Chapter 6 - Permission to Remember
The association's files didn't become mine again because I'd found something important. Celia made that clear when she agreed to meet me in a public conference room the next morning.
"Your suspension stands," she said. "We will accept material from your family with a signed deposit agreement. You will not decide what is public."
Gabe sat beside me. I had asked him to come, and this time he had said yes without sounding as if he were doing me a favor.
We provided copies of Mom's unmailed letter and notebook index. We retained the originals. Celia arranged for an archivist unaffiliated with Mercer to review the chain of custody. I was asked to prepare a statement about my photograph and the damage it had caused Ruth's family.
"I can do that," I said.
"Then do it without using a widow's name."
The board's secretary, Franklin Hale, joined halfway through. He wore a wrinkled tie and smelled of peppermint gum. His hands trembled as he set down a thin file.
"Ruth's correction was sent to the exhibit committee," he said. "I wrote the margin note."
I felt Gabe straighten.
"Mercer told you not to change it?" I asked.
"No. He asked whether she remembered the man's rank. I said she didn't. He said the oral history should not contradict the citation until there was a formal correction. I wrote 'reviewed' because it had been reviewed. I failed to record her actual objection."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want the opening delayed. We'd promised hundreds of families an exhibit. Mercer brought donors and veterans in. He'd helped us keep the doors open when our old building flooded. I thought I was protecting the project."
"Will you correct the minutes?" Gabe asked.
Franklin hesitated. "I can write a dated memorandum explaining the error. I won't change the old record as if I got it right then."
Celia said the board would postpone the exhibit until it had an independent timeline. She couldn't promise anything about Mercer's military decoration: that was a separate Army process, with its own standards and records. But she could promise that the association would stop presenting one man's recollection as the uncontested account.
Outside, Gabe sat on the steps and rubbed his forehead.
"Mom would hate how many meetings this takes," he said.
"She'd fix the coffee machine so everyone would stop complaining."
He gave a reluctant laugh. Then he reached into his pocket and handed me a tiny folded note from her cabinet. He hadn't shown it to the archivist because he wasn't ready.
It was a recipe card in Mom's handwriting. On one side she had listed ingredients for peach cobbler. On the other: Caleb knows I didn't reach the steps alone. Ask him why he stopped speaking.
"Did you know about this?" I asked.
"I found it after you left the house. I was going to throw it away. It felt like one more clue for you to chase instead of a note from Mom."
"I won't call him without asking."
"I know," Gabe said. And the words sounded like something he'd been trying to say for years.
We drove together to Caleb Dunn's rehabilitation clinic, where he volunteered twice a week fitting old wheelchairs with new brakes. We didn't go inside. We left a letter at the desk explaining who we were, what the archive review was doing, and that no response was necessary.
Two days passed.
Then Celia called with a question I hadn't anticipated.
"Caleb has agreed to speak," she said, "but he wants both you and Colonel Mercer present. He says he has spent fifteen years talking to people who only heard half his account."
I sat at the kitchen table, holding the silent phone.
"Will Mercer come?" I asked.
"He says yes."
May you like
There was a long pause.
"Nora," Celia said, "Caleb also asked us to bring the photograph of your mother. He says she was the one who told him to remember the second trip."
