Blueberries as promised. Damon called while Andre was in the produce section, and he answered on speaker so Maya could say hi, which she did enthusiastically and at length, covering Saturn's rings again in full detail for her uncle's benefit. Damon, who had the patience of a saint when it came to his niece, asked three follow-up questions about the rings and whether they would be visible from Atlanta. And by the time they hung up, Andre's chest felt lighter than it had in months. That night, after dinner, after the dishes, after Maya's bath and her reading time, and the specific negotiation about whether 9 minutes of reading or 10 minutes was more appropriate before lights out, they settled on 10.
Andre sat in the chair beside her bed the way he did every night and waited while she arranged her stuffed elephant to her satisfaction. "Daddy," she said. Yeah, the person whose job was to protect your building. She said he was bad. Andre was still for a moment.
He hadn't told her much, just that there had been a problem at work involving someone who hadn't been honest and that it was being taken care of. Children's antennas were precise instruments. Where did you hear that? He said, "Uncle Damon said something to the lady at the grocery when you were getting the blueberries." She said, "Without a trace of guilt."
He said, "You caught the bad guy." Andre made a mental note to have a word with Damon. Something like that, he said. Did it scare you? Maya asked.
He looked at her. 8 years old and asking the exact right question a little. He said this morning was hard, but you were brave. I tried to be. He said, "I thought about you.
That helped. She considered this with the seriousness she brought to important things. Mom used to say that you were the kind of person who noticed things." Maya said. Andre went completely still.
She said that when I was little. I don't remember it. Remember it. It's more like Maya pressed her hand against her chest in a gesture that was so adult. So precisely the gesture Diane used to make when she was trying to describe an intuition rather than a fact that Andre's throat closed.
Like I know she said it, but I feel it more than I remember it. Does that make sense? Yeah, bug. He said very quietly. Makes sense.
She said you were the kind of person who fixed things before they broke. Mas said and that most people didn't understand how hard that was because they only noticed when things were already broken. He sat with those words. Diane had said that he could hear it in her voice could place it. Even on a Sunday morning, him coming back inside from checking on a noise the boiler had been making and her at the kitchen table with her coffee watching him and saying it with that particular tone she had, part teasing, part genuinely moved.