wearing my star a bit more comfortably, trying not to aggravate Peralta too much. The sheriff, always looking for publicity, wants me to write a history of the department. It’s money I’ll need.
I never got around to listing the house with a realtor, and now Lindsey is too fond of it. She can hardly wait to get back and take control of the gardens that Grandmother so loved. I will unpack my books. I will throw the boxes away.
The storms don’t come into the city anymore. But maybe they will return someday. There is so much I do not like about Phoenix now: It is too big and too dirty and too dangerous and too hot in the summertime. Behind its dramatic beauty and opulent wealth lie violence and decay made more stark and ugly by the desert. But we grew up together, Phoenix and I. It is the only root, the only touchstone my life has. It is the keeper of my history, as surely as it is the keeper of the Hohokam’s. It is my city. It is, for all of this, home.
It is good to be home.
