Angel, too, had moments of quiet. She found me in the conservatory one afternoon and did not bring up the trustee or the subpoenas. She handed me a file of mentor profiles and sat beside me like a person who needed to anchor another. “This is why we do it,” she said. “Not for headlines, not for men who make sport of our edges—because of this kid, and that tutor.” She tapped the faces in the binder gently. “If the world wants stories, give them the right ones.”
The subpoena hearing loomed as the true public test. Conley prepared like a man rehearsing for a tribunal. I prepared like an operations director who must answer questions that could decide donors’ trust. The board aligned. Angel organized a field visit for the morning after the hearing in case the press needed a counterpoint of fre
