Chapter 24: Her Side of the Table

The first steel column went up on the West Side at eight in the morning, in thin gold light.

It was thirty feet of orange-painted beam, hanging from a crane over the pit where the widow and I had dug in the first spade.

Workers in hard hats stood in a ring around the base.

Dee was there in her Mets jacket with a paper cup of coffee in each hand, because she had come straight off the night shift.

Rhys stood beside her in a clean blazer for the first time since I had known him.

The widow had a folding chair on the sidewalk side of the fence, and a thermos.

"You're late," she said.

"It's eight."

"You're late for me. I get up at five."

I crouched beside her and took her hand.

"Your husband's name goes up on the ground-floor wall on Monday," I said. "I checked the letters myself."

"Good." She looked up at the beam, and her chin trembled once. "He'd have wanted to see this."

"He's standing right here."

"Don't be sentimental, dear."

She squeezed my fingers hard.

Byron stood at a folding table in the middle of the ring.

He wore a hard hat and his shirtsleeves, with no tie, and a thick binder lay open in front of him.

Two chairs faced each other across the table.

One was on his side, and one was on mine.

"Natasha," he said, and pulled out my chair.

I looked at it.

"I'll sit," I said. "I'll pull it out myself."

He smiled, and stepped back.

I sat down across from him and pulled the chair in.

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