He thought, "Not today. Don't make this worse today." So he picked up nothing. He said nothing. He walked toward the door.
And that's when Marcus Bennett, the security officer who had worked the morning shift for 11 years, stepped into the hallway and fell into step beside him. Not roughly, not aggressively, but with a particular kind of silence that meant, "I'm sorry. I don't want to be doing this, but I have to." Andre knew Marcus. They had shared hundreds of early mornings in this building.
The two of them, often the only people, on certain floors while the city was still dark. Marcus had shown Andre photos of his grandchildren. Andre had shown Marcus pictures of Maya at her school play. They were not close friends, but they were the kind of men who had seen each other clearly in the honest light of ordinary mornings, and that counted for something. Marcus didn't speak until they reached the elevator.
Andre, he said quietly. Just the name. Just that I know, Andre said. The elevator descended. The morning had started the way all of Andre's morning started before the sun, before the city before almost everyone else.
His alarm went off at 5:15. He lay in the dark for exactly 30 seconds, which was a habit he developed, not from laziness, but from intention. A small deliberate pause he gave himself before the day took over. 30 seconds of silence. 30 seconds to remember what he was doing all of this for.
Then he got up. He made coffee. He checked the monitor on the baby camera. He still kept in Maya's room. She was 8, not a baby.
She had told him this with great seriousness on her last birthday. But he kept the monitor because he slept better knowing he could see her breathing and she was there curled into herself, her stuffed elephant tucked under one arm. He wrote her a note and left it on the kitchen table next to the cereal. He set out for her. Good morning, Bug.
There's money on the counter for the book fair. I love you more than everything, Dad. He did this every morning. Had done it every morning for 3 years. The notes changed, sometimes longer, sometimes just a few words, but the ending never did.
I love you more than everything. He had started writing it the week after her mother's funeral when Maya had gone 3 days barely speaking and he had put a note under her bedroom door because he didn't know what else to do and she had slid it back with a small drawing of the two of them holding hands. He'd kept that drawing in his wallet ever since. The edges were worn soft now from how many times he'd looked at it. He left the house at 5:50.
The drive to Northbridge Global's headquarters took 20 minutes at that hour. The Atlanta streets not yet swollen with traffic, the city just beginning its slow exhale into the workday. He listened to the same radio program he always listened to, a talk show about history that his wife Diane had gotten him into years ago back when they would drive together on Saturday mornings and argue pleasantly about historical figures and what they should or shouldn't have done differently. He still listened. It still helped.