Jalen came to the second meeting with a question written on the back of his pay slip.
“If I make a statement and they cut my shifts, who pays my rent while I challenge it?”
Nora read the question before answering. The library room had a window facing the bus stop, and Kellan had placed a chair beside the door so Jalen would not have to cross the room on his crutches. Rowan sat opposite him. She had agreed to attend only after Jalen said he wanted to meet the person whose claim might use his account.
“There may be remedies if an employer retaliates,” Nora said. “They can take time, and I can’t promise an immediate payment. The housing adviser can help you prepare for a change in your work arrangement, but that isn’t a guarantee that nothing will happen.”
Jalen folded the pay slip. “So the answer is I need a plan before I sign.”
“Yes.”
Kellan gave him a sheet with the contact details for the housing adviser and a local workers’ fund. The fund could review an emergency request, not guarantee it. Jalen read the numbers and copied them into his phone.
Rowan had brought the lower-rating copies and Garin’s assignment page. She placed them in the center of the table.
“I’m not asking you to say anything you didn’t see,” she said. “I need to know what he was sent into, and I need the insurer to recognize that he was working.”
Jalen studied the page. “The sheet I saw had this stamp.” He pointed to a mark near the top. “I saw the clerk put it in a folder. Rell told her to use the lower rating.”
“Did he say why?” Nora asked.
“No. He said the higher notice wasn’t to be issued with the assignment yet. I didn’t hear a reason.”
“Who else was there?”
“The clerk and me. Someone was in the next office, but I couldn’t see who.”
“Did you see Calder?”
“Not in that room.”
Rowan ran a finger along the blank approval line. “Did the page you saw have a signature?”
“I remember a blank line near the bottom. I can’t be certain it was the same line. I was there for a pump part, and I wasn’t trying to read the whole page.”
Nora wrote the statement in short paragraphs. She separated what Jalen saw from what he heard and what he could not identify. When she reached the date, Kellan showed him the timeline.
“You first said Monday. Your schedule shows you collected the part Tuesday,” Kellan said.
Jalen took out his phone. The photograph of the schedule showed the assignment number and date. He compared it with a receipt for the part.
“Tuesday,” he said. “I mixed it up with the day I reported the crack.”
Nora added the correction and its source. “Do you remember the time?”
“Late morning. The receipt says eleven forty, but I don’t know whether the conversation was before or after the clerk printed it.”
“Then we won’t assign it an exact time.”
They read the statement aloud. Jalen stopped Nora twice: once to replace ordered with told, because he had heard the words but not the relationship between the people, and once to remove a sentence implying he had seen the final assignment delivered to the hunters.
“I left before that,” he said. “Someone could have changed the folder afterward.”
Rowan watched him. The correction made the account less decisive than Eli had hoped. It also made it harder for an employer to show that the witness had claimed more than he knew.
“Do you want to use it?” Jalen asked her.
“I want the panel to hear it if you’re willing. I don’t want you to lose your room because of my claim.”
“If I keep quiet, I still have to work for someone who told a clerk to use the lower sheet.” He looked at Nora. “I want to testify. I want a copy of everything I sign, and I want a contact who isn’t Eli or Kellan.”
Nora gave him her direct number and the number of another advocate in her office. She explained how he could request a copy and what information might become visible to the employer during the process. Jalen asked for the medical note to include the date and nature of his injury but not unrelated treatment information. Tessa had prepared a redacted version for his review. He approved that version and kept a copy.
Before signing, Jalen asked Nora what would happen at a hearing.
“The other side may question you,” she said. “They may ask about the date you corrected and about your dispute with Rell over the station. You can explain both. You don’t need to defend a detail you can’t remember.”
“Can I bring my schedule?”
“Yes. Keep the original file on your phone and a printed copy. If the panel asks how you corrected the date, show them the schedule and the receipt.”
Jalen opened the photograph again. The time stamp was visible at the top. He scrolled to a second image showing the receipt and checked that its number matched the part listed on his work sheet. Kellan found that he had written one digit incorrectly on the timeline. He crossed it out and initialed the correction.
“I made that mistake,” Kellan said. “Don’t let it become yours.”
Jalen looked relieved. “Will they think we changed the story?”
“They’ll see we corrected the record before submitting it,” Nora said. “That’s better than leaving an error for someone else to find.”
Rowan asked whether he wanted her to leave while he considered the decision. He said she could stay. He read the final paragraph once more, signed it, and watched Nora make a copy. The original went into the packet; the copy went into his own folder.
“I’ll take the bus,” he told Kellan. “If it stops raining.”
Kellan looked through the window at the wet pavement. “I’ll wait until you’re on it. You can tell me to leave if you don’t want company.”
Jalen accepted the offer. They spoke about the station’s repaired valve while Nora checked the documents, choosing a subject that did not ask the witness to rehearse his testimony again.
Eli waited outside the room. He had brought coffee for Kellan, then realized the meeting might run longer than the drink stayed warm. He sat near the window with the paper cup in his hands, watching buses arrive and leave. When the door opened, Jalen came out first.
“I agreed,” the worker said.
“Thank you.” Eli stood. “If Rell does anything, we’ll protect you.”
Jalen’s expression closed. “How?”
Eli thought of the team, the clinic, Nora, and the site officer. None of them controlled Rell’s schedule or Jalen’s housing. “We’ll help you find support. I shouldn’t promise I can prevent it.”
“That’s better.” Jalen adjusted his crutch. “Give me a copy of anything you write about the station if it uses my account.”
“I will.”
Rowan came out with Nora. She carried the blue folder and the insurer’s latest letter. The insurer had confirmed that the notice was received but had requested the assignment record and a beneficiary form before assessing payment.
“I’ll submit the claim,” she said. “Nora will help me attach the copies and Nessa’s statement. Jalen’s statement goes in only as he approved it.”
They walked to the clinic, where Leah had cleared the table for Rowan to complete the forms. The family information stayed on her side of the table. Eli helped by checking page numbers and making copies of the documents Rowan selected. He did not add the photographs from Sera’s warehouse visit until Rowan and Nora agreed they belonged in the packet.
Nessa’s statement described the lower rating she received and the work she was told to perform. Tomas’s account confirmed that he had seen the same rating, though he could not say who approved it. Jalen’s statement described the instruction he heard and the sheet he saw. None of them claimed to know what every person in the warehouse had been told.
Nora attached a cover letter asking the insurer to decide the benefit under the policy and preserve the employer’s assignment records. She did not ask the insurer to resolve every question about the warehouse notice as a condition of payment.
Rowan read the letter twice. “If they pay, does that mean the rating issue is settled?”
“Not necessarily. They may decide the coverage question without deciding whether anyone deliberately changed the rating.”
“Then I want them to say what they’re deciding.”
“We can ask.”
She signed the notice and submitted the packet through the insurer’s portal. The confirmation number appeared on the screen. Leah printed it and gave it to Rowan, who placed it in the blue folder.
The response from the employer arrived the following afternoon, before the insurer’s decision. A representative offered an immediate payment in exchange for a release of further claims related to Garin’s death. The amount would cover the funeral bill and several of Ivo’s expenses. It was less than the policy benefit Rowan had calculated, but it would arrive within days.
Eli read the offer over Nora’s shoulder. “They want to buy their way out.”
“They want a release,” Nora said. “We need to read exactly what it covers.”
“It says all claims.”
“It says all claims arising from the incident, with several defined parties. That could include the employer and contractors beyond the insurance payment. I need to check whether accepting it would affect the policy claim as well.”
Rowan took the page. “How long do I have?”
“Three days.”
“My funeral bill is due in two.”
Tessa called the community fund. The coordinator said the application had been approved for part of the deposit. It would not cover the whole bill, but the provider had agreed to accept the grant directly and extend the remaining balance for one week.
Rowan wrote the revised amount beside the offer. “That gives me a little time. Not much.”
Eli pointed to the policy benefit. “The claim could pay more.”
“Could,” Rowan said. “And if it doesn’t, I still owe the bill.”
He stepped back from the table. The word had done the same work in the clinic ledger: it kept a possible payment from becoming money already available. Rowan was not choosing between justice and comfort. She was choosing between a payment with a broad release and a claim whose outcome and timing remained uncertain.
“I’ll ask the representative for the release language separately,” Nora said. “You don’t have to answer today.”
“Can they withdraw the offer?” Rowan asked.
“They can set a deadline. They may also change it. We won’t know until we ask.”
Rowan placed the offer in a separate folder from the policy. She did not accept or reject it. She asked Nora to explain the release to her without Eli present, then asked Tessa to help her call the funeral provider about the extension.
Eli went outside. Kellan followed with a fresh cup of tea he had brought from the clinic and handed it to him.
“It’s hot,” Kellan said.
Eli held the cup. “I promised Garin I’d help them get the payment.”
“You are helping.”
“I want her to reject the offer.”
“You can tell her why. Can you pay the bill if the claim fails?”
“No.”
“Then make sure she knows the risk you can’t carry for her.”
Across the street, a delivery van stopped at the tram shelter. The driver unloaded a box for the shop next door and checked the label before carrying it in. Eli watched him until the door closed.
“I nearly promised Jalen protection,” he said.
“Did he accept?”
“He asked how.”
Kellan nodded. “Good question.”
When they returned inside, Rowan had circled two phrases in the release. Nora was explaining that one could prevent a later claim even if new evidence emerged. The other concerned how payment would be divided between Rowan and Ivo. Rowan asked for the wording to be clarified before she made a decision.
The employer’s offer sat on the table beside the policy, a real sum of money with a real cost attached. No one in the room could make the choice painless by naming one side of it.