Walter asked Peter to meet him in the library garden the day before the hearing.
Peter agreed only after Walter promised that the conversation would not become part of a publicity campaign.
Nora waited inside with Daniel because neither man wanted an audience.
Through the glass, she could see Walter sitting on a bench while Peter remained standing.
They spoke for nearly twenty minutes.
At one point, Walter covered his face with his uninjured hand.
Peter turned away and stared toward the bare trees.
Nora could not hear their words and made no attempt to guess them.
When Peter entered the library,
he asked for a glass of water.
Daniel fetched it while Nora cleared a place at the table.
Peter said that Walter had finally acknowledged something important.
On the morning of the accident, Peter had warned that the scenery frame could not safely be moved through the narrow opening.
Walter had told the crew to solve the problem before the audience arrived.
He had not ordered anyone to remove the support.
He had nevertheless created a situation in which the workers believed delaying the rehearsal would cost them their jobs.
Peter said that Walter had spent years hiding behind the distinction between an explicit order and an impossible demand.
Nora asked what Walter had said when Peter described that difference.
Peter answered that he had stopped defending himself.
Daniel looked down at the table.
Peter said that he did not know whether the conversation changed his feelings toward Walter.
He did know that he no longer needed Walter to repeat the same polished explanation at every public meeting.
Walter entered a few minutes later with his face pale from the cold.
He asked whether Peter wanted him to leave.
Peter said that the library belonged to everyone.
Walter sat at the far end of the table without speaking.
Daniel placed a cup of tea beside his father.
Nora returned to the circulation desk, where a librarian was sorting returned books.
She had once imagined that a confession would arrive with dramatic certainty and settle every argument.
Instead, the truth had left four people sitting in a quiet room, each unsure what to do next.
The librarian asked whether she needed help finding a book.
Nora said that she was looking for the community room schedule.
There was still a rehearsal to organize before the hearing.
CHAPTER TEN S: THE UNSIGNED PLAN
