Chapter 7 - A Brick Wrapped in My Mother's Promise
Patrice reached the bakery five minutes after the alarm company called her. She arrived in slippers, a winter parka and a hair scarf, carrying the enormous flashlight she kept beside her bed.
"Nobody's inside?" she asked.
"Nobody," I said. "Police checked."
She surveyed the broken window. "Then we can fix glass."
I was sitting in Camille's car, wrapped in a blanket after another precautionary medical check. The baby was moving normally. I had been told to rest, and for once I intended to listen.
A responding officer photographed the brick and the page wrapped around it. Andre supplied a nearby security camera's footage. It showed a person in a hood approaching from the alley, throwing the brick, then running toward a gray sedan. The license plate was obscured by snow.
"We don't know who did it," Laila reminded me when I called her. "The timing and document are important. Let the investigators work."
I looked at the red and green paper garlands swinging above our pastry case. We had spent three late nights decorating the bakery so the children from the neighboring elementary school could visit before break. Now the front window looked like a mouth with a missing tooth.
By morning, three nearby businesses had offered plywood, tape, or help cleaning up. Mr. Washington from the barber shop showed up with a push broom. Mrs. Alvarez from the florist brought hot coffee. Neither asked for a photograph with me.
A woman from a local television station did.
"Would you pose with your daughter in front of the window?" she asked. "It's a very powerful visual."
"No," I said. "Zora doesn't need to stand beside a brick someone threw at her mother's business. You can photograph the damage without her."
The reporter seemed embarrassed. She put away her camera and stayed long enough to hear why the old Winter Table kitchen mattered to the neighborhood.
At noon, Laila received notice that Cross Community Logistics had filed a claim alleging Carter's Table was spreading defamatory accusations. Priscilla's publicist released a statement about her lifelong dedication to equality and showed a photograph of her beside a group of Black scholarship recipients.
Tasha read it at our office table and pushed the page away.
"She doesn't get to display Imani as evidence that she treats us right," she said. "My daughter is a person. She's not a receipt."
"Will you still speak to investigators?" I asked.
"Yes. And I'm applying for unemployment while my lawyer contests the suspension. I will not let that woman turn a scholarship into a leash."
Tasha opened the school award letter and pointed to the fine print. The scholarship was worth eight hundred dollars toward a summer science program. The sponsor could withdraw future funding, but the money already paid to the school was supposed to be administered independently. Her lawyer had asked the school to confirm that in writing. "Imani thinks she did something wrong by telling the officer where she was," Tasha said. "She asked if the telescope they promised her class would have to go back." I looked through the bakery window at our children arranging paper stars on the counter. "Tell her grown-ups can fight about contracts without making her responsible for the outcome," I said. Tasha nodded. "I'm trying to believe that myself."
Patrice scheduled Tasha's interview for a paid seasonal opening in our kitchen. We needed her experience, but Patrice refused to mix the job offer with her testimony. Tasha deserved to choose both independently.
Micah called that afternoon asking to see Zora. I said future visits needed to be arranged through the appropriate process, with Zora's comfort and safety at the center. I did not tell her he had called until I had a plan that could be explained simply.
"She's my child too," he said.
"Then why was she locked up while you served champagne?"
He was quiet.
"I heard your voice on the recording, Micah."
"Vail told me it was a supervised room."
"You can tell your lawyer. I'm not doing this argument again."
After I hung up, Camille sat beside me on the sofa.
"You sound tired."
"I am. I still have payroll on Friday."
"I can help with numbers."
"No, you have hospital shifts."
"I didn't offer to take over your life. I offered to check a spreadsheet."
We laughed, and for the first time all week it didn't feel inappropriate.
That evening Isaiah brought a copied map from the old kitchen archive.
After the repair crew left, I asked Patrice to review the emergency exit plan with everyone on the next shift. We moved the morning pickup table away from the plywood and showed employees where the temporary entrance would remain clear. Malcolm suggested writing the instructions in Spanish as well as English for two seasonal bakers. It was ordinary workplace planning, not a headline, but the bakery felt steadier when everybody knew exactly what to do. It showed a narrow corridor behind the bakery oven leading to a former loading bay beneath Mercer Street. Several hand-drawn arrows marked water pipes and electrical lines. One arrow pointed toward a small room labeled CHILDREN'S TABLE.
"This room isn't on the hotel's current floor plans," he said. "It was boarded up when they built the valet garage."
Laila studied the map. "This may be relevant to the community-use agreement, but access has to be coordinated through the records custodian and property owner."
"Why did Mom draw a second room?" I asked.
Isaiah's face changed. "She said she wanted a place where children could come in from the street without passing through the hotel lobby. She didn't want anybody deciding they looked wrong for the front door."
I remembered her saying something similar when I was young. Back then I thought it meant an extra dining room. Now I understood it as an act of defiance.
Patrice came in holding a folded newspaper she had found behind the plywood. Someone had pushed it through the gap.
The article was dated December 1994. It described Leah's first Christmas dinner, the original agreement, and a photograph of the land trust's trustees.
I recognized Mom and Isaiah.
The third person was a white man with Graham Vail's face, only younger.
The caption identified him as Priscilla Cross's late father, Arthur Cross.
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Underneath, someone had scrawled:
ASK WHO LOCKED THE FIRST CHILD OUT.
