Why hadn’t she planned better?
Why had every problem become mine the moment the hospital called to tell me she was gone?
Then I had felt guilty for thinking any of it.
Now, sitting in the Meridian archive, I realized my mother had probably asked herself the same questions for most of her life.
“You okay?” Mara asked.
I nodded.
Then shook my head.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s allowed.”
I read the last page.
Eleanor and I agreed that the stewardship seat would remain dormant until the theater reopened.
If that day came after I was gone, the choice would become yours.
Not because you owe me.
Not because you owe Eleanor.
And certainly not because you owe the Voss family.
You owe none of us anything.
Listen.
Ask questions.
Then decide what kind of place you believe should exist in the city where you live.
One more thing.
Do not let being broke make you think your judgment is for sale.
People with money are often very good at mistaking financial security for wisdom.
People without money sometimes make the opposite mistake and believe needing help means they have surrendered the right to say no.
Both are wrong.
Make your decision standing up.
Love,
Mom
P.S. If Harlan still scowls when he thinks, tell him his mother spent eighteen years trying to make him stop.
I lowered the letter.
Mara burst out laughing.
Harlan stared at the ceiling.
“I do not scowl.”
“You absolutely scowl,” Mara said.
I laughed too.
It surprised me.
Three days earlier I had been terrified of Harlan Voss.
Now I was sitting in an old theater with his sister, holding a letter from my dead mother while the terrifying man in question argued that his face had been misrepresented.
Life was strange.
Then I remembered the vote.
My smile disappeared.
“What are you asking permission to do?”
Harlan walked to the table.
He opened a different folder.
Architectural plans.
Financial projections.
Operating budgets.
Nothing I understood at first glance.
“The Meridian cannot survive as a traditional theater,” he said.
“That sounds like the beginning of a sentence my mother would hate.”
“Probably.”
“What’s the rest?”
“We are converting the upper floors into event and rehearsal spaces. The theater stays. The community rooms stay. We add conference facilities, private rentals, and commercial space on the western side.”
“Commercial meaning?”
“Two restaurants. Offices. Possibly a hotel partner later.”
I stared at him.
“So your plan is to save the neighborhood theater by turning part of it into something the neighborhood can’t afford?”
“That is one interpretation.”
“It’s mine.”
“I gathered.”
Mara sat back.
Harlan pulled out a chair.
He did not sit behind the desk.
He sat across from me.
“The alternative is permanent subsidy,” he said. “Which means the building remains dependent on the Voss family or another donor deciding every year that it deserves to exist.”
“And you don’t want that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother built something she believed belonged to Detroit. I don’t want Belle inheriting a building everyone calls public while privately hoping she remains rich enough to keep the lights on.”
That was the first thing he said about the project that made complete sense to me.
Still, I shook my head.
“I need time.”
“You have eight days.”
“I need information.”
“I’ll provide anything you ask for.”
“I don’t want your summary.”
A pause.
Then Harlan nodded.
“All source documents.”
“Yes.”
“Independent financial review?”
“Yes.”
“Community feedback from the last two years?”
“Yes.”
“Meeting notes?”
“Everything.”
“You’ll have it.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re making this too easy.”
“I’m trying not to make it difficult.”
“That sounds like something a difficult person says.”
Mara laughed again.
Harlan ignored her.
“There is one condition.”
I stiffened.
There it was.
“Which is?”
“You read before you decide.”
I blinked.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I almost felt cheated.
The next seven days were the strangest of my life.
I worked at the diner from six in the morning until two.
Then I went to the public library.
Then the Meridian.
Then home.
Tasha created a spreadsheet because, according to her, watching me interpret financial documents was “an attack on mathematics.”
Mara introduced me to longtime theater employees.
Harlan stayed mostly out of my way.
That surprised me more than anything.
When I asked a question, he answered.
When he did not know, he said so.
When I disagreed, he did not turn the disagreement into a contest.
