Solitary - 10. Chapter 10

It took another four days. Friday morning, there was a phone call around ten, and a hour later, Jess Timmons was sitting in one of the small conference rooms with Elena and Don. Her first question on the phone was also, “Do you want to arrest me?” and after they assured her “No,” Elena added, “But we would like to talk.”

Jess Timmons didn’t even ask if they’d come to Montague, which they would have, to give her privacy. Instead, she drove to Waldron.”

“I’m really sorry,” she began when she saw them, though she’d already said that on the phone. Elena and Don led her to the conference room, and Jae and Rob, who were in the main room, smiled supportively as she passed. Though she probably couldn’t have guessed how much they knew.

After they went through what she called, without any sense of proportion, “this disaster,” they again assured her that a lot of it would stop there.

“Kye Cooper is just as worried about being arrested as you are,” Elena offered.

“We’re both a couple of idiots,” Jess Timmons assessed.

“You do things when you’re younger that you don’t think about,” Don counseled, suspecting that Elena – closer to Jess Timmons’ age – couldn’t get away with that.

“I’m not that young,” came the reply. “And I knew how to handle this better. It’s what I do for a living.”

“Is that why you left?” Elena asked gently, and Jess Timmons seemed to grab on that.

“Yes – I needed time to think. And now, I need time to make repairs.”

“Some of that might not be hard,” Don suggested. “The hospice agency thinks very well of you.”

“That’s good to know. Still, there are license and ethics requirements – and annual certificates to renew. It’s not all their decision.”

“You’d be surprised,” Elena went on

“I hope.” Then she said nothing.

After a short pause, Don offered lightly, “You could always go back to cooking. I suspect there’s no licensing there and always a need – almost desperation.”

Jess Timmons seemed to know she was meant to smile but didn’t seem able.

“Or if you can continue your counseling work,” Elena said. “In some form.” She couched his next question very carefully. “Do you even need to continue to cook?”

Jess Timmons looked at them quizzically, as if they were asking more than they seemed. And they were smiling.

“How much do you know?” she finally had to ask, after a silence.

“Enough,” Elena allowed.

“And I’m still not under arrest?”

Don laughed. “You couldn’t possibly be.”

Jess Timmons seemed to think about that and maybe take a while to accept that.

“Who else have you told?” she asked.

“Almost no one,” Elena assured her.

“Mira?”

“No.”

A very long pause.

“Thank you.”

Then another pause.

“Can I go?” she eventually asked.

Elena and Don looked at each other.

“Yes.”

Jess Timmons stood and slowly moved to the door, as if they were joking and would quickly take her to a jail cell. They rose to follow. She almost seemed to turn as she left the small room, as if to question or add something. Then she simply left, and they watched her. In other situations, they might have walked her outside. Instead, Elena told Don, “Now, we’re back to waiting.”

“Do you think she understood?” he wondered.

“I think so. When she asked about Mira.”

Fortunately, what they hoped for didn’t take long. Eliot Felton called late that afternoon.

“I just wanted to tell you,” he began, “without actually telling you anything, that she said, ‘I wanted to do this at ten percent interest, but I barely made five. I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ll make up the rest some time in the future.”

“Are you OK with that?” Elena asked.

“Oh, man, are you kidding? This is a gift. It’s money for my family that I would’ve pissed away years ago – towards something like a new truck I didn’t need. Everything I have is just fine.”

They all laughed at that, though it still took Elena and Don a moment to absorb it all.

“We couldn’t possibly know what you’re talking about,” Don finally responded. And they all laughed again.

“Thanks.”

After that, they quickly reported to Owen and the others. They smiled, grinned, laughed, and Owen pronounced, “You did good.”

“We all did,” Elena finished up. And Owen let her.