The captain keyed back. “Bridge is clear of civilians. Wrecker is still attached. We can release on my call.”
“Copy,” dispatch said. “We appreciate you.”
She turned to the operator. “If the cable sings a note you don’t like, you let it go. We don’t trade steel for skin.”
“Ma’am,” he said, half-smile. “That’s the shirt I wear to work.”
Rain eased a notch, then remembered itself and came back harder, as if offended that we’d begun to plan coffee. In the lot, a father arrived, feet sliding, eyes searching. He found his daughter—glitter sweatshirt now under a blanket—and stopped so fast he almost tipped. She flung into him and the sound he made was not words. He mouthed thank you at no one and everyone.
I looked back toward the bridge. In the throw of floodlights, the cable was a bright line, the bus a darker shape arguing with a hole. The river’s skin changed texture, as if something under it had rolled over. Somewhere upstream, an old basin was choosing to pour itself down the map we had drawn.
