Chapter 15 - The Next Class Started Without Walter
Six weeks later, I came back to the academy as a visitor.
Not trainee.
My remedial review had started.
I still had four and a half months before I could apply again.
I had not decided whether I would.
Dana came with me.
That surprised Walter more than me.
He was clearing equipment from his old training office.
His certification review was still open.
He had kept his rank.
Lost the instructor assignment.
For now.
Voss remained on administrative leave pending the state’s findings and an internal review of the latest curriculum revision.
No one knew how that ended yet.
Dana stood in the doorway.
Walter looked up.
“You came.”
“I had paperwork.”
“Of course.”
She held a thin folder.
Her old suspension recommendation.
Reed had given it to her unopened.
She read it at home.
Then called me.
Not Walter.
Me.
I asked what it said.
She told me to wait until she decided whether she wanted to share it.
I hated that.
I respected it anyway.
Now she placed the folder on Walter’s desk.
He looked at it.
“May I?”
Dana nodded.
Walter opened it.
Read.
I watched his face.
“What?”
I asked.
Dana looked at me.
“You said I could decide.”
“Apparently I’m bad at respecting growth.”
Walter kept reading.
Then slid the first page toward me.
Dana had written in 2004:
Recommend suspension of the variation. Original control may continue only if separated from compliance finishing sequence and taught under different attribution.
Different attribution.
I looked at her.
“You wanted your name off.”
“Yes.”
“And Walter’s?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
Dana continued.
“I recommended joint attribution.”
DANA MILLER / WALTER HAYES.
Walter sat back.
“You never told me.”
“I thought Reed gave it to you.”
Reed had not.
Misfiled.
Twenty-two years of assumptions.
Walter looked at Dana.
“If I had seen this—”
She cut him off.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
Good.
No alternate-history comfort.
Maybe he would have acted differently.
Maybe not.
Dana took the folder back.
The first training block of the new class was starting outside.
We could hear instructors calling names.
Walter stood near the window.
I joined him.
A new captain ran the yard.
No Hayes transition.
That block had been replaced temporarily with a different state-approved control curriculum while the review continued.
One trainee knocked over a cone.
Nobody died.
Dana stood behind us.
“You going back?” she asked me.
I looked at the mats.
“I don't know.”
Walter said nothing.
That helped.
Dana asked:
“Why did you want it in the first place?”
The badge?
The academy?
I had easy answers.
Service.
Career.
Purpose.
All true enough to sound fake.
“I liked being good at things people could measure.”
Dana nodded.
No analysis.
Then Walter’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
Reed.
Walter answered.
“Hayes.”
He listened.
His expression changed slightly.
Dana noticed.
“What?”
Walter held up one finger.
Kept listening.
Then:
“Are you sure?”
Pause.
“All right.”
He ended the call.
I waited.
He looked at Dana first.
Not me.
“The state located the full master log for the pilot.”
Dana’s face tightened.
“And?”
“There’s an additional approval entry.”
“Whose?”
Walter glanced at me.
Then back at her.
“Lucas.”
My father.
I stopped breathing.
Dana shook her head.
“No.”
“Thomas says the signature is there.”
“For what?”
Walter did not answer immediately.
“The second-day continuation.”
The day after Dana thought Lucas had demanded she leave.
The day she believed he opposed the pilot completely.
Dana stared at Walter.
“That makes no sense.”
“No.”
“Did he change his mind?”
“I don't know.”
She looked at me.
For the first time since this started, my mother looked genuinely lost.
My father had been dead fifteen years.
There would be no phone call.
No clean confrontation.
No person left to ask what he believed when he signed.
Walter’s phone buzzed again.
A photo from Reed.
He did not open it.
Dana noticed.
“Why not?”
Walter looked at her.
“Because you’re standing here.”
She stared at him.
Then almost smiled.
“Progress.”
Outside, the new class moved onto the mats.
I watched them through the glass.
Six months earlier, I would have opened Walter’s phone myself if I thought I could get away with it.
Now I wanted to know just as badly.
Maybe worse.
Dana picked up her folder.
“You two want coffee?”
Walter looked at her.
I looked at him.
Nobody mentioned the signature.
Not yet.
We left the office together.
May you like
Behind us, Walter’s phone stayed face-down on the desk.
Whatever my father had approved, whatever reason sat behind that signature, it would still be there when someone decided to turn the screen over.
