Chương 4
Mrs. Han tapped the photograph.
“That’s my niece.”
“Can I scan this?”
“No take.”
“I can photograph it here.”
She looked at her husband.
He nodded.
Daniel laid the photo on the plastic bin lid and took several pictures.
Before leaving, he asked Mr. Han one more question.
“Do you remember when it started getting really bad?”
Mr. Han scratched his cheek.
“After canal work.”
“What canal work?”
“Digging. Machine. Maybe five year? Six?”
“What changed?”
“More dirt after rain.”
Daniel looked toward the canal.
“From the canal onto the sidewalk?”
Mr. Han shook his head impatiently.
“Water come over grass. Dirt stay. Grass grow in dirt. More dirt, more grass.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Mr. Han turned the hose toward a row of orchids.
“And grass grow.”
Daniel drove home with the photograph on his phone and a question that was finally larger than his anger.
That evening Leah came to his apartment because she wanted to see the old picture.
Daniel cleaned before she arrived, which mostly meant transferring an unreasonable number of cables from his kitchen table to his bedroom.
She showed up carrying two iced coffees.
“I didn’t know what you drink.”
“This is fine.”
“You haven’t looked at it.”
Daniel looked at the label.
“Vanilla cold brew.”
“You hate vanilla?”
“No.”
“You made a face.”
“I have a complicated relationship with vanilla.”
Leah stared at him.
“You’re exhausting.”
“It tastes like a candle.”
She laughed, and some of the stiffness between them disappeared.
Daniel opened the photograph on his laptop.
Leah leaned closer.
Her shoulder touched his.
“That’s it.”
“Yeah.”
“No weeds.”
“Not even many cracks.”
She pointed at the two children in the background.
“People actually used it.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
Leah sat back.
Daniel brought up an email from county records.
He had received several documents that afternoon: roadway maps, old maintenance logs, a transfer agreement from years earlier, and a set of scanned planning sheets so low-resolution that half the words looked underwater.
“I don’t understand most of this,” he admitted.
“Good.”
“Why is that good?”
“It means we’re making progress on your personality.”
Daniel rolled his eyes.
Leah took a drink.
“What do you think it says?”
“The road used to be maintained under one district. Then there was some jurisdiction transfer. The road stayed public, but I think the sidewalk got classified wrong.”
“You think?”
“I’m learning to say that.”
“Very mature.”
“Thank you.”
He showed her one maintenance log.
There were complaints going back years.
VEGETATION OBSTRUCTING PEDESTRIAN PATH.
CLOSED — ASSET NOT IN INVENTORY.
PEDESTRIANS WALKING IN ROADWAY.
REFERRED TO ROADS.
Then another:
REFERRED TO DRAINAGE.
Then:
DRAINAGE REPORTS NO BLOCKAGE WITHIN CHANNEL.
Leah leaned toward the screen.
“There.”
Her finger stopped beside a complaint from four years earlier.
Caller name: L. Ramos.
Daniel turned his head.
She was looking at the table.
“You?”
“Yeah.”
“You said you complained. I didn’t know you were in the records.”
“Congratulations. I exist.”
“What happened?”
“You’re looking at it.”
The complaint had been closed eleven days after submission.
No action.
Daniel scrolled.
“You reported that people had to walk in traffic.”
“My mom had already stopped using it.”
“Was this after she got hit?”
“About a year after.”
“Why didn’t you keep pushing?”
Leah’s mouth shifted.
“I did for a while.”
She folded the paper sleeve from her straw into smaller and smaller rectangles.
“I called. They sent me to somebody. That person sent me back to the first office. I submitted another form. Then my mom had surgery. Then work got busy. Then there was always something more urgent.”
Daniel watched her fingers.
She placed the tiny folded paper square on the table.
“It sounds stupid when you say it out loud.”
“No.”
“It does.”
“It sounds normal.”
Leah looked at him.
Daniel turned back to the screen.
“My dad used to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Keep paperwork forever because he thought eventually the right document would fix whatever problem he had.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Warranty claims. Property tax mistakes. Insurance. He once fought with an appliance company for eight months over a washing machine.”
“Did he win?”
“They gave him eighty dollars.”
Leah laughed.
“He spent more than that on certified mail.”
“Worth it?”
“To him? Absolutely.”
Daniel smiled, but the smile faded quickly.
His father was not dead.
Nothing dramatic had happened to him.
He lived thirty minutes away, worked part-time now, and sent Daniel articles about stable careers with subject lines like INTERESTING.
Some scars were not tragedies.
Some were just years of feeling measured by someone who loved you.
Daniel’s father had never understood the difference between making videos and “playing with videos,” and Daniel had never found a way to explain it without sounding defensive.
Leah pointed at another document.
“What’s GIS?”
“Mapping database, basically.”
“So if the sidewalk isn’t in the map—”
“It might as well not exist to whichever maintenance system depends on the map.”
Leah looked at him.
“That’s insane.”
“It’s also less satisfying than corruption.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“A little.”
She nudged his arm.
Daniel opened the sponsorship email again after Leah left.
The company wanted him to film a sixty-second video clearing an overgrown section of land with their battery-powered trimmer.
They offered five thousand dollars.
He had forty-two dollars left in his business checking account after rent, car insurance, and a late payment from the dentist.
Daniel replied yes.
He told himself a sponsored video did not change the sidewalk story.
Technically, it did not.
Three days later, the county reopened most of the path.
The damaged section near the canal remained barricaded, forcing walkers to step onto a narrow strip of grass for about twelve feet before returning to concrete.
Morgan called Daniel before the barricades were moved.
“I’m telling you because I assume it’ll be online within six minutes anyway.”
“Probably four.”
May you like
Morgan ignored that.
“The structural issue is limited. One slab has lost supporting material along the canal-side edge. We’re keeping that section closed until drainage and roads agree on repair.”
