“You can have some.
You lost yours that day too.”
Marcus smiled and sat beside her on the courthouse steps.
“Daddy,” Maya asked, “why do you carry the star?”
He touched the leather chain inside his coat.
“To remind me that I work for people who may never have one.”
The silver star had stopped a lie.
Evidence had revealed the truth.
The law had imposed consequences.
But Marcus’s restraint taught his daughter the lesson that mattered most:
Character is what keeps authority from becoming another kind of violence.
