Your jaw is tight, Marcus. Let's go. How many people are there? A few. Marcus.
Olivia. Let's go. She looked at him for a long moment with those direct, perceptive eyes. Then she pulled her door shut behind her. They crossed the street.
Marcus pushed open the gate to the Henderson backyard and Olivia stopped walking. She stopped completely. One hand came up and touched the gate post and she stood there and looked at what was in front of her. The 37 people, the tables, the banner. Ava had painted Mrs. Patterson already moving toward her with open arms and the expression of warm, uncomplicated love, and Marcus heard her breath leave her body in one long, quiet exhale.
"Marcus," she said. Her voice was barely there. "You said small. This is small, he said. For what you've given this neighborhood.
She turned to look at him. Her eyes were wet and her jaw was set. And she was doing the thing he had come to know, holding herself together with both hands, refusing to come apart in front of people. I told you, she said low and fierce. I don't want to be a charity case.
Look around, he said. Does this look like charity to you? She turned back. Mrs. Patterson had reached her now and wrapped her in a hug that Olivia received stiffly for approximately 2 seconds before something in her gave and her arms came up and she held on. Over Mrs. Patterson's shoulder, her eyes found Marcus.
He held her gaze. He saw the exact moment she stopped fighting it. What happened next was not what Marcus had planned. He had planned for a fundraiser for neighbors writing checks and sharing stories and building collectively a financial floor under a woman who had spent years being the floor for everyone else. What actually happened was something older and more essential than a fundraiser.
One by one, people came to Olivia. Not to hand her money, though. Money was collected, and it was significant. And Darius was keeping track of it in a spreadsheet on his phone with the focused efficiency of a man who had spent 12 years in corporate finance and considered this the most meaningful use of that skill he'd ever made. People came to tell her things.