At forty-four, Malcolm had spent much of his adult life learning how to keep his face still when rooms grew hostile. He had done it during trials, during confirmation meetings, during uncomfortable conversations with people who thought a Black lawyer's place at a table required an explanation. Yet that morning he was smiling so often that his younger brother kept turning to look at him, suspicious of the change.
"You realize you look ridiculous in that shirt, right?" Elijah asked, tugging at the blue button-down Malcolm had worn beneath a lightweight jacket. "You're about to walk into the federal courthouse looking like somebody's substitute history teacher."
"A substitute history teacher with better grades than you ever had."
"Grades don't win football games."
"Neither does that play you called in the fourth quarter last Friday."
Elijah turned in his seat and stared. "Mom told you about that?"
"Mom tells me everything. Particularly the things you tell her not to tell me."
Elijah laughed, and Malcolm joined him until he had to loosen his grip on the steering wheel and wipe at one eye. That laugh surprised him. For nearly six months his days had been swallowed by background checks, disclosures, interviews, questions about cases from fifteen years earlier, and the anxious waiting that followed a presidential nomination.
Three days before, the Senate had confirmed him as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He was about to lead a federal prosecutor's office responsible for matters ranging from public corruption and civil rights cases to terrorism, financial crime, and large investigations crossing state lines. The appointment had not made him the most powerful person in Virginia, as enthusiastic relatives sometimes suggested, but it had placed enormous responsibility in his hands, and he knew how quickly a careless decision could damage people who had no way to defend themselves.
He had no intention of acting like a celebrity. The photographs taken during the announcement were stiff and unflattering, and the brief television coverage had shown him from the side while a reporter discussed several other confirmations. Apart from people in the legal profession and a few relatives who had replayed the segment until he threatened to change the family password, few strangers would recognize him.
That suited Malcolm perfectly. He had borrowed an ordinary rental car rather than using an official vehicle for this last drive from his mother's place, and he had left the new suit hanging in a garment bag in the trunk. His briefcase carried onboarding documents, a draft speech, his notebook, and ordinary professional materials he intended to review before the afternoon's scheduled meetings. He was not trying to conceal who he was. He simply wanted a morning in which his title did not enter the room before he did.
Elijah, thirty-eight, had driven north from North Carolina the previous evening. He coached football and taught physical education at a public high school outside Durham, where some of his players needed far more than lessons about blocking assignments. He was broad through the shoulders and chest, with the lingering posture of a man who had once played linebacker and the quick smile of someone determined not to let the difficult parts of his job swallow the good ones.