"Hey," Kyle said, not looking at him. "That old man. Tran. He say anything to you? Like about anything?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Like, he's down there every morning. Guys like that see stuff." He scrubbed hard at a pot that was already clean. "I just figure if he saw something he'd have said it, right? Since you were right there."
Wade took the pot from him and dried it. "He told me to check the color."
"Yeah." Kyle laughed again. "Yeah, I heard."
When they were gone, Wade's mother stood in the doorway of the living room with her arms folded, looking not at him but at the wall beside the television, where a dozen family photographs hung in mismatched frames. Wade had walked past them ten thousand times. His parents' wedding. His own graduation from the academy. His grandparents, Earl and Delia, in front of the old trawler that bore his grandmother's name, the photograph faded so that the sky had gone the color of skim milk and the faces had gone vague and hopeful.
"Mama?"
"Hm."
"What's the matter?"
She looked at him for a long moment, the way she had looked at him in the kitchen before supper, as if she were standing at the edge of a cold creek trying to decide whether to go in.
"Nothing," she said. "It's late. You've got an early morning. Go apologize to that man."
"I did apologize."
"Did you?" said his mother, and went upstairs.
* * *