One Year Later

 

I looked in the mirror and was quietly surprised, though not wholly displeased, by the man staring back at me. I used to automatically distrust men in suits, and now I was one. I'm not wholly displeased with that either.

 

"You won't get any more handsome, the longer you stare," Corinne said, bustling in efficiently, wiping paint from her hands.

 

"You don't know that," I replied.

 

"Sure, I do. You know why?"

 

"Because you know everything?"

 

"Because you couldn't possibly be any more handsome than you are." She kissed my cheek.

 

I kissed her back. "I couldn't be any happier than I am, either."

 

"Really?"

 

"Well, maybe if you let me..."

 

"You're not getting a bike."

 

"You get to carry on with your hobby."

 

Corinne leveled a look at me. "That better be a slip of the tongue, because the painting currently drying in our living room was a one-thousand-dollar commission, buddy boy."

 

"It's nice when you can make a hobby pay." Sometimes it was still fun to push Corinne's buttons.

 

"Because this is your day, I'll let you off," Corinne said, heading for the door. "But you watch yourself with the 'H' word."

 

Painting was not a hobby. It was Corinne's profession, and one at which she was doing increasingly well.

 

I took one last look at the mirror. A lot could happen in a year, and there were trade-offs that we made. Trading in the bike for an SUV was one I was pleased to make because of the development that had necessitated it.

 

"Anthony!" I called. "Are you ready to go?"

 

"Tell Daddy you're ready to go," Corinne instructed our son as she held him in her arms. "Tell Daddy you're ready to go."

 

"Daa!" yelled Anthony excitedly.

 

"I'm calling that a win," I said. "He's only one syllable away from Daddy."

 

"I'll get him in the car."

 

The only thing that I could remember Corinne being wrong about (or at least admitting that she was wrong about) since we had been married was the gender of our child. 'I must have been thinking of our next one,' had been Corinne's comment. I'd never been sure what sort of a father I would be. I still wasn't really sure what sort of father I was, but I was enjoying it far more than I had expected. There was a sharp turnaround between a life of fighting, drinking, and going to jail, and a life of early morning feeds and diaper rash, but I think the stresses of my former life were actually a good training for the stresses of fatherhood.

 

Corinne strapped Anthony into his car seat as I started the car. I did miss the bike, and, when our household finances allowed it, I was getting another one, which I would then get rid of before Anthony was old enough to start begging to be allowed to ride it. No son of mine was getting on a motorbike. They were nasty dangerous things, and, pretty soon, you end up in a gang of some sort.

 

"Good luck!" Joseph yelled from the doorway of Fiona's. I was not sure exactly when it had happened, but he seemed to have moved in there. Fiona insisted he was just a live-in bouncer, and that anything there was between her and the man who was twenty-two years her junior was purely sexual, but that excuse was fast wearing thin. I wasn't sure about wedding bells ringing, but it had ‘relationship’ written all over it. Every now and then, Fiona and I would get a drink and wonder at how two confirmed singles like us had ended up like this. We all have to go sometime.

 

# # #

 

Arriving at the stadium, I waved to a few classmates who waved back. It was displacement activity, really, I was starting to feel uncharacteristically nervous.

 

"Do you want to head on in?" Corinne asked. "I've got to go find our seats."

 

"Hello there!" Before I could answer, Brian Dugas strode up, with Risa beside him. He kissed Corinne, ruffled Anthony's hair and saluted me. I returned it as best I could. It was still not a gesture that came naturally to me. I've been told that my salutes always come across as sarcastic. I'm not even sure how that's possible.

 

"How's my little nephew?" Risa.

 

Anthony reached out for his Aunt Risa, for whom he seemed to reserve a special adoration.

 

"Turning into a big strong man," Brian enthused. At first, Brian had shown the natural antipathy of a middle-aged man becoming a Grandpa, but once Anthony was with us, he had taken to the role like a duck to water and was, somewhat ironically I felt, relishing the opportunity to be a bad influence.

 

"I'd better..." I indicated the stadium.

 

"Run inside, son," Brian said. "You don't want to be late."

 

Minutes later, I was standing side-stage with a line of other police academy graduates in front of me (it's nothing like the film, you know). A year-long intensive course, and the patronage of Brian Dugas, had got me to this point that I could hardly believe I had reached.

 

"You all right, Asa?" My friend, Lee, asked.

 

"No, I'm good."

 

"You look nervous."

 

"Aren't you nervous?"

 

"No. Final exams, I was nervous. This is just walking across a stage in front of a few people."

 

"More than a few," I muttered.

 

"Don't like crowds, huh?" asked Lee with a grin.

 

"Or stages," I admitted. "Anything that suggests public performance, basically."

 

"You'll be fine."

 

"People always say that."

 

Lee shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

 

I really wished he hadn't said that. I had quite a good imagination when it came to what the worst that could happen might be. It was strange. I had been through stuff in my life that anybody would have called scary, and, right now, I would have been much happier in any of those situations than I was walking across a stage. I'd had some serious doubts about this career path at various points along the way, but this was the first time that it genuinely scared me.

 

It had been Brian's idea, of course, and I think my first reaction to it was pretty predictable.

 

"Are you high?" I asked.

 

Brian had frowned at me sternly. "I don't get high, son. Real men don't get high. Family is our high."

 

"I don't think I'm cut out to be a cop," I explained. "And I reckon that if you were to take a quick poll of people who know me, then you'd find that to be a popular point of view."

 

"Then you're all wrong," Brian said simply. "I've been in the force all my life, and I know what makes a man a good cop. Bravery - we both know you have that. Loyalty - I might not have liked them much, but you stuck to your War Cry crew like glue and wouldn’t rat them out to the feds. Honesty..."

 

"You can't possibly think I'm honest! I'm an ex con."

 

But Brian had waved off this objection. "There never was a time when you lied to me about Corinne, and God knows you could have. Maybe should have. And you never pretended to be anything you're not. You're straight down the line. The desire to stick up for the little guy - damn it, you've been doing that for years. Maybe I haven't always liked the way you went about it, but you saw folk who needed protecting, and you did the necessary. You took a bunch of criminals and turned them into vigilantes. Who are also criminals, but their heart is in the right place."

 

"Doesn't respect for the law count for something?" I asked.

 

"I reckon you respect the law."

 

"I've spent my adult life breaking it!"

 

Brian nodded. "Have to respect something to break it. You think a karate master doesn't respect that brick he banging his head into? You have to respect it, or you end up with brain damage. Obviously, you would need to stop breaking the law, but I figure you were going to do that anyway."

 

"Well, yeah, but..."

 

Brian held up a hand. "Look, son, I'm not trying to force you to do something you don't want to do, but we both know you have the skills necessary to become a great cop. So, the only question you have to ask is: is serving the community something you want to do? Is it something you want Corinne to see you doing? Is it something you want that kid of yours, when it's born, to see you doing? Everything else is horseshit."

 

And the answer to all those questions was… yes. Of course I wanted Corinne, and the bump that turned out to be Anthony, to be proud of me, but the important thing was that, the more I thought about it, the more I knew it was what I wanted. With War Cry gone, the community had no one to turn to, and I wanted them to able to turn to me. I wanted to be a cop who anyone could come up to on the street, or on whose doorbell anyone could ring. I wanted to be there for the kid whose parents mistreat him, but who is too scared to tell anyone.

 

"Asa Covert."

 

I took a deep breath and marched across the stage to be confirmed as an officer of justice. The crowd clapped. There, in the front row, was Porter Crucero, next to Risa, who was taking a picture. Sitting beside her was Brian, and beside him, my beautiful wife, with my son perched on her knees. Anthony waved at me and Corinne joined in. I probably wasn't supposed to wave back, but what the hell. I might be on the side of law and order now, but I'm still Asa Covert, and life doesn't get any better than this.

 

THE END

 

***

 

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