The crowd cheers, because this town cheers for everything.
I scan the crowd while the mayor talks through the history of the waterfront, the decades of deferred maintenance, the north extension that got shelved in the nineties. He covers what the piers mean to the working families of this town, to the fishing operations, to the seasonal business, to the soul of a community that has always understood itself by its relationship with the water.
And then my gaze finds them. Dad in his good jacket, standing just back from the third row on the left side, with his arm around Mom's shoulders and that particular look on his face he gets at the high school graduation ceremonies, like he's working very hard at holding himself together and is not quite succeeding. Mom's head is tucked into his shoulder and she's smiling at me. It's the real one, the one that reaches her amber eyes and makes her tusks catch the light.
The mayor announces that the revitalized project will be built by a local company employing Saltford Bay workers, and Dad raises one hand to the crowd in acknowledgment when the mayor says the name of his company. He's grinning like a fool and I love him for it, so much I have to look at the covered plaque for a second because otherwise I'm going to be ridiculous in public.
I concentrate on the mayor as he moves next to the covered plaque and turns to the crowd with a dramatic flourish of his hand.
"All this is made possible by a generous donation from a private donor whose contributions to this town are too numerous to list here." He turns to Demetrius and Agatha and his smile is wide and bright. "Would you like to do the honors, Mrs. Thornwood?"
Demetrius moves around to the front of the chair and crouches beside it, which puts him more or less at Agatha's eye level, and says something quiet to her. She listens, then shakes her head once. He says something else. She puts her hand on the armrest of the chair and gives him a look that would send lesser beings running.
He straightens and steps back, defeated. Agatha grips the armrests, and then she's on her feet.
I take one small step in her direction, but then she cuts me a glance that stops me where I am. Since I have survival instincts, I stay put and watch, doing math in my head about how fast I could actually get to her if this goes sideways.
She walks the three steps to the ribbon on her own, which takes about four times longer than it should and is also the most dignified thing I have seen in my life. Someone in the crowd applauds, and then all of them do, because Saltford Bay knows how to recognize stubbornness when it sees it and loves it unreservedly.
Agatha takes the scissors from the mayor. She looks at the covered plaque, and there's something in her face in that moment that's not for the crowd and not for the cameras; it's for herself and for the particular weight of a very old love.
She cuts the ribbon.
Two volunteers lift the fabric from the plaque and the morning light catches the letters cut into the stone.
Cornelius Thornwood.
I look at Demetrius.
He's watching his grandmother at the ribbon, and his face is still and serious and he has no idea I'm looking at him.
The crowd is applauding. Dad has both arms around Mom now and his chin is tucked over the top of her head and his eyes are closed. I know what this means for him. It's his salvation and his dignity, right in one neat little package.
He will care for his family through his hard work once more, like he always did.
And all thanks to Demetrius Thornwood. My ribcage does something complicated. I look at Agatha, who is looking at the letters carved into the stone with her chin lifted and her eyes bright with unshed tears.
All this. All these people. Made happy by the man I believed a heartless jerk for decades.
Then the mayor is at the microphone again, announcing refreshments courtesy of the Knitters Club, and the crowd starts to move, and the moment dissolves into noise and motion.
I stay where I am.
Agatha lowers herself back into the wheelchair with the assistance of a Knitters Club member who appears to have materialized specifically for the purpose. Agatha says something to her that makes the woman laugh, and then the elderly minotaur is being wheeled off toward the mayor, who looks at her like an overeager puppy.
Footsteps stop beside me on the cobblestones.
"The mayor looks like he's about to ask her for advice," I say without looking back at him. Or more like cranking my neck until it snaps to look up at him.
"He has no idea what he's invited into his life."
"No," Demetrius says. "He doesn't, but give him about four minutes and he's going to beg for mercy."
He says it with the flat certainty of long experience, and the laugh comes out of me small and involuntary.
"Jeez, I can't even wrap my head around how much a project like that costs," I say, and I tip my head to look at him. He's looking back at me with an expression I can't name. "And you just gave that money away?"
"I did."
