CHAPTER EIGHT – PEOPLE, NOT LOT NUMBERS
The next morning, June and I visited Mabel at the care community with the broken bird wrapped in a clean towel.
The activities coordinator escorted us into a bright room overlooking a courtyard.
Mabel sat beside a window, painting tiny leaves on a ceramic plate.
Her left hand steadied the plate while her right hand moved more slowly than before the stroke.
She smiled when she recognized June.
Then she saw the towel in my arms.
I explained that the bird was damaged and asked whether she wanted to look at it.
Mabel nodded.
When I unwrapped it, her smile disappeared.
She turned the bird over and examined the carved name.
“My granddaughter chose those colors,” she said.
“She was six when we made it together.
”
June offered to help repair the wing if Mabel wanted.
Mabel shook her head.
“Not yet.”
She traced the break with her thumb.
“I want the people who broke it to see what they did.”
Two other residents entered the room while we spoke.
One was Doris Bell, a thin woman with silver curls and a green cardigan.
The other was Leon Pruitt, who used a walker and carried a paperback novel.
Mabel had told them that someone was coming to discuss the auction.
Doris sat beside us and immediately asked whether her paintings had been sold.
I showed her the printed catalogue entries from the website.
She recognized a watercolor of a yellow porch and a still life of pears.
The catalogue described both as unrestricted donations.
Doris stared at that phrase.
“I asked them to photograph those paintings for my grandchildren,” she said.
“I never agreed to give them away.”
Leon requested his own listing.
His carved wooden chessboard appeared on page eighteen.
It was described as an original work from the workshop collection and had no artist name beneath the photograph.
He leaned forward.
“They took my name off it,” he said.
“The board was built for my brother’s retirement.”
His brother had died before the gift could be delivered.
The board remained precious because Leon had carved the pieces during the last year they had worked together.
Leon was furious, but not confused.
He asked who could stop the auction.
I explained that an attorney might seek urgent relief and that the artists could demand the return of their property.
I also explained that I was neither their lawyer nor an investigator.
“You don’t have to take my word for anything,” I told them.
“You can decide for yourselves what to do next.”
Mabel asked the activities coordinator for the number of the resident advocacy office.
Doris requested copies of the agreements she had allegedly signed.
Leon asked whether he could speak publicly at the gala.
The coordinator helped arrange a call with an attorney from a local legal services organization.
The attorney, Imogen Shaw, listened to each resident separately before speaking with me.
She said the reported facts raised serious questions about consent and ownership.
She could not make a conclusion without reviewing the documents.
However, she offered to help the artists submit written objections immediately and seek an order preventing disputed lots from being transferred.
She also recommended notifying the auction platform and major donors that ownership was contested.
The residents agreed to let her act for them.
I offered my photographs and the objects I had collected.
Imogen told me to preserve the original files and not edit the video clips.
Mabel looked at June.
“Would you come to the gala with me?” she asked.
June glanced at me first.
I told her she could decide.
“I’ll come,” June said.
“But I’m not going to be polite if somebody calls your bird a donation.”
Mabel laughed for the first time that morning.
“Then we shall both try not to be too polite,” she said.
As we prepared to leave, Doris stopped me in the hallway.
“Bernice used to visit every week,” she said.
“We thought she had forgotten us.”
I told her Bernice had admitted making serious mistakes.
Doris considered that without speaking.
Then she said, “She can explain herself to us instead of sending another stranger.”
