Chapter 8 - A Table of My Own
The sideboard cost seventy-five dollars and required three people to move.
Daniel was one of them.
Naomi was another.
I supervised until Naomi pointed at the lighter end and told me restoration experts were allowed to carry furniture.
We ate takeout afterward on overturned crates.
Daniel had brought paper plates.
Naomi called him a visionary.
He worked at The Alder Room four nights a week and taught music lessons during the day. He had an eight-year-old niece who believed he was famous because he once played piano on local television.
He didn’t ask about the hearing.
He asked how I knew a piece was worth saving.
“Construction,” I said. “Materials. Whether the damage reaches the frame.”
“And if it does?”
“Sometimes you rebuild the frame.”
He nodded as though that answer applied only to furniture.
I appreciated him for that.
Over the next month, my life widened in small increments.
A customer recommended me to a designer.
The designer commissioned six chairs.
I started sleeping through the night twice a week.
Lila came to the garage on Saturdays.
At first, she only brought coffee.
Then she asked whether she could help.
I handed her a drawer pull and a cloth.
We worked in silence.
On the third Saturday, she said she had spoken formally about the document.
“I told them I didn’t witness your signature.”
I kept polishing.
“Thank you for telling the truth.”
“I should have done it earlier.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
We were learning how to have conversations that didn’t end with me making her feel better.
Meanwhile, the accounting grew clearer.
There was money left, though less than there should have been.
There were losses, improper distributions, fees, and records that raised more questions about Warren and Sloane.
Tessa brought in an accountant who built a timeline stretching across my childhood.
Reading it felt like seeing a second version of my life laid beneath the first.
At fifteen, I had been told there was no money for summer camp.
That month, trust funds helped cover renovations to my parents’ house.
At nineteen, I had borrowed for tuition.
That year, distributions supported expenses that had never benefited me.
I stopped reading before the end.
Tessa didn’t push.
“We can take breaks,” she said.
I began seeing a therapist.
During our second session, she asked what I feared would happen if I stopped being useful.
The answer came before I could disguise it.
“People would stop letting me stay.”
Saying it aloud changed something.
Not immediately.
Not completely.
But the next time a customer asked for a large discount because the work was “mostly sanding,” I gave him my price again.
The next time Celeste called, I let the phone ring.
The next time Daniel asked me to dinner, I said yes.
We ate tacos on a patio beneath strings of lights.
When the server brought the check, my body tightened before I could stop it.
Daniel noticed.
“Would you like separate checks?”
The question was so ordinary I nearly cried.
“I’d like that.”
“Okay.”
No teasing.
No performance.
Just okay.
Later, walking to my car, he asked if he could kiss me.
I said yes to that too.
The following morning, Tessa called with a new settlement proposal.
This one included restitution backed by assets, a detailed accounting, and no demand that I publicly deny what had happened.
“It’s substantially different,” she said.
“What changed?”
“They understand we’re prepared to keep going.”
I looked around the garage.
June’s finished chair stood beside my desk.
The walnut sideboard gleamed against the wall.
May you like
For years, I had thought power meant making people afraid to leave.
Now it looked more like being able to choose.
