He stopped, swallowing hard, trying to pull himself together and failing.
I’ve been in this job long enough to know the difference between excuses and something real. This wasn’t someone trying to talk his way out of a ticket. This was someone barely holding it together.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my tone shifting before I even consciously decided to let it.
He shook his head at first, like he didn’t want to say it out loud. Then it came out all at once.
“My daughter,” he said. “She’s at the hospital. They called me—said it’s bad. I was at work and I just… I just drove.”
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