CHAPTER 155: Avalon and James

POV: Avalon Pierce

James called on a Wednesday and said: “Drinks tonight? No foundation or business discussion”

“What then,” Avalon said.

“Just drinks,” James said. “Two people and a bar requiring not a whiteboard.”

“I can do that,” Avalon said.

The bar was in Hayes Valley, small, the kind that had been there long enough to stop trying to be anything other than what it was.

They sat at the counter.

Ordered without deliberating.

“How’s the pregnancy?” James said.

“Twenty one weeks,” Avalon said. “She’s good. Selene’s good. We found out it’s a girl.”

“Name?”

“Elena.”

James was quiet for a moment.

“That’s right,” he said. “That’s exactly right.”

“Yes,” Avalon said.

They drank.

“My daughter called again,” James said. “She’s coming to San Francisco next month and wants to see the foundation.”

“Bring her,” Avalon said. “Selene would like that.”

“She asked about you actually,” James said. “She reads the foundation’s communications. She said  ‘he sounds like someone who learned something the hard way and is honest about it.”

Avalon looked at his glass.

“She’s perceptive,” he said.

“She got it from her mother,” James said. “I was always better at structures than at people.”

“You’re good at people now,” Avalon said.

“I’m better,” James said. He looked at his drink. “You know what the foundation taught me? More than the governance frameworks and the load paths and all of it.”

“Tell me.”

“That accountability isn’t punishment,” James said. “I spent two decades treating them as the same thing. Afraid of being accountable because I thought it meant being punished.” He paused. “Watching Selene tell twelve community partners that Pierce Holdings had caused them harm, watching her sit in that room and own it completely without collapsing changed something.”

“She didn’t collapse,” Avalon agreed.

“She got stronger,” James said. “Right in front of everyone. Like the honesty was load bearing.”

Avalon thought about that.

“I’m going to use that,” he said.

“Use it,” James said. “I’m done keeping good lines to myself. That’s another thing I’ve learned.”

They were on their second drink when James said: “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Yes,” Avalon said.

“The displacement bonds,” James said. “When you found out in March, what were you actually afraid of?”

Avalon was quiet for a moment.

“That she’d think the foundation was built on something false,” he said. “That everything she’d given to it would feel contaminated.”

“And instead?” James asked.

“Instead she was angrier at me than at history,” Avalon said. “She said the history was real and needed addressing. She was angry that I’d decided she couldn’t handle knowing it.”

“She could handle it,” James said.

“She could handle it better than I could,” Avalon said. “She walked into that room with the community partners and did what I couldn’t have done.”

“What’s that?”

“Made it human,” Avalon said. “Not corporate or legal but human. She talked about Kevin Walsh’s grandfather losing his house in 1983 and the whole room shifted.”

James nodded.

“She’s extraordinary,” he said. Not as a compliment exactly but more as a statement of observed fact.

“Yes,” Avalon said.

“And you almost kept that from happening,” James said. “By managing the information.”

“Yes,” Avalon said. “I did.”

“Good that you know that.”

“I know it,” Avalon said. “I’m still learning what to do knowing it.”

“That’s the work,” James said. “Knowing isn’t enough. The work is what you do after knowing.”

Avalon looked at him.

“You should write that down,” he said.

“I did,” James said. “Three months ago in the structural failure document.” He picked up his drink. “You should reread it.”

“I should,” Avalon agreed.

He got home at nine.

Selene was on the couch with a book, Elena is moving apparently, because she had her hand on her stomach with the focused expression she got when the baby was active.

“Good?” he said.

“She’s been kicking for twenty minutes,” Selene said. “I think she has opinions about the position I’m sitting in.”

“What position does she prefer?”

“A different one than this apparently.” She shifted slightly. “Better, she stopped.”

He sat beside her.

“How was James?” she asked.

“Good,” he said. “His daughter is coming next month and wants to see the foundation.”

“I’d like to meet her,” Selene said.

“I said that,” he said.

She went back to her book.

He sat beside her.

After a moment: “James said accountability isn’t punishment. That I’d been treating them as the same thing.”

Selene lowered her book.

“He said that?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s right.”

“I know,” Avalon said. “I’m still—”

“Learning,” she said. “I know.” She went back to her book. “You’re getting there.”

“Slowly,” he said.

“Then all at once,” she said, not looking up.

He smiled.