CHAPTER 208: Four Point Two Million

POV: Selene Castellano

The board approved the legal aid clinic’s full funding in eleven minutes.

No debate or pushback. It was just Nadia’s proposal, the number attached to it, and Daniel Frost — who had spent two years being the board’s most reliable sceptic — saying simply: “Approved. Move fast on hiring.”

Selene sat in the corner with Elena asleep against her chest and watched something click into place that had taken two years to build toward.

“That’s it,” she said to Avalon afterwards, still slightly stunned by how quickly it had happened. 

“That’s what happens when the case makes itself,” he said. “Your father-in-law made the case thirty years ago. We just had to activate it.”

Nadia hired the first two attorneys within three weeks — a woman named Priya Chandra who had spent a decade doing housing rights work in Oakland, and a younger attorney named Marcus Webb’s nephew, oddly enough. However, no relation was ever discussed beyond coincidence.

The clinic opened in a small office two doors down from the foundation, painted the same warm neutral as everything else Maya had touched, with a small plaque by the door that read: Riverside Legal Aid — In memory of Jonathan Pierce.

Rosa Gutierrez was the first client, she wanted to be the first name in the intake log, the same way she’d wanted to be the one holding the scissors at the ribbon cutting.

“Someone should be first,” she told Selene. “It might as well be me.”

Kevin Walsh’s forty-two young people became forty-seven that autumn, the clinic helping three families navigate eviction proceedings that would have otherwise ended badly, and Susan Park’s organisation—now under new leadership since her arrest—began referring cases directly.

Selene stood at the intake desk on the clinic’s first Friday and watched Priya Chandra explain someone’s rights to them in plain, patient language, and felt something settle that had nothing to do with numbers or governance structures.

Just people, getting help.

Exactly what Jonathan Pierce had written the letter for.

That evening, at home, Avalon found her sitting on the nursery floor with Elena, who had recently discovered she could pull herself into a sitting position and was extremely proud of this development.

“She did it again,” Selene said. “Four times today.”

“Show me,” he said, sitting down beside them.

Elena, on cue, gripped the edge of the play mat and hauled herself upright, wobbling slightly, then looked at both of them with an expression of profound self-satisfaction.

“There it is,” Avalon said. “Nene’s expression.”

“She knows she did something impressive,” Selene said.

“She did do something impressive,” Avalon said.

Elena, apparently agreeing, made a triumphant sound and immediately fell over sideways, unbothered.

Selene laughed and Avalon watched her do it with the specific quiet joy he still hadn’t stopped feeling every time.

“The clinic opened,” she said. “Officially. Rosa was the first client.”

“I heard,” he said. “James told me.”

“Your father would have—” she started.

“I know,” he said. “I think about that every day now. Not with grief, just awareness. He’s part of all of this even though he never got to see it.”

Selene reached for his hand.

“He’s seeing it now,” she said. “However, that works. Wherever that is.”

Avalon looked at Elena, who had righted herself and was now examining her own hand with great interest.

“I hope so,” he said.

Maya went into labour three weeks later, in November, on a Tuesday afternoon that started completely ordinarily and ended with a phone call that had Selene sprinting out of the foundation office before Amara had finished saying “go.”