Can you do that? And then after a pause, her voice shifted very slightly. I know you're scared. That's the right response to this situation. But you did not do anything wrong by calling me today.
What you did was the bravest thing you've done in 11 years. She ended the call. A long quiet settled in the truck. Then she said, "He's coming in Monday." Marcus nodded. That's two people.
She said in one day he didn't answer. He was thinking about something else. About the moment in the briefing room 6 months ago when 40 people had watched Richard Callaway point at him and say, "You're done. About the 40 faces that hadn't known where to look about the ones that had looked almost pained." He wondered now how many of those 40 people had known something, had seen something, had signed something, or been asked to look away from something, had stayed quiet because they couldn't see a way out. He wondered how many of them were watching the news tonight.
He got home at 4:30. Zoe's school bus dropped her at 5. He had exactly 30 minutes, and he used them to change out of his suit, wash his face, and stand in his kitchen with his hands braced on the counter. Breathing, he thought about all the things that were now in motion that he could not stop or slow or control. The investigation, the civil case, the settlement conversation Patricia would have with Callaway's attorneys next week.
Hutchkins, the other Hutchkins who might or might not call, the news cycle that was already running his name, his quote, his photograph from the press room. He thought about all of it, and he let himself feel the size of it, which was enormous. And then he put it in the part of his mind where he put things that were enormous and ongoing and required sustained attention but could not be resolved in a single evening. He had done this his whole life. It was how she flew in the dark, one instrument at a time.
The school bus stopped outside. He heard Zoe's footsteps on the porch. The door banged open the way it always did with more force than strictly necessary. The specific exuberance of a 9-year-old who had been sitting still all day. She came into the kitchen and stopped.
She looked at him standing there in his regular clothes. No s no briefcase, just her father in the kitchen in the late afternoon light. Daddy, she said, "I saw you on the TV at school." He turned around. What? Miss Patterson had the news on during lunch because she was showing us something about geography and your face came on.
Zoe's eyes were wide and completely serious. You were wearing your gray suit and you were talking into microphones. Marcus felt something catch in his chest. And Miz Patterson said that's a very brave man. And I said Zoe paused with the particular dramatic instinct of a 9-year-old who understood the moment.
I said, "That's my dad." He crossed the kitchen in three steps and pulled her into a hug. And she let him, wrapping her arms around his neck the way she had when she was very small. And he held her there for a long moment. "Are you okay?" she asked into his shoulder. "Yes," he said.
"Is it going to be okay?" He thought about flight 1,047, about Earl Hutchkins in a parking lot for 4 hours. About Patricia's phone ringing twice during the press statement about 43 memos and the echo of them finally finally reaching the right ears. Yes, he said. It is. She pulled back and looked at him with those eyes that saw too much.