He stares at the far wall like there might be a screen there that tells him how to survive something he can’t describe. “You got a charger?” he asks, so soft I almost miss it.
“We do,” I say. I don’t ask what he needs to charge. I don’t ask who he wants to text. He doesn’t need my questions arranging his grief.
“I didn’t tell nobody,” he murmurs. “To come here.”
“I know,” I say.
He looks at me the way kids test whether you’re lying with your face. “You don’t,” he says.
“I know you didn’t tell anyone you didn’t trust,” I say. “If there’s someone you wish knew where you are, we can call. If there isn’t, we can wait.”
His jaw tightens. He lets his head tip forward until his chin is almost on his chest. The cup shakes in his hand. He puts it on the floor like he’s afraid he’s going to break it if he tries to hand it to me. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t have to for me to know he will later, when he remembers he’s allowed.
Imani appears in the doorway without making me feel like she was hovering. She has a blanket and the small smile she uses when a person needs to know she sees them without announcing it. “Hey,” she says to R. “I got a blanket fresh from the dryer. It’s a weird thing we do here. Do you want it?”
He doesn’t answer. She comes in slow and sets it next to him on the cot where his elbow can make a decision without making a scene. Then she’s gone.
“Food in twenty,” I say to him. “Whatever looks like a sandwich. No mustard. You get the bathroom or the bed. The chair is only for people who insist on hating their backs.”
He doesn’t smile. He also doesn’t tell me to go. That’s enough.
I stand, my knees registering their complaint again, and straighten my jacket. He glances at my hands as if he wants to know if I’m going to try to touch him. I don’t.
At the door, I stop. “If you want music, we have a speaker we can pretend is yours. If you want quiet, we let the quiet do its thing. If you want a charger, ask Imani. If anyone comes in you don’t want, you saynoand we will make that true.”
He nods once, eyes still on the blanket. I leave because staying now would be about me and not him.
In the hall, I let the breath I held go and find the part of me that uses anger like a tool, not a fire. This is why we built doors. This is why we keep our names public and our corridors private. This is the work that makes my language honest when I sayprotection.It’s also the work she will ruin if she paints an address onto a canvas and calls it metaphor.
I check my watch. Ten minutes until the donor roundtable. Enough time to walk the perimeter of my own head and see where the walls are thin.
Back in the glass room, the wall display shows the Whitcomb login delayed bytechnical difficulty,which is code forthey’re making coffee and forgot how to press a button.Hargreaves is on time, because men who love KPIs arrive early to meetings where they think they’ll get to saydeliverables.The Holloway Trust shows as a box with a logo and the wordconnectingin the corner.
“Keep it short,” Mara murmurs under her breath. “And please do not threaten to end the call if they useimpactlike a noun that can be weighed.”
“I’ll weigh something,” I say. “You’ll clean up after me.”
“Like always,” she says, and mutes her mic until the boxes fill with faces.
I give the donors the speech that works: we saved lives last quarter that we can’t count without breaking the rules that keep us saving them; we spent their money on people and doors; we didn’t spend it on furniture that makes us feel like saints; if they want numbers they can have them by quarter, but if they want to feel good about a day, they should come volunteer to fold laundry. Whitcomb smiles like she thinks I’m charming when I’m just tired. Hargreaves tries to press me into a case study. I hand the wheel to Mara and leave her to do what she does best: make a man with a portfolio believe him not getting what he wants is his idea.
At my desk in the control wing, I open a drawer and take out the folder labeledResident Proposals.It holds the pieces we ask artists to pitch when we pretend this house exists only for art. I slide a printout of one of Aurora’s canvases into the front pocket to justify bringing her into rooms donors never see.Resident proposal reviewis a reason even Mara will accept for me to put her within reach of my work and call it process.
Reid leans in the door. “Construction truck at Navarro’s is exactly what it says,” he says. “Guy named Felix, city badge, a kid on the crew who’s two hours from leaving for a job he won’t like as much but that pays better. No cameras on their truck. I had our guy drop a van two blocks up with a dash cam just because I’m mean.”
“Keep them bored,” I say. “Bored people don’t notice the door opening for a woman who needs it.”
He nods once. “You’re moving Hale up,” he says. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Do you want Lila in the room?”
“No,” I answer. “Simone and me. Navarro if she has time.”
“Do you want it recorded?” he asks, more pointed.
“No,” I say. “Notes only. I’ll take responsibility for the decision.”
