion for corresponding her smile much more expressionless and nodding in the direction of the Sheriff's office.
'Thanks.' Without losing her smile but not really waiting for an answer, Norma walked to the door. Lucy waited a couple of seconds to make a bigger smile, turning it into a nasty bitter gesture while repeating to herself 'Hi, Lucy... hi, Lucy.' Hawk, standing on a corner with his arms crossed, was looking at the scene with almost no expression or motion. Lucy felt him watching as a kind of explanation she murmured to herself 'Tart.' Hawk stood still, making her feel uncomfortable, like he was again judging him with his stare, but she knew he wasn't going to do or say anything, which suited her fine.
Norma knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer. Truman was standing with his back turned to her, looking through the window's blinds at the exterior. As soon as he heard her he turned and directed a shy smile at her.
'Breakfast,' announced Norma while leaving the coffee and the bag on the table.
'Hi, Norma, how are you?'
'Same as yesterday,' Norma smiled again. 'And same as tomorrow,' they both said in unison, completing a phrase they knew perfectly. 'May I?,' she added, looking at one of the wooden chairs in front of his desk.
'Always.' They both seated. Harry grabbed his coffee. 'You haven't brought one for you today?'
Norma shrugged in resignation. 'I live surrounded by coffee, Harry,' said while he opened the bag and grabbed the pastry inside. 'I see you've got Lucy cheerier than usual today.' 'I wish I found some way to help her. She's gone through much.'
'Through much... and a long time ago. I don't think anybody could do much about it now. And who hasn't gone through much around here a long time ago?'
'I guess,' Harry nodded.
'But that doesn't stop the clock, right?'
'Not the clock, only the calendar.' Harry was looking at the pastry in his hand like was readying for taking a bite, or maybe trying to refrain from putting the whole thing in his mouth. 'Thanks, Norma.'
'Will you be coming today?,' she asked timidly.
'Maybe.' He shrugged, looking her in the eye with his ever clean and sincere expression. 'I've got something to do today, I don't know in which mood I'll end up.'
Norma's face turned serious for a moment. She extended her hand reaching for Harry's, taking it back again when not finding it. 'You know you don't have me only for the good times.' She made a pause, unsure if 'good times' was the right expression.
'I know,' Harry said, 'and you know I'm grateful for that.' Norma was getting up already and she was turning to go out when suddenly, in an impulsive gesture, she firmly grabbed Harry by the arm in which he held the pastry - just a brief second was enough to notice that physical contact still made him nervous. Without taking her eyes off him, she took a little bite at the pastry, but letting him go almost immediately, he was already red in the face, almost paralyzed.
'Well... bye now,' said she while backing up and opening the door. Just before she was out, Harry, the pastry still in his hand, reacted suddenly.
'Norma,' he said, briefly gesturing for her to come closer. She did, and he began to extend a finger to her lips, but seemed to lose all his newfound courage along the way. Norma looked deceived. He quickly took his hand to a drawer in his desk, opening it and producing a paper towel. 'You have a sugar moustache,' said with a smile, offering it to her. Norma nodded, took it and cleaned her lips before exiting, finding Hawk waiting by the door.
'Norma,' he greeted, to which she made a brief acknowledging gesture before disappearing. As soon as the two were alone, Hawk closed the door and looked at Harry with his deep stare.
'Are you making me a radiography?,' Harry asked him with his innocent smile.
'Today's the day, right, Sheriff? I only wanted to tell you that it's all under control around here.'
'Thanks, Hawk.'
'It's silent out there,' he added after a brief pause, looking outside the office but obviously referring to the inside.
'I thought you liked that.'
'I too, but only when it wasn't silent.'
'Norma told me Lucy is still more uncommunicative than usual.'
A smile almost crossed Hawk's face. 'She's just said a word. The first time I've heard her say something in years.'
'Oh yeah? Well, it seems I've missed all the action around here in months. What did she say?'
'You don't want to know.'
Harry mocked a deceived expression. 'Right.'
'Everyone of us has a different way of mourning their losses.'
'And a vow of silence is a way, right? Hawk, I think we must be the only precinct in the world to have a silent telephonist.'
* * * * * *
When he stepped out of the building the first thing he saw was two little kids playing on the stairs. One of them was lighting a match in the concrete and saying to the other 'Do you want to play with fire?' Harry instinctively took the match away from him and threw it on the floor, extinguishing it with his foot.
'Never do that. Never,' he said with a more admonishing tone than he would have wanted, as he immediately felt by the children's stares. Feeling sorry for his outburst, he was only capable of saying 'Just don't do that, OK?' in a more calm way while he went to his cruiser, without looking back, without expecting an answer. It made no sense to ask himself about the reason for that overreaction, even if he didn't understand yet why that kind of things kept occasionally happening to him after all those years.
* * * * * *
Harry tried not to think about anything important while driving, as there'd be time enough for that in a while, though he couldn't avoid remembering the brief conversation about Lucy -she was the perfect example of how things could always get worse. Many people had understood how Andy could have left her after she lost her son while pregnant, but Harry felt he could never forgive him wherever he might be now. 'He's like a child -when children get scared they run and hide,' Doc told him once, showing an ability for compassion that he could never share. Anyway, compared to Lucy, Harry knew he was relatively lucky: if he wanted to, he could have healed his scar at any time, as Norma had taken care of reminding him that very same morning. Still, somehow that was small consolation, and the feeling that he wasn't being fair to Norma didn't help.
On arriving at Glastonbury Grove he stopped the cruiser and stepped down, coffee thermos in hand, ready like that same day each year to spend as much time as it took, even the whole day, sitting on the same log where so many years ago the one towards he first felt admiration and then became his best friend went missing to emerge many hours later as someone who was the same on the outside but completely different on the inside, and who anyway went missing again very few days later, this time forever and leaving no trace. He even soon retired protection to Annie, who had seemed in immediate danger at first. So, what was fear about something ethereal enough turned into something even darker, sinister, unknown. But time took away that also and the forest turned again into something labeled dangerous but in which actually never happened anything -except for small-time drug deals, for which soon enough appeared substitutes for the Hanks and Renault brothers and Leo (another one who went away suddenly leaving no trace, but in that case it at least served for Bobby and Shelly to settle down, and now he was a respectable salesman and she was almost ready, now how many months had passed?, to give birth). Even the owls seemed owls again and their sounds didn't startle anybody. The Bookhouse Boys still existed if only nominally, and James was never seen again in Twin Peaks.
But all his thoughts kept going back to Coop, the man who came carrying a whole new world Harry would never have asked for, but which he somehow missed now, even if he was always telling himself that in a few weeks he'd had more action than what he wished for the rest of his life -sometimes he smiled thinking that it was like missing a tornado that has blown your home away. All that, of course, apart from feeling that someplace there was this man who once was his best friend and who surely needed -or had needed- help, help that he was -or had been- incapable of providing. And the fact that he had never received any further info on the part of the FBI made him suspect that even if something had happened he would never have known, even if the occasional call from Albert the first months after the whole thing, while not giving away any hard data, made him think that they were also in a blank.
Harry took a sip from his thermos, and when he looked to the front again he suddenly found a boy standing there. Not only hadn't he heard any sound, but the boy was dressed strangely formal under his red hair that almost seemed like flames on the wind. The boy had his eyes fixed on him, but his stare didn't seem menacing even if it wasn't for sure the kind you'd expect from one so young.
'I'm starry eyed,' said he in so neutral a voice that it didn't seem human at all.
There was a brief pause, with Harry confused and incapable of saying a word.
'I've got the stars in my eyes,' the boy added, without expecting for an answer. 'If my grandma comes tell her I'm not here.'
Harry closed his eyes, confused. As unexpected as the boy's appearance, now there was an old lady beside him, thin and tall, as inexpressive as him, only showing a little trace of confusion on her face; she obviously wasn't seeing the boy she had so close to her.
'Have you seen my nephew?,' she asked looking at Harry to whom she saw clearly even if he was further away than the boy. 'He studies magic', added as some sort of an explanation. The boy had taken his index finger to his mouth, signaling Harry not to answer, something to which Harry felt he had to obbey for no aparent reason. In the same fashion as they both came, she was gone. In a second Harry noticed that, even if he had been looking all the time in their direction, he never saw the exact moment in which she had gone away, like she was there one moment and not the next, without any transition.
'Thank you,' said the boy, and something in his tone made it clear that Harry's silence hadn't been his own choice. 'I'm going to take something from you. But I'm going to give you something in return.' The kid raised an arm and made a solemn snap of his fingers that echoed like thunder inside Harry's mind even if it had made no sound. Immediately, the same way as the old lady, he disappeared leaving no trace, not even a sign on the ground that he'd ever been there.
Harry closed his eyes again, feeling very confused. He directed a lost stare in every direction, but nothing helped. Very quickly his doubts gave way to a new one -what the hell was he doing there?
* * * * * *
Not remembering exactly what had he done that day seemed to Harry less and less important by the minute; when he got home that night he wasn't even thinking about it at all. He had kept all the way staring at the sky, feeling as if there was something very slightly different in there that he couldn't put his finger on. But he felt especially happy for no particular reason, 'one of those days when life directs at you so charming a smile that you can't help but returning it,' he thought while in his mind he gave thanks for all he had, especially for the one who all these years had turned a life that could have been too monotonous into something much better. After undressing he got in bed and softly kissed his wife Josie, peacefully sleeping at his side, making her half awake and directing him a tender smile just to fall asleep again. Harry had everything he ever wanted, he had never really asked of life for nothing much.
