On the first Saturday it opened, Lenora stood near the entrance wearing a simple green dress and watched children run across the same marble floor where she had fallen.
Mr. Wilson stood beside her, now promoted to director of estate security and community safety, though he still insisted on checking doors himself.
“You all right?” he asked.
Lenora watched a little boy slide in his socks until his grandmother scolded him.
“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”
“That floor owes you some better memories.”
She smiled. “It’s paying.”
The first birthday party held in the ballroom was for a girl named Amara who turned eight. Her mother, Tasha, had left an abusive marriage six months earlier with help from one of the foundation’s partner shelters. Amara wore a purple dress and a plastic tiara that kept slipping over one eye. She approached Lenora with the solemn courage of a child speaking to an adult she had decided was safe.
