Ransom

Once in a while, he and Rick still got to work on a case together, and Ted always liked that. They had remained close friends in the fourteen years since Rick had left the SFPD, and they still had a lot of respect for each other. Rick Holmquist had gotten divorced five years before, but Ted's marriage to Shirley had never been in question. Whatever they had become, or their relationship had evolved into over the years, it worked for them. Rick was currently in love with a young FBI agent, and talking about getting remarried. Ted loved to tease him about it. Rick loved to pretend he was tough, but Ted knew what a sweet guy he was.

What Ted loved best about working swing shift, and always had, was the island of peace he found when he got home. The house was quiet, Shirley was asleep. She worked days, and left for work before he got up in the morning. In the old days, when the boys were young, it had worked for them. She dropped them off at school on her way to work, while Ted was still asleep. And he picked them up, and coached them in sports on his days off, whenever he could, or at least attended their games. When he was working, Shirley got home right after he left for work, so the boys were always covered. And when he got home everyone was asleep. It meant he didn't see a lot of the kids, or her, while they were growing up, but it brought in the bacon, and they had almost never needed to pay for a sitter, and never had to worry about day care. Between them, they had covered all their bases. It had taken a toll on them, in the time they hadn't spent together. There had been a time, ten and fifteen years before, when she had bitterly resented the fact that she never saw him. They had argued a lot about it, and eventually made their peace with his hours. They had both tried working days for a while, but they seemed to argue more, and he'd worked nights for a while, and then went back to swing shifts. It suited him.

When Ted came home that night, Shirley was sound asleep, and the house was quiet. The boys' rooms were empty now. He had bought a small house in the Sunset District years before, and on his days off, he loved to walk on the beach and watch the fog roll in. It always made him feel human again, and peaceful, after a tough case, or a bad week, or something that had upset him. There were a lot of politics in the department, which sometimes stressed him, but generally, he was an easygoing, good-natured person. Which was probably why he still got along with Shirley. She was the hothead in the family, the one who got angry and raged at him, the one who had thought their marriage and relationship should have been more than it turned out to be. Ted was strong, quiet, and steady, and somewhere along the way, she had decided that was enough, and stopped trying to get more out of him. But he also knew that when she stopped arguing with him, and complaining to him, some of the life had gone out of their marriage. They had given up something, passion for familiarity and acceptance. But as Ted knew, everything in life was a trade-off, and he had no complaints. She was a good woman, they had great kids, their house was comfortable, he loved his job, and the men he worked with were good people. You couldn't ask for more than that, or at least he didn't, which was what had always annoyed her. He was content to settle for what life offered him, without demanding more.

Shirley wanted a lot more than what Ted demanded of life. In fact, he demanded nothing. He was content with life as it was, and always had been. All his energies had gone into his work, and their boys. Twenty-eight years. It was a long time for passion to survive, and it hadn't for them. There was no question in his mind, he loved her. And he assumed Shirley loved him. She was not demonstrative, and rarely said so. But he accepted her the way she was, the way he accepted all things, the good with the bad, the disappointing with the comforting. He liked the security of coming home to her every night, even if she was sound asleep. They hadn't had a conversation in months, maybe even years, but he knew that if something bad happened, she'd be there for him, as he would be for her. That was good enough for him. The kind of fire and excitement Rick Holmquist was experiencing with his new girlfriend was not for him. Ted didn't need excitement in his life. He wanted just what he had. A job he loved, a woman he knew well, three kids he was crazy about, and peace.