But Olivia was looking at him with eyes that were completely quietly serious. "Some days," he said. "Honestly, some days I think I'm actually doing it. Maya's doing good in school. She's healthy.
She's happy. She's got people around her who love her. Some days I look at her and I think, "Okay, I didn't break her. We're going to make it." He paused. And other days, I'm sitting in my truck at 10:00 at night after a 6-hour delivery shift, and I'm just He pressed his lips together.
"Tired. I'm just tired." Olivia sat down her mug. "How old is Maya now?" she asked. "11. What's she like?" Something happened to Marcus' face that he couldn't have prevented if he tried.
The kind of thing that happens to fathers when someone asks them about their kids. He shook his head. She's something else, man. She's got her mama's mouth will tell you exactly what she thinks with zero apology. And she's got this I don't know where it comes from.
Honestly, this thing where she notices everything. You walk in the door, she knows within 30 seconds what kind of day you had. She'll just come sit next to you. Won't say anything. Just sits there.
He paused. She did that to me last week. I came home. I'd had a rough one. I sat down on the couch and she just came and sat right next to me and put her head on my shoulder.
11 Years old. She just knew. Olivia's expression had gone somewhere else, somewhere soft and careful that she seemed to notice because she glanced down at her mug. "She sounds like her dad," she said quietly. Marcus looked at her.
Someone who notices things, Olivia said, "And shows up anyway. He didn't leave at 5. He didn't leave at 5:30." At a/4 to 6, he looked at his phone and felt the specific sensation of a man who has lost track of time doing something he didn't realize he needed. "I got to go," he said, pushing back from the table. "I've got a shift at 6." Olivia stood.
You're doing deliveries tonight? Yeah. Pick up around the Buckhead corridor usually. Good tips on Saturdays. She walked with him to the door and at the door she stopped and he stopped and there was a moment, just a moment where neither of them said what they were actually thinking.
What Marcus was actually thinking was that he had not felt this whatever this was in longer than he could honestly say. Not relief exactly, not excitement, something quieter, something that felt dangerously like being understood. What he said was, "Thanks for the coffee. Thanks for the diagnosis on my washer," she said. He almost smiled.
"Try the 60-second reset. I will." He went down the three steps. He got in his truck. He started the engine. His phone buzzed.