One afternoon, Robert drove Michael back through Maple Hollow.
They stopped at Hazel’s.
Lana had retired.
Her daughter ran it.
The sign remained:
QUESTIONS ARE FREE. COFFEE IS $2.25.
Except inflation had forced someone to cross out $2.25 and write $3.75.
Michael stared.
“Crime.”
Robert laughed.
They took a booth.
A deputy entered fifteen minutes later.
Young woman.
Maybe twenty-six.
She ordered lunch.
Nobody became quiet.
Michael noticed.
That was new.
He looked around.
People continued talking.
No sudden caution.
No heads turning.
The deputy waited like everyone else.
When her order came, she paid and left.
Robert asked:
“What?”
Michael nodded toward the door.
“Nothing.”
“Dad.”
Michael smiled.
“Exactly.”
Nothing.
No fear.
No performance.
No story.
That was progress.
Robert sipped coffee.
Then grimaced.
“This is awful.”
“Told you.”
They sat.
After a while, Robert asked:
“Do you remember the slap?”
Michael looked at him.
“What kind of question is that?”
“I mean physically.”
Michael touched his cheek unconsciously.
“Sometimes.”
“Dream about it?”
“Not anymore.”
“What do you remember most?”
Michael thought.
The boot near his hand?
The mug?
Erica’s face?
Robert’s voice on the phone?
The cameras?
Voss?
Ruth’s box?
No.
He looked toward the counter.
“The silence.”
Robert waited.
“When she hit me.”
“Nobody moved.”
“That’s what I remember.”
Robert nodded slowly.
Michael continued.
“At first I thought they were cowards.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
“Some were scared.”
“Some had learned what happened when people got involved.”
“Some probably didn’t know what to do.”
He looked toward the ceiling camera.
“The problem wasn't that nobody was brave in the first second.”
“The problem was they’d been taught bravery would cost them.”
Robert set down his mug.
“And now?”
Michael looked around.
“Now I think they’d stand up.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
He smiled.
“But I think someone would.”
That was enough hope for an old man.
Later that evening, Robert drove him out toward Ruth’s land.
Sunset spread orange across the fields.
Michael lowered the window.
Cottonwoods moved beside the creek.
The boundary markers were correct now.
Exactly where they had been before someone decided they could steal land with paperwork.
Robert parked.
They walked slowly toward the edge.
Michael used a cane now.
He hated the cane.
Needed it.