Sympathy between humans by Jodi Compton Page A

eight-ounce glass within arm’s reach. His wheelchair nowhere in sight, he looked very much able-bodied, like a hiker at rest.
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He was a very discreet person, Cicero. After our brief exchange on the phone, he hadn’t asked me anything more about why I wouldn’t sleep with him again. Which was good, because I wasn’t sure I could explain it. I’d crossed a line, both in personal morals and professional ethics, and that couldn’t just be erased. But I think my desire to go back over to the right side of that line was rooted in my unease with how easily I’d crossed it in the first place. Sometimes I wondered if there were a hidden moral flaw inside me, one that had driven me into the line of work I did, where right and wrong were so clearly delineated.
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But when I’d arrived, Cicero had merely looked over the Australian wine I’d brought and asked me how I was. I’d said I was fine, and he’d said he was fine, and then a small discomfort had descended on the conversation. Cicero broke the silence by asking me if I wanted to go up on the roof.
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I’d thought it was a joke, but he’d explained how it was possible. We’d parked his wheelchair and set the brake at the foot of the emergency stairwell that led to the roof. When Cicero was seated on the lowest stair, I’d taken his lower legs just under the knee, and Cicero had raised his upper body off the stairs, weight on the heels of his hands. His method wasn’t, I saw, unlike the triceps exercise I sometimes did at the gym, lowering myself from a weight bench. But Cicero was ascending, going up the stairs literally on his arms. Supporting his legs and following, I was still assuming less than a third of his body weight. It couldn’t have been easy, and I understood then the importance of the hand weights I’d seen under his bed.
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“That wasn’t pretty, and it was slow,â€

 
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There were three of us in Judge Henderson’s chambers: the judge himself, a graying-haired black man who said little; Lorraine, a social worker; and me.
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“It’s not a typical situation,â€

 
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Another gas-station mini-mart was hit; it was clearly the same two perpetrators. Welcome back, guys, I thought.
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After taking initial witness reports, I reviewed security video from the first two stores, hoping that by watching tape from the day before the robberies, I might recognize these guys without their stocking masks, casing the place.
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When I got off work, I was thinking that it might be a good night to go out to the lake in time for dinner. Marlinchen’s cooking was probably better than mine. I rode the elevator down to the parking garage.
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“Detective Pribek!â€

 
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A loose-limbed teenage boy ambled by in the hallway of the 26th floor of the north tower. His eyes met mine and flicked away; he went on to the apartment at the end of the hall. I was in front of 2605, where I’d knocked on the door, but gotten no answer. I tried again.
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Then Cicero opened the door, wet-haired, a towel held half-crumpled in one hand. His shirt was damp where he’d obviously pulled it on hastily, without adequately drying the skin underneath.
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“Is this a bad time?â€

 
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It’s a detective’s prerogative to use a car from the motor pool, and it didn’t raise any eyebrows at work when I began using one. If word had spread that the BCA had my car for testing, no one referred to it, even implicitly, in my presence. Meanwhile, I used the motor pool car not only for work but to drive out in the evenings and visit the Hennessys.
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Kids adapt to the whims and dictates of adults the way the rest of us adapt to changes in the weather. The Hennessy boys accepted my new role in their lives with a shrug. I