Victor asked Ethan to meet him at a cafe two days later.
Ethan nearly refused.
Then he decided there was value in hearing what the man wanted.
He told Talia where he was going and made clear that he would not speak on anyone’s behalf.
Victor sat alone at a corner table with two coffees.
“I ordered your usual,” he said.
“You don’t know my usual.”
Victor pushed a cup toward him anyway.
“I can undo the termination.”
“You can offer to rehire me,” Ethan said.
“I still have to decide.”
Victor laughed without warmth.
“You have always had a talent for making simple matters difficult.”
He produced a single page describing a staffing disagreement caused by misunderstanding.
Under the paragraph was a blank signature line.
“You sign, and we move on,
” he said.
Ethan read the page.
It stated that Gideon had pressured the staff to support the suspension.
It stated that Ethan had never personally heard Victor accuse him of violating company rules.
Both claims were false.
“I’m not signing this.”
Victor leaned forward.
“You want a job in this city?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop burning bridges.”
Ethan felt a familiar hollow fear.
He could imagine job interviews where his former manager described him as disruptive and dishonest.
“What happens to the families?” he asked.
Victor waved a hand.
“They get their dinner deposits back.”
“Their names are in a political program.”
“People say emotional things when they are grieving.”
Ethan looked at him.
“Denise Price was very clear.”
Victor’s expression darkened.
“That woman doesn’t understand what Eastbank needs.”
“She lived there.
”
“Living somewhere doesn’t make you an expert in investment.”
Ethan stood.
Victor caught his wrist across the table.
The grip was firm enough to hurt.
“Sit down,” he said.
Ethan looked at Victor’s hand.
A customer nearby noticed and stopped stirring her coffee.
Victor released him.
“I am trying to help you,” he whispered.
“You already told me what help from you looks like,” Ethan replied.
He left the unsigned statement on the table.
Outside, he called Talia and described the meeting.
She asked him to write down the exact wording while it was fresh.
“Will he go to prison?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“That isn’t my decision, and the facts aren’t complete.”
“What happens now?”
“You can start with telling the truth to the next person who asks.”
Ethan looked at his scraped wrist.
“I can do that.”
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE ROOM ABOVE THE BARBER SHOP
Denise organized a meeting in a room above a barber shop because the library was already booked.
Fifteen chairs stood in a circle.
Twenty-three people came.
Some had received memorial invitations.
Others had discovered family names on the draft program after Simon called them.
One elderly woman arrived clutching a photograph of her brother in a marching band uniform.
A carpenter brought a recipe card written by his deceased father.
A teenage girl carried a school project about Eastbank’s former basketball team.
Not everyone agreed about the proposed office development.
A shopkeeper named Raymond Pike believed the investment could restore jobs.
“I signed a statement supporting the project,” he said.
“I want my name left on it.”
Denise nodded.
“Then it should stay.”
“But my mother didn’t sign anything.”
Raymond looked at the draft.
“I can tell the difference.”
Their disagreement became the first useful conversation of the evening.
Gideon attended only to explain the scope of the business review.
He did not lead the meeting.
Denise asked the families what they wanted to do about the printed statements.
A few wanted the material destroyed.
Others wanted corrections published where the false endorsements had been distributed.
A retired teacher named Beatrice Shaw insisted that people should be allowed to keep the memories they had actually contributed.
“They don’t get to steal our stories,” she said.
“But they don’t get to make us forget them either.”
Ethan took notes as people spoke.
He was surprised by how often the same word appeared.
Choice.
People wanted to choose whether their relatives’ names appeared in public.
They wanted to choose what their own comments meant.
They wanted to decide whether the Eastbank project was good or bad without being manipulated by a memorial dinner.
Levi’s grandmother appeared in four different stories that night.
She had taught a boy to cook rice without burning it.
She had yelled at a politician for arriving late to a school meal.
She had insisted on sending leftovers home with families after a winter storm.
None of the speakers mentioned an office tower.
At the end, Denise asked for volunteers to attend the zoning committee meeting.
Nearly everyone raised a hand.
Raymond raised his last.
“I’m still in favor of building,” he said.
“But I want the committee to hear what actually happened.”
Ethan watched him walk across the room and offer Denise a ride home.
For the first time since losing his job, Ethan felt that the argument might belong to ordinary people again.
