Iris spread three sheets of paper across a folding table. “I can print a long list,” she said, “but I need to know whom I’m listing.”
Teresa pointed at the photograph of the old painting crew. “That’s Mrs. Givens by the south ladder. She used to live near the bakery. Her first name was Birdie, I think.”
“Her name was Bernadette,” said an older woman near the wall. “Birdie was what we called her when she told stories.”
“Was she even painting?” asked a volunteer. “She looks like she’s only carrying a tray.”
“She fed every one of us for two weeks,” Teresa replied. “If that isn’t part of making the wall, what is?”
The question opened a dispute nobody could resolve by counting brushstrokes. Owen remembered Leona’s instruction at the gym: give people enough information to choose. He suggested that the printed program describe kinds of work as well as names. A full contributor list could grow as people identified photographs and recalled each other. It would be a living document on display at the hall, corrected in public rather than tucked away as a final verdict.
Safiya liked the idea but saw another complication. “We should distinguish what somebody remembers from what the photograph actually shows,” she said. “Otherwise visitors will think every anecdote is certain.”
Thomas, sitting with his cane between his knees, laughed. “That’s half the problem with town history. Everyone remembers where they parked and nobody remembers whose car it was.”
They organized a listening table with blank cards. Contributors could write their names, describe what they had made, and identify an object in the mural. The cards would be pinned beside corresponding photographs, and uncertain recollections would remain visibly uncertain. Iris put a small basket of pencils nearby, then wrote the first card herself: I helped organize the reopening but did not paint the original work. She hesitated before signing her name.
“That’s a strange thing to put in a program,” Owen said.
“It happens to be true,” she replied.
For nearly an hour, the work progressed peacefully. Then a man in a pressed brown jacket entered carrying a framed certificate from a local arts society. His name was Lionel Voss, Etta’s younger brother. Owen knew him as the owner of a hardware store on the north side of town and a man who disliked any argument in which he could not deliver the final sentence.
Lionel examined the display and shook his head. “You’ve turned a restoration into a trial,” he said. “My sister gave her life to keeping this place open.”
“We aren’t deciding whether she worked hard,” Mara replied. “We’re making sure other people aren’t left out.”
“The town honors people who finish things. Not everyone who walks into a room gets a plaque.”
