"Friday," Eleanor said, sobering. "Whatever happens Thursday night, I need you rested and steady for Friday morning. Promise me that."
"I promise."
"Good." Eleanor settled back against her pillows. "Now go home. Get some sleep. And, Ren?"
She caught her hand once more before she could stand.
"Whatever you decide to tell that town Thursday night, tell it the way Danny would have wanted you to. Not for pity. Not for revenge. For the truth. He'd have wanted the truth told plain, same as you always do everything else. And remember what I've always told you. You don't need to win a room like that. You only need to hold on to who you are while you're standing in it."
Thursday evening, the Cedar Hollow Town Hall filled up faster than anyone on the council had expected.
Word had gotten around, the way word always does in a town this size. And by 6:45, every folding chair in the meeting room was full, latecomers lining the walls.
Marjorie stood near the back with her arms crossed, Earl beside her, still in his transit uniform, having come straight from his last route of the day. Norah sat in the second row, one hand resting on her stomach as always, David beside her, holding her other hand. Frank sat near the front, cane across his knees, phone already charged and ready in his coat pocket.
Ren sat in the row reserved for those the council had listed as involved parties. Hands folded in her lap, back straight, the trident charm resting against her collarbone, under her collar, where it always sat.
She had worn, that evening, the same plain blouse she wore most mornings to the bakery. Deliberately. Having decided, somewhere around midnight, that she would not walk into that room dressed as anyone other than exactly who this town had already met.
Whatever she told them tonight, she wanted them to understand it had been true the whole time. Underneath the flour, and the quiet mornings, and the two words she'd said to a boy on a bus.
Give it back.
Walter Colton sat across the aisle with a lawyer in an expensive suit, and Grant beside him. Arms still faintly bruised, though nothing had actually been damaged. Looking, for the first time since Monday, genuinely uncertain about how the evening was going to go.
The council chair, a soft-spoken woman named Diane Sorenson, called the meeting to order at 7 sharp.
Two other council members flanked her at the front table. An older man named Councilman Witmore, who kept glancing uneasily at Walter throughout the evening. And a younger woman, newly elected, who had clearly never presided over anything this tense in her short time on the council, and looked more than once like she wished she were anywhere else.
"We're here tonight," Diane said, "to hear a formal complaint brought by Councilman Walter Colton regarding an incident on Tuesday involving his son and Ms. Ren Hail, and to consider his request for a public transit restriction and related measures. I'll remind everyone in this room that we conduct these hearings with respect and patience, regardless of how strong feelings may run tonight. Councilman Colton, the floor is yours."