“You can attend without speaking,” Anika told him. “You get to decide your level of participation.”
Daniel watched Tomas look down at his hands. It occurred to him that the central cruelty of the concession wasn’t a single fee or a missing paycheck. It was the way every worker had to calculate the consequences of telling the truth. In Nathan’s time, the organization had punished people for eating together. In this version, it tried to turn speaking itself into a luxury.
Near ten, a brick struck the metal shutter at the back of the garage. The bang silenced the room. June walked toward the door but Daniel stopped her. They listened for running footsteps and heard none. Anika called the police while the others moved away from the windows. Outside they found a dent in the shutter and a loose paving brick beneath it. Nobody had been hurt. Two officers photographed the damage and took statements; they did not claim to know who was responsible.
“Could’ve been kids,” one officer said.
“Could have,” June agreed. “I still want a report number.”
When the officers left, a few people began to gather their coats. Daniel expected the meeting to dissolve. Instead Imani placed her statement on the table and looked at everyone.
“I won’t tell anybody they have to come tomorrow,” she said. “But I’m still going.”
Nessa sat back down. She spread her kitchen diagram open and marked a dangerous crossing route in red pencil, making the evidence of her own work more precise. Rafael called his babysitter and arranged an earlier arrival. Ada, who had been quiet through the disturbance, asked where the coffee supplies were stored. She would bring a thermos in the morning, she said, but she refused to operate a machine designed by a person who apparently hated older hands.
June went to the shutter and examined the dent. Her garage insurance had a deductible she could barely afford. For a few seconds her expression hardened with anger. Then she fetched a sheet of plywood to cover the damaged panel and handed Daniel a screwdriver. They worked without speaking until the shutter was secure.
“You can still walk away,” Daniel said when they finished.
June stared at him. “From my own shop? That’s a strange suggestion.”
“I brought this here.”
“You brought a question here. Someone else threw the brick. Don’t mix up the verbs.”
She went back inside. Daniel followed, ashamed that he had again imagined himself at the center of everybody’s choices. The people gathered in the garage had arrived because their pay, hours, and safety mattered. His involvement was a circumstance, not the reason they deserved to be heard.
At eleven, the workers dispersed in pairs. Daniel and June walked the last few blocks with Imani, whose bus had stopped running, and waited until she entered her grandmother’s apartment building. On the walk home, June asked whether he regretted helping Marcel with breakfast. Daniel thought about the cut eggs, the small cup, and the embarrassed old man’s unsteady hand.
