Down The Rabbit Hole

““She’s my   w e a k n e s s   . It’s not really a secret. But she’s also what keeps me strong. She keeps me fighting when all my hope is gone.”

Stay put. Do not wake up Trixie.

Arden Cho photographed by Melly Lee

To me, every person in the city is a light…

Like you I had an older brother, and like you I lost him far too early in life. Sarah was his daughter. One day your phone rings and there’s a voice that’s compassionate, but routine, telling you your brother and his wife are gone. Then there’s this other life, and her eyes are looking to you for answers, for food, comfort. And you realize everything you thought you knew about the world you didn’t know. And you don’t know. If you’re like me, you’re angry about it because your life is your own - and your career was about knowing, and certainty, and clarity - and now there’s none. And this little girl, she couldn’t speak then, but if she could she would have said ‘calm your racing mind, rest your weary heart, old man because I am here to save you.’ I spent twenty-seven years telling myself I was making a difference. It took six seconds for her to show me the wonder of the world, the brilliance, and the goodness. And then one day, a few years later, we were watching some of that brilliance leave us with the passing of your father and she turns to me and she says ‘you should help them daddy, they look sad.’ So yeah, I quit the force for a wayward girl who needed my help.