She turned and walked back across the street. Daniel picked up his box and carried it inside. What Victoria Hail did not know what she could not have known because she had not bothered to ask was that Daniel Carter had spent the last 23 years in law enforcement. He had started as a patrol officer in San Antonio at the age of 25. fresh out of the academy and full of the particular brand of idealism that only lasts about 18 monthins in that job before it either transforms into something quieter and more durable or breaks you completely. His head had transformed.
He had worked his way up through the ranks patrol sergeant at 31, detective at 35, lieutenant at 41. He had worked homicide for 6 years and narcotics for four and spent the last three years as assistant chief in Austin, running the department's community relations division, which was either the most thankless job in law enforcement or the most important one, depending on who you asked. 3 months ago, the city of Oakridge had offered him the position of chief of police. He had taken it for several reasons, not all of them professional. The professional ones were straightforward.
Oakridge was a growing city, 50, 000 people and expanding that had a decent department with good officers who needed better leadership structure and a clear direction. He believed he could provide that. He had a track record. The personal ones were harder to say out loud. His wife Susan had died 6 years ago.
Breast cancer fast and merciless. gone in 14 months from diagnosis to the day Maya, who was three at the time, stood in a church in her best dress and didn't fully understand why her mother wasn't there. Daniel had held his daughter's hand through the entire service and not cried. He had cried later alone in the hospital parking lot at 2: 00 in the morning, sitting in his car for an hour before he trusted himself to drive home. Since then, it had been him and Maya and his mother-in-law. Ruth, who had moved in for two years after the funeral and then moved out when she was certain Daniel had enough footing to stand on.
Ruth still called every Sunday. Maya still called her Grandma Ruth. The three of them were a family of sorts, stretched across distance, held together by love and phone calls and the occasional shared dinner. When Ruth drove down from Dallas, he had wanted to move, had needed to. Honestly, Austin held too many corners that had Susan in them.
The coffee shop where they had their first date, the park where he had proposed, the hospital where Maya was born, and where Susan had died in the same building 11 years apart. He had needed a city with no corners like that. A clean start. Oakridge was a clean start. He had not told anyone in Oakridge who he was yet.
He wasn't officially reporting until Monday morning. He had wanted one day, just one day, to move in like a regular person, to exist in his new neighborhood without the weight of a title attached to his name. That had been the plan. Maya woke up at 7: 15. He heard her padding down the hall.
She had her mother's light footstep, almost soundless on hardwood, and then she appeared in the kitchen doorway in her socks and her rumpled overnight clothes, hair all to one side, eyes still half closed. Are we there? She said. We're there. He said he was standing at the stove, which he had already confirmed was functional, making scrambled eggs and toast because that was the one Maya would eat without negotiation.
She shuffled over and leaned into his side the way she had since she was 4 years old, her head against his ribs, and he put one arm around her and kept cooking with the other. Is it a good house? She asked. Really good house, " he said. Big oak tree in the back.
She was quiet for a moment. Like we talked about. Like we talked about. She nodded against his side. "Okay, " she said like it had been a question and he had given the right answer.
They ate breakfast on the kitchen floor because the table was still in the truck. Maya thought this was wonderful. Daniel thought it was the best meal he'd had in months, which told him something about how the last few months had actually been. After breakfast, Maya went to investigate the backyard and the oak tree, which passed inspection. Daniel went back to unloading.
He was on his second trip of the morning, the big plastic bin with the kitchen stuff awkward to carry when he heard another set of footsteps on the driveway. He turned. It wasn't Victoria this time. It was a man, maybe 65, wearing a Houston Astros cap and carrying two cups of coffee. He had the easy, unhurried walk of someone who had nowhere he needed to be and was fine with that.
Hershel Boon, the man said, holding out one of the coffee cups like it was a handshake. 40 years at this address. I figure that earns me some say in who gets the welcome committee treatment. Daniel sat down the bin and took the coffee. Daniel Carter, I appreciate this.
Good black, Hershel said. Hope that's all right. Perfect, Daniel said. And it was. Hershel looked at the truck then at Daniel.
I saw Victoria come over. You did, Daniel said. She gave you the vehicle standard speech. She did. Hershel shook his head slowly.
The way you shake your head at weather. Not in anger. Exactly. just in recognition. She gave the Nguyen family that speech when they moved in with their minivan. She gave the Robinsons that speech about their basketball hoop.
She gave my grandson that speech last summer when he visited and parked his motorcycle in my driveway for 45 minutes. He drank his coffee. I don't say anything I can prove, but I notice things. Daniel said nothing. He drank his coffee.