He noticed the jar on top of the refrigerator marked house. He noticed the delivery manifest tucked under the edge of the microwave. He read the first three addresses. Collier Ridge Estates.
He looked at Opal. Mama, Micah delivers newspapers in Collier Ridge. Three mornings a week. Has been since last July.
He's responsible about it. Wendell picked up the manifest. He read every address. He recognized the subdivision.
He had reviewed census data, income demographics, and complaint patterns for that zip code 18 months ago as part of a file he could not discuss at this table. Has anyone bothered him? Opal set the plate of eggs in front of him. She sat down across the table.
She folded her hands the way she folded them when she was about to say something she had been carrying alone for too long. He doesn't tell me everything, Wendell. He thinks I don't know that. But I wash his shirts.
I see the grass stains. I see when he comes home and doesn't talk. He's 12. 12-year-old boys who don't talk are either hiding something or carrying something.
Sometimes both. Wendell ate the eggs. He did not ask more. He did not need to.
The training that had made him effective in his work, the ability to read a room, read a silence, read the space between what a person says and what a person means, was the same training that told him right now that his mother was afraid and had been afraid for months and had not called him because she, like Micah, had decided that his work was more important than her worry. He washed his plate. He kissed Opal on the forehead. He went to the living room, sat on the couch, and fell asleep in his clothes.
He had been awake for 31 hours. Micah came home from school at 3:41 p.m. and found his uncle asleep on the couch. He stood in the doorway of the living room for a long time. The carry-on bag was on the floor.