She shrugged as though it wasn’t a big deal. “You could introduce us sometime. If you want. I’m sure I’d like your friends.”
He smiled, looking both frightened and relieved. “Well, maybe he’d let me use his car to teach you to drive. I could ask him.”
They developed an easy rhythm. Livia did the shopping, the cleaning, and the laundry, too. Rick told her it wasn’t necessary, but she didn’t listen. She didn’t want to be a burden, something he took on because of a feeling of obligation, something he felt stuck with. She wanted to be valuable, and it made her feel good to know she was. She liked making the coffee, and had a cup every morning, with milk and turbinado sugar.
Sometimes she went to the port. She would stand and stare out at the water, the containers, the machinery, the ships. Then she would close her eyes and listen to the sounds—the thrum of huge engines, the cries of scavenger birds, the lapping of water on the docks—and try to imagine where Nason could have been taken, try to feel where she could be right that moment. She told herself if she concentrated hard enough, she would remember something, imagine something, conjure something that would help. But nothing ever came.
One day, on the way home from school, she came across a thick branch that had fallen from a tree. On impulse, she picked it up and carved it into a Buddha like the one she had made so long ago in the forest—legs crossed in the lotus pose, one hand down and the other out. She placed it by the window in her bedroom, next to the photograph of her and Nason. And every night, without fail, she looked out at the sky and whispered in Lahu, “I love you, little bird. I will never forget. I will never stop looking. And one day I will find you.”
Rick told her that because he always had his service weapon either on him or within easy reach, it was important for her to learn how to handle firearms safely. “You don’t just childproof your guns,” was how he put it. “You also gun-proof your child.”
Livia was thrilled. She wanted to learn about guns. About all weapons. To her, anything that wasn’t a weapon was a weakness. And she was never going to be weak again.
They went over the four rules of safety: Always assume a gun is loaded until you’ve checked it yourself. Never let the muzzle cross something you wouldn’t be willing to harm. Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. And know your backstop—what a bullet would hit if it were to miss or go through your target.
Safety was important, of course, but she told him she also wanted to learn how to shoot. So they went to the gun range, where he taught her the fundamentals: smooth draw, aggressive stance, firm grip, front sight on the target, press the trigger. She listened carefully and shot well, but afterward, in the parking lot, Rick told her the range was nothing like the street—that adrenaline, ambiguity, bystanders, someone shooting back . . . the street changed everything.
“Did you ever have to shoot someone?” she asked.
“I did, yeah.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
He nodded. “Two people.”
“Were they bad?”
“Very bad.”
“What did they do?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“You can tell me.”
He looked at her, then nodded again. “One of them was a drug dealer. He was shooting people in a house and we had to charge inside to stop him.”
She felt her jaw clench. “The people in the house . . . he killed them?”
“All but a little girl named Lucy. He had beaten her unconscious and left her for dead. But she’s fine now. She’s in school and she’s going to be a nurse.” He smiled. “She called me not so long ago, on her eighteenth birthday. She said, ‘You probably don’t remember me, but you saved my life. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.’”
“Did you remember her?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? I told her, ‘Remember? Lucy, I’ll never forget you.’”
The story brought tears to Livia’s eyes. She wished Rick had been there when the white van had pulled up. Or someone like him.
“Wow,” she whispered.
He looked at her and shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but she could tell the memory had moved him, too. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes you get to really save someone. Makes all the bullshit worthwhile.”
“What about the other one?”
“Gangbanger determined not to go back to prison. He shot two officers before they could get their guns out, and had my partner pinned down. I flanked him and shot him in the head.”
“You saved your partner?”
“Well, that’s what they said on the commendation, anyway.”
She could tell he was being modest again. “I’m glad you killed them.”
He frowned and said, “I’m not sure you should feel that way, Livia.”
“But they would have hurt more people if you hadn’t killed them. Killing them saved people.”