NOVA
Cole didn’t come to our scheduled check-in.
2:00 PM. The chair was empty. The door was closed. I sat behind my desk with my pen aligned and my pad ready and waited, because lateness was data and absence was louder data.
2:05. 2:10. 2:15.
At 2:17, the exact time he had walked in seventeen minutes late on the first day, I picked up my phone and checked the facility calendar.
November 3rd.
I set the phone down. Closed my eyes.
Marcus Harrington had died on November 3rd. Five years ago today. A car on a straight highway. A guardrail that didn’t hold. A family that would never be the same.
I had known the date. It was in my HARRINGTON document. It was in the file I’d been carrying since Portland. November 3rd. I had known it was coming and I hadn’t flagged it, hadn’t prepared for i
