Chapter 24: Eleven Fifty-Two

On the ninth of June, a year to the day, I pushed a gold spade into a car park in Rotterdam.

It was a bright, windy afternoon with a crowd behind a rope.

The mayor said something in Dutch, and a man from the city translated.

Then the bronze plate was pulled off its stand, and I read it for the first time.

Rotterdam Courthouse. Design: Willa Prescott, with Rafe Ashworth.

Rafe stood a step behind me, in a dark suit, with his hands in his pockets.

He had insisted on the second line and on standing behind.

I turned around and kissed him in front of the mayor.

Someone whooped at the back of the crowd.

"That was Ollie," Sylvia said, appearing at my elbow in navy and pearls. "I did tell him it was a solemn occasion."

He came pelting through the rope at six years old, with a gap where his two front teeth should have been.

He crashed into my legs.

"Willa! I'm six today. Grandma said I could pick anywhere, and I picked here."

"Happy birthday, sweetheart."

"I brought you something." He dug in his rucksack and pulled out a creased sheet of paper. "It's a drawing."

I took it.

A big gray building. A tiny woman with brown hair standing in front of it. A tall man beside her with a very large wrench.

"It's you and the boiler man," Ollie said. "I did the building from the picture."

My eyes stung, and I let them.

"Thank you, Ollie. It's perfect."

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