"Thanks, Mister."
"I'm not Mister; I'm just Malcolm."
The little girl eats the red Jolly Rancher, perched on a too-big chair in the attorney's office. Malcolm waits with her. He could leave; his driver is outside. But he waits, because the little girl's mom and advocate are in the other room talking to the lawyer, and she would be all alone.
"Are you a lawyer?" she asks curiously.
"No," Malcolm answers, "I'm still a kid, like you, just a big one. Some day I'm going to be a profiler."
"What's that?"
"They help the police put bad people in jail."
"That's cool," she answers. "I'm going to be a martial artist."
That seems a little unusual for an eight-year-old, and Malcolm is intrigued. "What kind?"
"The kind who can knock out anybody who tries to hurt them," she answers, a very dark look crossing her face.
Malcolm swallows hard. He wonders how people do this all the time, like the advocates who do nothing but work with child victims. He wishes he could hug her, to reassure her that the creep she's just testified against is going away for good.
"Do you want another Jolly Rancher?" She takes a green one this time, and it makes him think of Gil, of how much it comforted him that somebody cared. There's very little he can do for the little girl, but maybe he can make the memory of her deposition day a little less dark, the way Gil once did for him.
"Kate, let's go," the harried mother finally comes out of the conference room and holds out her hand for her daughter.
"Bye, Malcolm," Kate calls back to him.
"Bye," he says, watching them leave and then waiting a minute before he follows, collecting himself.
—
"You know, kid, if you work with law enforcement, you're going to have to deal with these things. It's not just finding clues like Sherlock Holmes; it's about people. And when you empathize as intensely as you do, it makes you good at the job, but it also hurts more."
Malcolm is in Gil's car, reporting on the deposition and his observations. He's not surprised by how much he was able to pick up from people's mannerisms and ways of talking. He is surprised by how emotional he felt.
"I guess I thought it was easier to detach than that," he admits.
"Nah," Gil says, "not for you. Maybe for some people. But you've never had a detached bone in your body. There are some things you can work up to, but that's not one of them. You're always going to feel it."
Malcolm goes quiet for a few minutes, thinking. "This is why I'm not like my father."
"Among many things," Gil answers drily. "I wasn't worried about that three minutes into meeting you."
"You feel it too," Malcolm says. "That's why you treated me the way you did back then."
"I've had longer to come to terms with it, but essentially, yes. That's how I know it doesn't really go away or get easier."
Malcolm stares straight ahead. "It will be worth it if I can help save them."
Gil nods. "That's the choice I made a long time ago. It's not easy, and it has to be what you decide. Nobody else can make a decision that big for you."
"I'd rather be like you than him any day," Malcolm says, meaning it fervently.
Gil looks over at him. "Kid, you have it in you to be better than either of us. Whatever decision you make, let it be what you want. You don't owe the world anything, and you definitely don't have to atone for Martin Whitly. The world just needs you to be the best Malcolm you can be."
"I'm not sure how great that is," Malcolm answers.
"Well, we'll find out together, won't we?"
As always, Gil's reassurance is like a verbal embrace, and Malcolm goes quiet again, but it's a comfortable silence. "I'm glad you made that choice," he says after a while.
"Me, too, usually," Gil answers, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "When it comes to you, no regrets."
"I'll make sure you never have any," Malcolm says quickly, a little anxiously.
Gil shakes his head. "I hate to break it to you, but you're already not perfect. Still my favorite, though. Nothing you can do to get rid of me now."
"No, sir," Malcolm answers respectfully. Somehow, the older he gets, the more he's learning to value Gil's presence in his life and not take it for granted, to at least try to grasp the enormity of the choice to take him on all those years before and never stop.
"Gil, I'm glad you were the one who came to the house that night."
"Yep, me, too."
They have said it a thousand times, and they will say it a thousand times more.
—
Author's Note: If this scenario seems impossible, it isn't. Before lockdown, I was hosting a criminal case deposition in my office, and we had a student sit in on it. It's allowable if all the involved parties agree to it.