Part 8
“I do not know.”
“You don’t care.”
“I care about the workers. I care less about preserving your ownership.”
“It’s my family’s company.”
“That sentence contains two different things.”
Reed set down the screwdriver. His hand trembled slightly before he closed it around the workbench.
Adrian noticed. “Are you all right?”
“I am old and irritated.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m allowed both.”
Reed sat on a stool. For the first time, he looked tired enough to have been discharged from a hospital the day before.
Adrian pulled another stool closer but did not sit until Reed nodded.
“You said my father tried to put his name on this building,” Adrian said.
“He did.”
“Why did you let him stay involved?”
“Because he returned after I told him no.”
“That was enough?”
“No. He returned for twenty years.”
Reed looked toward the shelves. “Stephen liked being thanked. He liked photographs. He liked important people knowing he had paid for things. He also came here during a winter storm and spent fourteen hours carrying water when a pipe burst. People are rarely improved by being reduced to one fact.”
“You reduced me quickly.”
“You introduced yourself while I was on the floor.”
Adrian looked down.
Reed’s voice softened, though not kindly. “You were frightened.”
“I was angry.”
“Those often share a coat.”
Adrian reached into his pocket and placed the violet ribbon on the workbench. It looked cheap in the basement light.
“What did this actually mean?” he asked.
“We gave it to people who accepted responsibility for the foundation beyond writing checks.”
“I’ve raised more money than anyone on the board.”
“You have.”
“I opened the mansion every year.”
“You charged the foundation a reduced event rate.”
“It still cost us money.”
“Probably.”
“You don’t know.”
“No. Gordon managed those invoices.”
Adrian glanced at him. “You think the gala billing was inflated.”
“I think Gordon’s definition of reduced may be flexible.”
Adrian picked up the ribbon. “Why didn’t you investigate before now?”
“I asked for invoices. I was told they were confidential vendor records. Then Marisol told me we could not make payroll without the property sale. I became focused on stopping the sale.”
“You chose the visible problem.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised Adrian.
Reed watched him place the ribbon back in his pocket. “I have made mistakes too, Adrian. I stayed away from board meetings when Gordon began treating questions like personal insults. I told myself I was too old for politics. Then I returned only when the building was nearly gone. Pride can disguise itself as principle.”
Adrian looked toward the ceiling, where footsteps crossed the room above them.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Ask Marisol what the foundation actually needs, without telling her what answer saves you.”
Marisol met Adrian in her office, a converted supply room with no exterior window. A small fan moved papers across her desk. She caught one before it fell and weighted it with a stapler.
“What do we actually need?” Adrian asked.
She stared at him. “How much time do you have?”
“As much as this takes.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“Probably.”
Marisol opened a spreadsheet. Harbor Light needed eight hundred thousand dollars for immediate repairs, six hundred thousand to stabilize operations for eighteen months, and several million more to expand. The inland center would solve some of those problems, but residents would be farther from the veterans’ clinic, the community college, public transit, and the waterfront businesses that employed six of them.
“The new facility is better on paper,” Marisol said. “More beds. Better plumbing. Proper counseling rooms. But Gordon designed the budget around donated transportation that nobody has committed to providing.”
“Why did you support it?”
“Because the ceiling in room twelve collapsed during a rainstorm, and the resident sleeping there asked whether he had to pay for it.”
Adrian said nothing.
“I have a waiting list of twenty-seven,” she continued. “One man lives in his truck. One woman is staying with a cousin who keeps her disability payments. I supported a flawed deal because flawed beds seemed better than no beds.”
“Did you know the harbor appraisal was low?”
“I knew Gordon called it conservative.”
“Did you know about the city preservation grant?”
“What grant?”
Adrian opened the cream folder Evelyn had allowed him to copy. The planning official’s email referred to a coastal preservation program and municipal bond funds. Marisol read it once, then again more slowly.
“I never saw this.”
“Could the grant cover repairs?”
“Not operations. Maybe structural work. It would require a preservation covenant and public access.”
“Gordon said the zoning variances weren’t guaranteed.”
“They aren’t. Neither is anything. That is why boards review options instead of receiving one option with a clock attached.”
Her anger had no performance in it. She looked mostly tired.
Adrian sat across from her. “Would you have chosen the sale if you knew everything?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It’s honest. The building is failing. The deal was compromised. Both things are true.”
He rubbed his forehead. “The bank may take Vale House.”
Marisol closed the spreadsheet. “My staff thinks you own six mansions.”
“I own one mansion and several mortgages.”
“I know. I also know what it looks like when a man with a mansion tells people in transitional housing that everyone must sacrifice.”
“I didn’t come here for absolution.”
“Good. We’re out.”
A knock sounded. Tomas entered carrying a replacement drawer handle and stopped when he saw Adrian.
“You work here?” Adrian asked.
“Three mornings a week,” Tomas said. “The gala company schedules me evenings.”
Reed appeared behind him. “Tomas has been trying to fix that drawer since February. I have interfered.”
“It needs a new runner,” Tomas said.
“It needs discipline,” Reed replied.
Tomas looked at Adrian. “The mansion sent my supervisor a notice.”
“What notice?”
“That staff shouldn’t speak to reporters.”
“That came from Gordon.”
May you like
“It had your name.”
Adrian felt something inside him settle into a harder shape. “Did you speak to anyone?”
