Chapter 9 Following His Fathers Footsteps
Following His Father's Footsteps
The first time Tan Lee David pinned a police badge over his heart, his hands shook.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
But Terrence noticed.
Of course he did.
Terrence David had spent most of his adult life noticing the things other people missed.
A frightened glance.
A trembling hand.
A lie hidden beneath confidence.
The nervous shifting of someone's weight before trouble started.
And the emotions his children tried desperately to conceal when they believed they were grown enough not to need their father anymore.
Tan stood in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom, dressed in the dark blue uniform he'd spent the night before ironing twice even though Eva had assured him the first time had been perfectly fine.
His hair was freshly cut. His shoes had been polished until the morning sunlight reflected from them.
The jade pendant he'd worn since childhood rested beneath his undershirt, hidden from sight but touching the center of his chest.
The badge wasn't permanent yet.
Today was his graduation from the police academy.
Technically, he still had several hours before he'd be sworn in.
That hadn't stopped him from staring at himself for nearly ten minutes.
Twenty-two years old.
Police academy graduate.
Son of Officer Terrence David.
Tan slowly exhaled.
"You keep looking at yourself like that, you're gonna miss your own graduation."
Tan turned.
Terrence leaned against the bedroom doorway in a dark suit, his silver tie perfectly knotted. There was considerably more gray in his beard than there had been when Tan first announced that he wanted to become a police officer.
Tan liked reminding him that the gray had nothing to do with him.
Terrence enjoyed reminding Tan that lying was unbecoming of an officer.
"You knock?" Tan asked.
"My house."
"My room."
"Room inside my house."
"I pay rent."
Terrence raised an eyebrow.
"You give your mama a hundred dollars a month that she secretly puts into a savings account because she refuses to spend your money."
Tan stared at him.
"She does what?"
Terrence's expression changed.
"I've said too much."
"Dad."
"Forget you heard that."
"She has been saving my rent?"
Terrence started backing into the hallway.
"You need to focus on graduation."
Tan laughed.
"I'm telling Mama you told me."
"Then I'll tell her you still got that parking ticket you said you handled."
Tan's smile disappeared.
"That's extortion."
"I'm a veteran police officer. I know the law."
"You're also a snitch."
Terrence grinned.
"There he is."
Tan looked back toward the mirror.
The humor faded.
Terrence entered the room.
"Nervous?"
"No."
"Try again."
Tan adjusted his collar.
"A little."
"Good."
Tan looked at him.
"Good?"
"Means you understand what you're about to take on."
Terrence walked behind him and looked at their reflection.
Father and son.
Different skin.
Different features.
Different blood.
There had been a time when strangers' questions about those differences bothered Tan.
Now he hardly noticed them.
When he looked into the mirror, he didn't see an Asian man standing beside a Black man and wondered how they belonged together.
He saw his father.
Nothing more complicated than that.
Terrence reached up and straightened the collar Tan had already straightened three times.
"I remember the first time I put this uniform on."
"Were dinosaurs still around?"
Terrence stared at him through the mirror.
"You really wanna start your graduation day getting hit?"
Tan laughed.
"What were you thinking?"
Terrence's expression softened.
"That I wanted to change the world."
Tan smiled slightly.
"That sounds like you."
"I was young."
"So you don't think that anymore?"
"I think differently."
Terrence placed both hands on Tan's shoulders.
"You aren't going to change the whole world wearing that badge."
Tan listened.
"But you might change somebody's world."
The words landed immediately.
Terrence continued.
"You're going to meet people on the worst days of their lives. Somebody's gonna call you because their husband is beating them. Somebody's child will be missing. Somebody's son will be lying in the street. Somebody's going to be scared of you before you ever open your mouth."
Tan's expression became serious.
"You can't save everyone."
"I know."
"You say that now."
Terrence turned him around.
"Knowing it up here isn't the same as learning it in here."
He touched Tan's chest.
"Some calls will follow you home."
"Some faces won't leave."
"Some nights you'll wonder whether you made the right decision."
"And one day, somebody might hate you just because of this."
Terrence tapped the temporary badge.
Tan nodded.
"Then somebody else will expect you to give them special treatment because of it."
Another nod.
"You do neither."
"I won't."
Terrence studied him.
"You treat the man sleeping beneath the freeway with the same dignity you'd give the mayor."
"I know."
"You don't lie in a report to protect another officer."
"I know."
"You don't confuse fear with respect."
"I know."
"And if you ever start believing that badge makes you better than the people you're serving—"
"You'll personally come down to the station and slap me."
Terrence paused.
"I was going to say I'll remind you who you are."
"Same thing."
A smile tugged at Terrence's mouth.
Then Tan asked the question he'd been carrying all morning.
"What if I'm not good at it?"
Terrence stared at him.
Tan looked away.
"I know I finished near the top of the academy. I know all that."
"But?"
"But you're you."
Terrence frowned.
"Meaning?"
"Everybody knows you."
"People respect you."
"Guys on the street respect you."
"Other cops respect you."
"Kids in the neighborhood still come asking you for advice."
Tan laughed softly.
"Half the people I grew up with call you before they call an actual lawyer."
"They should stop doing that."
"Nobody's stopping."
Terrence smiled.
Tan continued.
"I don't wanna embarrass you."
The words caught Terrence off guard.
"Son."
"I mean it."
"I know what your name means in this department."
"No."
Tan looked at him.
"You know what you think it means."
Terrence stepped closer.
"My name isn't something you have to carry."
"But—"
"No."
His voice remained gentle.
"You don't have to become me."
"That's not why I'm proud of you."
Tan lowered his eyes.
"I'm proud because you decided what kind of man you wanted to be and did the work."
"You fell on your face plenty doing it."
Tan laughed.
"Thanks."
"You did."
"So did I."
Terrence squeezed his shoulder.
"You don't honor me by copying my career."
"You honor me by being a good man when nobody is watching."
Tan swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat.
"You're trying to make me cry before I take pictures."
"I'm trying to teach you something."
"My eyes get red."
"That's your problem."
Tan laughed and pulled his father into a hug.
Terrence embraced him tightly.
"I'm proud of you, son."
Tan closed his eyes.
"I love you, Dad."
"Love you too."
From downstairs, Eva's voice thundered through the house.
"IF Y'ALL MAKE US LATE, I'M LEAVING BOTH OF YOU!"
Terrence released Tan.
"That's my cue."
Tan grinned.
"She's not leaving."
"No."
Terrence headed toward the door.
"But after almost thirty years of marriage, I've learned not to test certain threats."
The David household had never understood the concept of a small celebration.
Tan realized that the moment he walked downstairs.
"Seriously?"
The living room looked as though someone had combined a police academy graduation with a family reunion.
Blue and silver balloons floated near the ceiling. A banner stretched across the wall reading:
CONGRATULATIONS OFFICER TAN LEE DAVID!
Beneath it stood a table covered with photographs.
Five-year-old Tan holding a dirty Panda.
Seven-year-old Tan on adoption day.
Ten-year-old Tan with a missing front tooth.
Thirteen-year-old Tan wearing his basketball uniform.
Eighteen-year-old Tan beside Terrence at the intersection where they'd first met.
And finally, his official academy portrait.
Gloria stood beside the table adjusting one of the frames.
Tan looked at Eva.
"You did this?"
Eva wore a teal dress and the expression of a woman who had zero remorse.
"Your grandmother helped."
Gloria turned.
"Don't blame me. Your mama had half this house decorated before six this morning."
Eva shrugged.
"My baby is graduating."
"Mama, I'm twenty-two."
"And?"
Tan smiled.
"Nothing."
Gloria opened her arms.
"Come here."
Tan hugged her.
She squeezed him so tightly his uniform wrinkled.
"Grandma."
"I remember when you were this big."
She held her hand near her hip.
"You came through that door holding that ugly little panda."
"Panda wasn't ugly."
"Baby, that thing looked like it had served in two wars."
Tan laughed.
"Where is he, anyway?"
"In my closet."
Gloria pulled back.
"You still got him?"
"Of course."
Her eyes immediately watered.
"Oh my goodness."
Tan saw it coming.
"No."
"My baby—"
"Grandma, please don't cry."
"I'm not crying."
"You are."
"These are praise tears."
Harold entered from the kitchen wearing a navy suit.
"She's been having praise tears since five-thirty."
Gloria pointed at him.
"You better leave me alone."
Harold smiled and pulled Tan into a firm hug.
"Look at you."
Tan smiled.
"You clean up pretty good too, old man."
Harold leaned back.
"Police academy didn't teach respect?"
"Apparently not."
Harold laughed.
Then Travis appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Everybody ready?"
Tan looked up.
His older brother descended wearing a tailored charcoal suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie. At twenty-three, Travis David looked every inch the future attorney he was rapidly becoming.
He had completed college early and recently begun law school, where according to Eva, he argued with professors almost as much as he studied.
Travis claimed that was called "legal analysis."
Terrence called it "being hardheaded professionally."
Tan shook his head.
"Look at you."
Travis adjusted his cuffs.
"Try not to hate."
"You've been waiting all morning for somebody to compliment that suit."
"Obviously."