“No outrage?”
“I’m saving it.”
“For what?”
“The evidence.”
That evening I got home after seven.
Maya came running from the kitchen.
She stopped when she saw me.
“Daddy.”
“Hey.”
Her eyes dropped toward my uniform.
Then toward my knee.
“You were on the news.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
My mother, who had picked Maya up for the day, appeared behind her.
She gave me a look I had known since childhood.
It meant explanation required.
Immediately.
Maya walked closer.
“That policeman made you kneel.”
“Yes.”
“Did you do something bad?”
“No.”
“Did he?”
I looked at my mother.
She did not rescue me.
Fair.
I crouched so Maya and I were at the same height.
“He made some decisions that people are going to review.”
“That means yes.”
I almost smiled.
“You sound like Grandma.”
“Grandma said he was a fool.”
My mother spoke from the kitchen.
“I said no such thing.”
Maya turned.
“You did.”
Mother sighed.
“I may have used a related word.”
I looked back at Maya.
“He thought my uniform wasn’t real.”
“But it is.”
“Yes.”
“And you showed him?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t he believe you?”
That was harder.
“Sometimes people decide what they think happened before they finish checking.”
“Was it because you’re Black?”
The directness of children is terrifying.
I sat on the bottom stair.
“I don’t know.”
“He said ‘you people.’”
So she had watched more than I wanted.
“Yes.”
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know exactly what he meant.”
Maya frowned.
“That sounds bad.”
“It does.”
“Are you going to fire him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the person he mistreated.”
She looked confused.
“That’s why you should fire him.”
I smiled.
“That’s why I shouldn’t decide.”
She thought.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will someday.”
I took the watch box from inside my jacket.
“Also, I failed my most important mission.”
Her eyes widened.
“You forgot the battery?”
“I was interrupted.”
She took the box.
Then suddenly hugged me.
Her arms went around my neck.
“Were you scared?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
She pulled back.
“But you’re the commissioner.”
“I can still be scared.”
“But all those police work for you.”
“Not all of them.”
“That one didn’t.”
“Correct.”