Here comes the rain (Buddie) - English

Chapter 5 : The Golden Age

In the call center offices of 911, a tray of muffins cools on the break room table, alongside a plate of banana pancakes and a steaming Thermos of black coffee. Located in the West Adam neighborhood, just steps away from Little Tokyo and its charming Chinatown, no one would object to a small party being held in the middle of the day in honor of one of the senior members of the center. It's nothing too extravagant, just a simple snack with the on-duty employees, supervisors, and anyone off-duty who made the trip to thank Mary Miller. Orange juice, tea, and sweet drinks are provided for the team of twenty operators working today, while champagne, punch, and a few cocktails are set aside for those who came to greet the day shift team before returning to their quiet day.

Mary Miller is fifty-nine years old. It's not so old to retire, but Mary always said that the day she earned more than she ever spent buying her house with her husband, she would leave. She often talked about the day she would sell the house where she had lived for thirty-five years, where she got married and conceived her five children. Jenny, the eldest, the prodigy daughter who never gave her grandchildren, Hector, the second, who only sends messages when the connection in Finland allows it, Ashton, the rebel, who married first and had twins a year after his nineteenth birthday, Jake, the handyman, who ruins his lungs with cigar smoke and alcohol from his club nights, and Alison, who occupies a two-meter by fifty-centimeter oak box between two flower beds in Shermood.

When Alison died, Mary was already working at 911, and it was the loss of her last daughter, her protege, that motivated her to travel with her husband. They both said they would refurbish their old caravan and hit the roads of the United States when money allowed, to finally discover the country where she and her husband Donald had always lived but never ventured beyond California, New Mexico and Washington. 

Josh, like Sue or Linda for that matter, had extolled the virtues of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Florida as if the choice of their trip's first destination could win them a bet. Maddie, on the other hand, hadn't really tried to defend Pennsylvania. Over there, a whole bunch of nightmares linger, and although it's impossible, because Doug has been dead and buried for a long time, she feels that sending them there would imply putting them in danger. She knows how stupid that sound, but she can't help it. She just hoped that these memories would fade away forever. 

Most of the center's employees actively participated in the small party, taking turns to offer each other 5 minutes of exchanging memories and anecdotes with others. Sandy's desk, the new intern, is empty, and she is nowhere to be seen in the break room or the open space. Like Marciella and Timothy, she didn't come this morning, taking the opportunity to have an extra day off to visit her parents in Oregon. She was only 19 years old, and apart from the few exchanges she had with Sue for her internship follow-up and the questions she asked her instructor, Sandy didn't talk much. She was a reserved kid who reminded Maddie of May Grant, although she was a bit more sociable than Sandy.

Gloria, the former receptionist, could have joined the small party too, if only she hadn't cut off all contact with her colleague the day she was fired from 911 for hanging up on several victims. A man whose name escaped Maddie had been shot in his restaurant and had almost lost his life that day. When Sergeant Athena Grant and Maddie Buckley (it was Kendall at the time, but as soon as her husband died, she rushed to the city hall to update her papers) found the cook, and he asked them how they could find him when 911 had hung up before he could even give the address, Maddie understood that something was wrong. She didn't need to investigate for long, and despite the guilt gnawing at her for reporting a colleague, a friend, she was forced to realize that it wasn't the first time Gloria had interrupted victims' calls for help.

Gwyneth Duke had been her first victim. Falling on an ice patch during the icy season of 2022, Gwyneth had broken her coccyx bone in two places, immobilizing her on the frozen ground with her shopping bags scattered in the supermarket parking lot. She had ordered SIRI to call for help, and Gwyneth had virtually met Gloria, whose icy coldness from Los Angeles had given her a stuffy nose. When Gwyneth asked for an ambulance to be sent to the Target parking lot, Gloria had first asked why she couldn't get up on her own. Gloria hadn't had much education, but she knew what a coccyx bone was, and although she had always been told to use proper language on the phone, she couldn't help but make a joke.