Part 18:
He’d kept his kids safe and his shop running, and he’d gotten good at a different kind of work without stopping being good at the first kind. Carl was right. The knowing had stayed. He just hadn’t needed to use it for a long time. The situation with Isabella Sterling got complicated around day 12 after the announcement.
And it got complicated in a way Ethan should probably have anticipated but hadn’t fully. The Sterling Foundation’s board had opinions. This was not surprising. Foundation boards always had opinions. That was the entire organizational purpose of a foundation board. But the specific opinion they were developing about the car was one that Patricia Crane, the cultural property attorney, called Ethan about on a Tuesday afternoon with a tone in her voice that indicated she found the situation mildly absurd.
The board wants to sell, Patricia said, immediately. They’ve already had two approaches from private collectors and one from a European institution, and the numbers are significant enough that several board members are treating this as an obvious financial decision for the foundation. It’s Isabella’s decision, Ethan said. The estate is hers.
The foundation has a governance structure that gives the board input on major asset decisions. It’s complicated. a pause and Isabella has her own position which is she hasn’t decided yet. She’s resistant to the immediate sale but doesn’t have a clear alternative articulated. What does she want to do with it? That’s what she hasn’t quite figured out which is human and understandable and also creating a vacuum that the board members with strong opinions are filling.
Another pause. I’m telling you because she values your perspective on this. She hasn’t said so directly, but she’s referenced your judgment twice in conversations where she didn’t need to. Ethan looked out the shop window at Clement Street. A woman was pushing a stroller past the dry cleaner. A delivery truck was double parked outside the print shop that was still closed.
“What did you advise her?” he asked. I advised her to take 30 days before making any decision. The car isn’t going anywhere, and the market isn’t going anywhere. Rushing a decision about something this significant financially and personally is rarely wise. That’s good advice. I know it’s good advice. I’d like her to hear it from someone she trusts as well.
He understood the implication. I’m not sure she trusts me specifically. You identified the car. You managed the authentication process without any formal arrangement or compensation. You told her things about her father’s relationship to the car that she didn’t have language for yet. Patricia paused. She trusts you, Mr. Walker.
She’s just not comfortable with what that means. He thought about Isabella on the terrace of the estate, her arms uncrossed for the first time, her voice doing that cracking thing when she talked about her grandfather’s notebook, the way she’d used his first name when she called him about the notebook being found.
a single deviation from her usual register that she probably didn’t even realize she’d made. “I’ll call her,” he said. “Thank you.” He called her that evening after Sophie was in bed. She picked up on the second ring, which told him she’d been expecting it. “Patricia talked to you,” she said. “Yes, I figured she would.” A pause.
“She’s right that I’m not decided.” “What are you leaning toward?” A long silence. I’m leaning toward not selling, at least not the way the board is describing, not as a pure financial transaction to whoever writes the largest check. Another pause. The car has context now. The notebook. What we know about my grandfather.
What we know about my father keeping it without fully understanding why. She stopped. It feels wrong to just put it in a billionaire’s private garage and close the chapter. What would feel right? She was quiet for a moment. I’ve been thinking about an institutional arrangement, a long-term loan to a museum.
The right museum with restoration to appropriate standard included as a condition. The car would be restored, displayed, accessible. The provenence story would be part of the display, including the notebook. Including the notebook, or at least the documentation story, the personal entries. I’d want some say in what’s shared. A pause.
Is that does that seem like a reasonable position to you? He thought about it honestly. It’s a significant financial sacrifice relative to an outright sale. I know the foundation board is going to push back. I know that too. But it’s the right call for the car. He said if the goal is for the car to be seen and understood and properly preserved, a private sale doesn’t guarantee any of that.
An institutional arrangement does. The foundation has resources, she said. The board wants to maximize them. I understand that perspective. I just, she stopped. My father didn’t keep that car for 20 years so it could disappear into someone’s climate controlled private collection. No, Ethan said. He didn’t.
She was quiet. Dr. Okafor’s museum, he said. In Detroit, she’s been careful not to be aggressive about pursuing the car. She knows how this needs to be handled. But her institution would be a serious option to consider. They have the restoration capacity, the expertise to display it correctly, the credibility. You’d vouch for her? I’d vouch for the institution.
