I have a dinner, she said, scheduled weeks ago, a real estate development coalition event. She laughed short, without humor. Gerald will be there, and you're going. I'm going, she said. I'm going to have dinner.
I'm going to make conversation. I'm going to look Gerald Pruitt directly in the face and talk about fourth quarter projections and the upcoming city council presentation. And you're going to be fine, Marcus said. Not a question, an assessment. She looked at him.
Are you? He considered the question honestly. I don't know yet, he said. Ask me again in a week. She nodded.
She started to say something and stopped. Then she tried again. Marcus, your wife? He went very still. I know there's nothing I can say that changes what happened, she said.
I know there's no version of this where those words are enough. But I need to say them anyway, because if I don't say them directly to you, I don't know how to carry this. She looked at him steadily. I am sorry. For Renata.
For what my company did. For what I didn't see when I should have been looking. I am deeply, genuinely sorry. The city moved around them. Cars.
People. The ordinary noise of a day ending. Marcus looked at Evelyn Brooks on the sidewalk in Atlanta, and he thought about the first night in Loretta's, the moment he'd slid the plate across the table without saying a word. He thought about the five years of silence. The five years of carrying.
The five years of telling himself the truth about what had happened without having anyone in the room who had the power to do anything about it. He thought about what Renata would say. She'd have something precise and clear and cut directly to the thing. She'd always been able to do that. He'd loved her for it among a hundred other things.
I know you are, he said finally. That doesn't fix it. No, Evelyn said. It doesn't, but it's a start, he said. And right now a start is what we've got.