The first pale light of Sunday morning filtered softly through the blinds, casting long stripes across the kitchen floor as Officer Michael Miller stood at the counter, brewing his coffee with the practiced motions of habit. The aroma of roasted beans filled the small apartment, mingling with the faint scent of last night’s dinner. Even as he poured the steaming liquid into his favorite mug, his mind was already running through the day’s checklist: patrol routes, paperwork, community calls, and the ever-present uncertainties that came with a life on the force. At 42, with salt-and-pepper hair starting to thin at the temples and eyes rimmed with the fatigue of fifteen years on the job, Michael had learned to cherish small anchors in a chaotic world. Sundays, he had decided early on in his police career, were his anchor.
It was the day Sophie, his seven-year-old daughter, would return from her mother’s house. The thought alone lifted a weariness he carried like a second skin. Sophie’s laughter had the power to light up even the dullest corners of his apartment, and the stories she brought back—from playground adventures to newly discovered fascination with bugs and stars—filled the rooms with a life he sometimes forgot existed outside of patrols and police reports.
