Chapter 8 - The Reconstruction of Riverfront
The skin graft took on Thursday morning.
The surgeons at the burn center took a four-by-six-inch split-thickness sheet of epidermis from my left upper thigh, meshed it through a diamond roller to allow fluid drainage, and stapled it across the exposed thenar muscle of my right palm with forty-two stainless steel surgical clips.
For three weeks, my arm was immobilized in a molded plastic splint that held my wrist at a thirty-degree extension, my fingers splayed in what the physical therapists called the "position of function."
It was not a position of rest; it was a position of readiness.
By the second week of September, the heat had finally broken across the Piedmont. The morning air carried the crisp, dry scent of coming autumn—hickory leaves turning amber along the ridges, the river running clear and cold over the granite shoals below the downtown bridges.
At seven o'clock on a Tuesday morning, I stood on the fifth-floor deck of the Riverfront Heights parking structure.
I wore steel-toed work boots, heavy denim jeans, a high-visibility yellow vest over my canvas jacket, and a white hard hat with the green logo of Vance Infrastructure Partners stamped across the front. My right hand was out of the splint, wrapped in a compression glove of black elastic that supported the newly healed pink graft tissue, allowing me to grip a laser distance meter with my thumb and forefinger.
Around me, forty ironworkers from Local 843 were moving with the smooth, rhythmic precision of a veteran crew.
The roar of twin diesel hydraulic drills vibrated through the floorboards as they bored twenty-inch holes through Daniel’s substandard concrete, preparing to drop eighty-foot micro-piles directly into the crystalline granite bedrock thirty feet below the riverbed.
Frank Miller walked up the ramp, carrying two large thermoses of black coffee from a diner on Pendleton Street.
He handed one to me with his left hand, looking at my compression glove.
"How’s the grip today, boss?" Frank asked.
I took the thermos with my right hand, feeling the muscles of my forearm contract against the tight elastic. The skin pulled, hot and stiff, a persistent reminder of the bluestone patio, but the fingers closed. The thumb held.
"Forty pounds of pressure on the dynamometer yesterday," I said, unscrewing the cap. "The therapist says I can handle a transit level by October."
"Good," Frank said, leaning his forearms on the concrete parapet, looking down at the riverwalk below. "Because the state highway department just sent over the bid packages for the Saluda River bridge replacement. Eighty-four million. Steel-truss rehabilitation and seismic retrofitting. They specifically asked if Vance Infrastructure had the bonding capacity."
"We have the capacity, Frank," I said, watching the brown water swirl around the bridge piers. "We have the cash, we have the steel, and we don't have six vice presidents on the payroll who think work means eighteen holes at the country club."
A white county sedan pulled onto the lower plaza, stopping beside the construction trailer.
Deputy Davis stepped out, wearing his crisp autumn uniform, holding an official service envelope. He looked up, saw me standing on the parapet, and raised his hand in a brief, respectful salute before mounting the exterior stairs.
He reached the fifth deck slightly winded, taking off his peaked cap to wipe his forehead.
"Morning, Mrs. Vance," Davis said.
"Clara, Davis," I corrected him. "Just Clara."
"Morning, Clara," he nodded, handing me the service envelope. "Judge Albright signed the final decree thirty minutes ago. The dissolution of marriage is absolute. The name change to Clara Vance has been entered into the state vital statistics registry."
I took the envelope with my right hand, feeling the thickness of the certified court seals through the heavy paper.
"And the criminal trial?" I asked.
"The plea agreement was entered at eight-thirty," Davis said, his voice dropping into a professional gravity. "Twelve years at Broad River Correctional Institution on the aggravated domestic battery, running concurrent with eight years for federal bond fraud. No parole eligibility for seven years. He reports to the state transport van at noon today."
Davis hesitated, looking at his boots for a second before meeting my eyes.
"His mother was in the courtroom, Clara," he added quietly. "She tried to approach the bench during the sentencing. She told the judge that Daniel was a good boy who was led astray by bad business partners. Judge Albright told her that if she spoke again without being sworn, he’d have her spend thirty days in the county jail for contempt."
I looked down at the court envelope in my hand.
I didn't feel joy. I didn't feel the sharp, electric triumph that had surged through my chest when the grill hit the hydrangeas.
I felt only the vast, clean, unburdened silence of an engineer who has cleared forty thousand tons of rotten aggregate from a foundation, leaving behind only the cold, honest stone that can bear the load of what comes next.
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"Thank you, Davis," I said.
"Stay safe on the iron, Clara," the young deputy said, touching his cap before turning back toward the stairs.
