Caleb turned back to his desk. He sat with the quiet of the office for a moment. Then he picked up his phone and called Mrs. Patterson. "Is she ready?" He asked.
"She's been ready for 20 minutes," Mrs. Patterson said. She's been asking if you're going to be late. "Tell her I'm leaving right now," he said. He closed the notebook on his desk, a new one, the third since he'd started this process, and put on his jacket, the faded navy one. He still wore it.
People had noticed, and a few people had asked about it, and he had explained without elaboration that it was the jacket he'd worn on his first day, and he saw no reason to retire it. The explanation was both entirely true and entirely incomplete. And he knew it, and he suspected most of the people he gave it to knew it, too. He took the elevator down. Gerald was at his desk.
Heading out, Mr. Thompson. School pickup. Caleb said. Gerald smiled. Tell Maya I said hello.
He had met Maya once when Caleb had brought her to the building on a Saturday morning to pick up some files. She had walked in and immediately looked up at the atrium ceiling and said, "It's like a greenhouse in here, but without the plants." And Gerald had laughed for a long time. "I'll tell her," Caleb said. He walked out through the entrance.
The street was ordinary. Traffic movement, the particular momentum of a city afternoon. The 10 black SUVs were long gone. They had left the same evening. They arrived their purpose complete.
The statement made and understood by everyone who needed to understand it. He walked to his car. He drove to Maya's school. She came out through the double doors in the particular organized chaos of school dismissal, scanning the line of cars with the focus of a child who has learned through years of a parents consistent presence that looking is sufficient, that the person she's looking for will be there. She found him.
She walked to the car with the unhurried certainty of someone who has nowhere else to be. She got in. She put her seat belt on. Hi, Daddy. Hi, baby.