Yes, she said. Good, he said. He went back to his own work. For a while, the only sounds in the room were the turning of pages and the click of a keyboard and from somewhere down the hall in his church someone practicing piano badly and persistently. After about 20 minutes, Evelyn looked up.
Marcus. Yeah. I've been talking to a community land trust organization based in Washington, she said. They're looking to expand operations into Atlanta. They need someone with local connections and housing program experience to help establish the regional framework.
She paused. I gave them your name. He stopped typing. He looked at her. I should have asked first, she said.
I know, but they're legitimate. I did due diligence before I opened my mouth. They're well-funded, well-governed, actual accountability structures and what they're trying to build here is exactly what you'd want it to be. He held her gaze for a moment. Send me the information, he said.
Already in your email, she said and went back to Dorothy Simmons' file. He looked at the side of her face for one more second. Then he went back to work. The call with the land trust organization happened 3 days later. It lasted 2 hours.
The director, a man named Ezra Washington, who had the particular quality of having spent 30 years doing work that mattered and being genuinely non-performatively humble about it, asked Marcus direct questions and listened to direct answers. And at the end said it thought that Renata's door could serve as the operational anchor for the Atlanta regional hub with federal backing and a budget that would let Marcus hire staff within 6 months. Marcus said he'd think about it. He thought about it for 2 days. He talked to DeShawn, who was 10 now, and had opinions about everything, and delivered them with the confidence of a child who had been raised by a man who took his opinions seriously.
DeShawn said, "Dad, you literally built that office for this. Why are you thinking about it?" Marcus had no good answer for that. He called Ezra Washington back on a Thursday morning and said yes. DeShawn was at school when Marcus made that call.
When he picked him up that afternoon and told him, DeShawn looked at him from the passenger seat with those serious eyes and said, "Is it named after Mom?" "Yes," Marcus said. DeShawn was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "She would like that." "Yeah," Marcus said, "she would."
DeShawn looked out the window. Then he looked back. "Can I come help on Saturdays?" Marcus looked at his son, 10 years old, extra books in his backpack, Sun painted on the office sign, his mother's eyes looking back at him from his father's seriousness. "Yeah," Marcus said, "you can come help on Saturdays."