Chương 9
“Because you sit on the board.”
“You could have called.”
“And made it harder for you to vote?”
Mara looked at Julian’s memorandum still resting on the counter.
Elena exhaled. “Also, I was mad.”
“At me?”
“At the foundation. At you a little. You married into a family that puts its name on everything and then makes crews beg for radios.”
“That’s fair.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
“I’m tired.”
“That might be good for you.”
They spoke for twenty minutes. Not about the fire. Elena complained about an apprentice who kept storing wrenches in the wrong drawer. Mara described Peter’s squirrel note. For a few minutes, the public story receded, and they became two women who had once known each other through pain and then failed, gently and ordinarily, to maintain a friendship.
Before hanging up, Elena said, “Caleb’s mother saw the video.”
Mara’s hand tightened around the mug.
“I didn’t give her your number.”
“Thank you.”
“She may have it already.”
Mara said nothing.
“Elise doesn’t hate you,” Elena said.
“I know.”
“No, you know people have told you that. That isn’t the same.”
Mara stood and walked to the window.
Rainwater still gathered in the low part of the yard. Julian had planned to improve the drainage and never did. A crow pecked at the soft ground beside the shed.
“I can’t do this now,” Mara said.
“All right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing before anyone asks.”
The call ended.
That afternoon, Commander Reed came to the cottage carrying a paper bag from a bakery in town.
“I brought lunch,” he said.
“It’s four o’clock.”
“I brought late lunch.”
Mara let him in.
He wore civilian clothes: dark trousers, a gray sweater, weatherproof boots. Without the uniform, he seemed less like an answer arriving in a doorway and more like a tired man who had driven two hours in coastal rain.
The bakery bag contained turkey sandwiches, two apples, and a blueberry scone neither of them admitted wanting until they had eaten everything else.
Reed sat at Julian’s kitchen table and read the board summary Naomi had prepared.
“You moved quickly,” he said.
“I moved late.”
“The grants were approved.”
“The money hasn’t reached anyone.”
“It will.”
“You sound certain.”
“I have dealt with slower institutions.”
Mara poured coffee. “The internet has decided you violated salute protocol.”
“It has also decided I am your biological father.”
She looked at him.
“I’m forty-eight.”
“You look terrible for forty-eight.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me this week.”
She brought the coffee to the table.
Reed had received hundreds of messages after the video. Some praised him. Others accused him of participating in a political publicity stunt, though no one agreed on the politics involved. Coast Guard public affairs had asked him to avoid interviews while they reviewed the incident.
“Are you in trouble?” Mara asked.
“No.”
“You saluted a civilian at a private event.”
“I offered a gesture of respect.”
“In uniform.”
“I was in uniform.”
“That sounds like a statement written by public affairs.”
“It is nearly a statement written by public affairs.”
Mara wrapped both hands around her cup.
Reed’s expression became serious. “I did not come for an endorsement.”
“I know.”
“I came because the district office received complaints about the foundation’s grant practices.”
She looked up.
“Not legal complaints,” he said. “Operational concerns. Stations were being encouraged to support the center publicly before their applications were considered.”
Mara felt cold despite the warm kitchen.
“Encouraged by whom?”
“Lydia’s office.”
“Do you have that in writing?”
“Some station chiefs do.”
“Why wasn’t it in your assessment?”
“Because it concerns foundation conduct, not the building design. I planned to raise it privately with the board.”
“And then you walked into the ballroom.”
“Yes.”
Mara stood and carried her cup to the sink though it was still full.
The room had changed again. Lydia’s action no longer existed only as private cruelty or rivalry. She had been using grants as leverage while positioning herself to become chair.
“Did Julian know?” Mara asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“Once, by phone, about winter rescue funding. A year before his death.”
“He never mentioned it.”
“He may not have known who I was.”
“People usually knew after you told them.”
Reed accepted the criticism. “He sounded tired.”
“He was tired.”
Mara stared at the coffee swirling near the drain.
“Why tell me now?”
“Because the board hired an independent reviewer. They should know where to look.”
“You could tell the reviewer.”
“I will.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Reed leaned back. “Because you are being turned into a symbol, and symbols are easy to control. Your family can apologize for the shawl, praise your courage, and continue doing exactly what they were doing.”
Mara turned toward him.
He held her gaze. “The scars are not the governance problem.”
“No.”
“But they may be used to keep everyone from looking at it.”
Outside, a truck passed on the road, tires hissing against wet pavement.
Mara returned to the table.
“What did you think when you saw me?” she asked.
“In the ballroom?”
“Yes.”
“That you looked trapped.”
The honesty startled her.
“Not brave?”
“No.”
“Not heroic?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Reed looked down at his hands. “Then you sat.”
Mara touched the edge of the paper bag. Grease had darkened one corner.
“I stayed because Alistair told me to leave.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It worked.”
“That doesn’t make it healthy.”
“No.”
She smiled faintly.
Reed gathered the documents. “The investigator will need names.”
“I’ll give them.”
“And the original grant files.”
“Alistair will resist.”
“Then he should resist in writing.”
Mara looked at him. “You’ve dealt with him for one evening.”
“I’ve dealt with weather systems that have fewer warning signs.”
This time she laughed without breaking afterward.
May you like
The foundation’s independent review began the following Monday.
Its lead investigator, Priya Shah, had spent fifteen years examining nonprofit governance and possessed the unnerving habit of allowing silence to continue after people believed they had answered her question. She requested emails, grant scoring sheets, donor restrictions, staff communications, and minutes from committee meetings.
