Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Last Visit Before Monday
On Sunday afternoon, Owen came to my house carrying a small paper bag.
He had brought a replacement latch for the garden gate that Vivian damaged during her first confrontation with me.
I told him the carpenter had already repaired it.
Owen laughed and said he had purchased the latch before asking.
We sat on the porch and drank tea while the afternoon traffic passed.
He asked whether I was nervous about the final inspection.
I said I was nervous about what would happen after it.
For months the investigation had given every day a clear purpose.
There had always been another witness to contact or another question to ask.
Soon the report would be finished, and I would have to live with what it could not answer.
Owen said he understood.
He had spent years treating the arena as an unfinished argument with the town.
Now he was beginning to imagine a week without visiting it.
I asked whether he thought the building should be preserved.
He said the walls had never been the important part.
The important part was whether people would remember the choices that made the corridor dangerous.
A woman walking her dog stopped at the sidewalk.
She introduced herself as the mother of a child who had attended the carnival but escaped without injury.
She said her daughter had refused to discuss that night for years.
After reading about the investigation, the daughter had finally described being guided outside by an older boy.
The mother believed the boy might have been Daniel.
I asked whether she wanted to give Priya a statement.
She said her daughter was considering it but did not want strangers calling her.
I gave the woman Priya’s office number and told her there was no obligation to speak publicly.
She thanked me and continued down the street.
Owen watched her disappear around the corner.
He said the investigation had opened doors for people who had been silent for reasons unrelated to guilt.
Some had been frightened, and others had simply wanted to forget.
I said the difference mattered.
Owen nodded.
Then he asked whether I was going to keep the blue file after the report was released.
I said I would preserve the materials that belonged to the families and let the archivist keep copies of the public records.
He asked what I would do with the photographs of my damaged house.
I told him I would keep those until Vivian’s case was fully resolved.
Afterward I might put them away.
The damage was part of what happened, but I did not want it to become the only thing I saw when I looked at my home.
Owen stood and picked up the unused latch.
He said he could return it to the hardware store.
I asked him to leave it with me instead.
There was a loose hinge on the shed that I had been meaning to fix.
He placed the bag beside the porch chair.
When he left, I carried it to the shed and found my screwdriver.
The repair took fifteen minutes.
I tested the hinge twice and watched the door close smoothly.
Then I went back inside to prepare for the meeting.
