Chapter 15
CHAPTER
Maria frowned, set down her glass. “You went through the academy, Alex. You rode patrol.”
“For two months before I was moved to major cases. There’s a lot that I don’t know about investigations, and there are times, a lot of times, where I feel like I’m playing catchup.”
“You are playing catchup,” Maria said. “But that’s to be expected. They did not hire you for your years on the street. They hired you because you have unique insight into how bad guys think, a mindset taught to you by bad guys.”
“True.”
“Give them insight, then. Do that tomorrow and the day after that.”
I laughed and saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“At ease, or whatever,” she said. “And one more thing to think about.”
I held up my palms. “Swing away.”
“Use your imagination, but make sure it’s imagination rooted in experience and reality. My mother taught me that was what being creative was—learning a skill well enough that you can use your imagination to improve it.”
“Like she did with her pottery.”
“Like she did with her pottery.”
“Message heard. I will take the facts as I find them, then use my imagination to explore reasons to explain them.”
She threw her arms wide and cackled. “And the student becomes the master!”
I couldn’t help myself. I got up, went over, and kissed her.
“I want more of those,” Maria said.
“Me too. I’m going to take up yoga for my back.”
“I want to be there for that first class.”
“I thought you’d be more supportive.”
“I support anything that promotes more kissing.”
I remembered something my grandmother said after she’d met Maria and repeated it—with an addition of my own. “You really are an old soul… in a wondrous body.”
“Don’t start any of that now,” Maria said, wagging her finger as she got up from the table and cleared my plate. “Or you won’t be able to get up and chase bad guys in the morning.”
I made a mournful face, then said, “Can I at least look in on Damon?”
She looked up at the clock and nodded. “I’ll do the dishes.”
“No, you will not,” I said. “I’ll take a quick peek and be right back.”
Maria smiled. “Then I’m going to put my feet up and watch TV. Volume on low.”
I’d squirted the hinges of the door of my little boy’s room with WD-40, so it opened without a sound. A slat of weak light cut the gloom inside, revealing Damon in his crib along the far wall, his blankets kicked off, as usual.
He lay on his back, right leg over his left, left hand on his forehead, left elbow held high to form a triangle.
How in God’s name Damon found the position comfortable, I didn’t know, but it was one of his favorite positions to “conk out in,” as Maria put it.
I quietly crossed the room, looked down at my son, and, as I’d done every day since the miracle of his birth, gave thanks for the second-greatest gift I’d been given in this life.