No answer came. Then Iris’s voice, tight with fear: “Someone call for help!”

CHAPTER SIX: THE NIGHT OF THE FALL

The next ten minutes stripped away every argument about who belonged to the wall. A painter named Colin had stumbled from a lower platform when the lights failed. The fall was short, but he had struck his shoulder against a brace, and the workers needed medical help to move him safely. Iris unlocked the front doors for responders, and the crowd outside cleared a path.

Owen stepped in only after a paramedic asked him to hold one door open. He watched Colin, pale but conscious, explain where the pain was. Nothing about the accident seemed dramatic enough for the public stories that would later circulate. A tired man had been working on a crowded platform in poor light. A handrail had been moved for access. The lights went out. He fell.

Niko stood against the wall, trembling with frustration. “I told everyone we had to stop by seven,” he said. “I said we were too tired to work safely.”

Etta sat on a folding chair. Her apron was flecked with white primer. When Owen approached, she looked away.

“The fire department came today,” he said. “They’ll speak to you.”

“I know.”

“Did you burn my mailbox?”

She swallowed. “I wanted the letter gone.”

The confession was so quiet that he nearly missed it. “Why?”

“I knew the colors on the envelope. I saw that young woman leave the framing shop. I thought she was sending you photographs that would ruin everything. I couldn’t bear another argument.”

“So you set fire to a mailbox?”

Etta covered her face. “I know how it sounds.”

“It sounds like what happened.”

She lowered her hands. “It was a terrible thing. I don’t want you to excuse it.”

Owen considered the woman in front of him. She had organized neighborhood festivals, brought soup when his mother was sick, and once spent three freezing hours directing traffic around a fallen tree. None of those deeds erased the fire. Nor did the fire make them imaginary. It was possible to see her as a whole person and still demand that she face the damage.

“Tell the investigators what you told me,” he said. “And don’t ask me to keep it quiet.”

Etta nodded without meeting his eyes.

An ambulance departed with Colin, whose injury appeared painful but not life threatening. Niko gathered the volunteers and sent them home. Several were angry at Etta; others were angry at the people who had interrupted them. Nobody was eager to return to a room where a careless step could turn into a fall.

Mara offered to drive Owen home. Instead, he walked with her to the square, where Safiya and the original contributors were setting out their materials beneath temporary lights. They had lost the building for the evening, but not their voices.