CHAPTER 157: James's Daughter

POV: Avalon Pierce

Her name was Nadia. She was a twenty-eight-year-old, James’s daughter, and had been living in London for four years. She had walked into the foundation’s office with the bright, urgent energy of a person who had wondered about a place from a distance for a long time and had finally arrived to test her imagination against the reality of it.

She took a quick scan of the space. The whiteboard, the messy desks, Maya’s characteristic visual language-she’d daubed it on every available surface.

“It’s…smaller than I thought,” she said.

“Most real things are,” Selene said.

Nadia looked up at her. “Dad said you’d say something exactly like that.”

“What else did he say?” Selene asked.

“He said you’re the person the foundation works for and  he said that you’d probably deny that.”

“I do,” Selene said.

“He said you would,” Nadia confirmed. “He said he wants me to tell you that disagreeing with it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Selene exchanged a glance with James.

James looked at the coffee he was holding. “I’m going to check the land trust timeline,” he said, and excused himself from the room.

Nadia stayed for the next two hours. She asked all the questions she’d carried with her from London for the past four years and that she’d now gotten an opportunity to air.

Questions about the displacement bonds, the acknowledgment. The oversight committee, Grace Kim’s stability framework. Darius. Marcus. Kevin Walsh’s forty-two young people. Evelyn Walsh’s critique of the about page photo-a critique Selene still hadn’t addressed and that Nadia conceded was very fair.

“What are you doing in London?” Avalon asked, as Nadia stood to leave.

“Corporate law,” she said. “Big firm, big paychecks. And work that’s making me increasingly disconnected from everything that feels meaningful.”

“And,” Selene interjected.

Nadia met her gaze.

“There’s an and,” Selene prompted. “You said it like there’s an and there.”

“And I’m beginning to question whether this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Nadia said.

“What would you do instead?” Avalon asked.

“Something like this,” she said, gesturing at the office. “Something focused on the community, on accountability. Something where I could actually see Darius.”

“See Darius?” Selene repeated.

“See the actual person,” Nadia said. “Not the case file. Not the legal theory. The person.”

Selene looked up at Avalon. He looked back.

“Talk to Amara before you leave,” Selene said. “She’s in the process of putting together the year three team. We need a person for legal structure.”

Nadia blinked at her. “I live in London.”

“London has limitations,” Selene said. “San Francisco does not.”

“You can’t just-”

“I am not offering you a job,” Selene said firmly. “I am instructing you to speak with Amara. What you do after that is entirely up to you.”

Nadia was silent for a beat. “Okay,” she finally said. “I will talk to Amara.”

Just then, James appeared in the doorway, leaning against it with one hand resting on the wood. He looked at his daughter, then at Selene. “What did you do?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Selene replied, unblinking. “I just told her to talk to Amara.”

James eyed Nadia. She shrugged. “She’s very convincing,” Nadia explained.

“She is very…something,” James conceded.

After the meeting, as they walked towards the car, Avalon said, “You just tried to hire James’s daughter.”

“I didn’t hire anyone,” Selene corrected. “I told her to talk to Amara.”

“You know what will happen when she talks to Amara.”

“Amara will offer her a role on the year three legal structure team, which we desperately need and Nadia will accept, because London is suffocating her and she felt instantly alive walking into that office.”

“You picked up all that in two hours?” Avalon asked.

“I picked up all that the way she said his name-Darius,” Selene said. “She said it like it mattered. Like it represented a human being, not a data point.” She met Avalon’s eyes. “That’s all of it, right there. That’s the only piece of information I needed.”

He looked at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. “You’re extraordinary.”

“You keep saying that,” she replied.

“I keep meaning it,” he said.

She opened the car door. He slid into the driver’s seat.

“Sequencing feelings,” she mused.

“I’m executing this feeling immediately. You’re extraordinary. No sequencing necessary.”

Avalon watched the look that flashed across her face-that rare, unself-conscious soften that always appeared when she was caught by something she hadn’t anticipated. “Drive,” she said.

He put the car into gear.

At nine that evening, Avalon’s phone pinged. It was a text from James: Nadia spoke to Amara for 90 minutes.

She’s flying to London Thursday to resign. Then,: I have yet to decide if I should thank you or be enraged.

Avalon showed Selene the message before he could reply himself, her fingers flew across his phone screen. Both are In that order.

James responded with a single word.

Fair.