On the drive back, Mara said she was glad her mother had not appeared as an all-knowing heroine in the documents.
“She was trying,” Mara said.
“That seems more real than somebody who never made mistakes.”
I thought of my father’s unfinished letter and agreed.
The history we were collecting contained ordinary adults making choices under pressure.
Some choices had helped children.
Others had harmed them.
The distinction mattered more than giving everyone a clean role in a story.
CHAPTER 27: The Public Meeting
The city held a hearing about preserving the historical character of the Mercer Street building.
Some residents wanted the site recognized as a place connected to past failures in child welfare oversight.
Others feared that highlighting the history would attract tourists who treated suffering as entertainment.
The nonprofit’s director invited Mara and other former residents to review any proposed interpretation.
At the hearing, a developer argued that the building should be marketed primarily for its architecture.
A volunteer countered that ignoring the history would repeat the old habit of placing institutional reputation above the people who lived there.
A woman from the neighborhood asked why outsiders were discussing events they had not experienced.
Mara stepped to the microphone and answered without raising her voice.
“We are discussing them because the records were kept by institutions that no longer exist,” she said.
“The people who lived through those years have a right to decide how the building remembers them.”
Several former residents declined to speak, and the chair respected their decision.
A young journalist asked Mara whether she was prepared to accuse her father of criminal wrongdoing.
Mara said the hearing concerned the building’s preservation and would not be turned into a trial of her family.
I watched the journalist lower his notebook.
Afterward, a woman approached me and asked whether my divorce was connected to Richard’s past.
I told her my private life was not an exhibit.
She apologized and walked away.
I had once wished the entire town could see Richard lose his smile.
That wish had grown from pain, and I did not blame myself for feeling it.
But standing in that hall, I saw how quickly a crowd could convert other people’s wounds into conversation.
The council voted to postpone the designation until former residents had reviewed the exhibit plan.
The delay disappointed some volunteers who wanted immediate recognition.
Mara said it was the first institutional decision she had seen that put the affected people ahead of a deadline.
