Chapter 4 - No Home to Go Back To
I do not remember putting on my coat.
I remember Chloe asking why I was shaking.
I remember James taking his coat back only after Elias found a spare wool blanket from the office and wrapped it around her.
I remember saying, “I can handle this,” three times, each one less convincing than the last.
Then we were outside.
Snow blew sideways across Hanover Street.
James’s black SUV waited at the curb with the engine running. I headed toward the subway station.
He caught up beside me.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“You were just told you don’t have access to it.”
“I’m going to fix that.”
“In this weather, with a six-year-old?”
Chloe sneezed under the blanket.
I stopped.
James looked at me, not victorious, just tired.
“Let us drive you.”
“I don’t want men showing up at my building because people are afraid of your last name.”
Elias, standing by the SUV, looked away as if the sentence had hit him personally.
James did not flinch.
“Then I stay in the car.”
“You own the car.”
“That feels like an argument you’re determined to win.”
“I’m determined not to owe you anything.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why?”
The answer came too fast.
“Because men who help me keep receipts.”
James stared at me.
For one awful second I thought I had gone too far.
Then he opened the rear passenger door.
“Fine,” he said. “No receipt.”
Chloe climbed in before I could refuse.
Traitor.
The ride to East Boston took less than fifteen minutes because the streets were nearly empty.
Chloe fell asleep against me before we entered the tunnel.
James sat in the front passenger seat. Elias drove.
Nobody talked.
My building was a three-story brick walk-up on a narrow street near the airport, where planes sometimes passed so low the windows trembled.
A new brass lock gleamed on the front door of apartment 2B.
I stared at it.
Mr. Keating came up the stairs wearing pajama pants under a parka.
“Grace. I am so sorry.”
“What happened?”
He glanced down the stairwell and saw James waiting near the entrance.
His face changed.
I hated that.
“Don’t look at him,” I said. “Look at me.”
Mr. Keating swallowed.
“The owner got an email saying you were moving out early.”
“From me?”
“From Victor Hale. He said he was handling the sublease because he helped place you here.”
“I never gave him that authority.”
“I know that now.”
“Where is my stuff?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Basement storage. Most of it.”
“Most?”
“The maintenance guys put some bags near the rear entrance before I realized what was happening. Snow got to them.”
My vision blurred.
I pushed past him.
The basement smelled like damp concrete and furnace oil.
Our life had been stacked between a broken bicycle and two old air conditioners.
Three plastic bins.
Two trash bags.
Chloe’s small dresser drawers taped shut.
The pink lamp from her room lay on its side with the shade crushed.
I knelt beside a cardboard box marked KITCHEN.
The bottom had gone soft from water.
James came down the stairs behind me despite promising to stay in the car.
I turned on him.
“I said I didn’t want-”
“I know.”
“Then go.”
He stopped.
Elias remained higher on the stairs, wisely silent.
I pulled open a trash bag.
Wet towels.
Chloe’s school papers.
A framed photograph of my mother with a crack across the glass.
Something inside me folded.
I sat on the concrete floor.
I did not cry elegantly.
There was no single tear sliding down my cheek while I looked tragic and beautiful.
I covered my mouth with both hands and made a sound I had been holding in for months.
James did not touch me.
That mattered.
He crouched a few feet away.
“I can call someone,” he said.
“No.”
“I can fix the lock.”
“No.”
“I can put you in a hotel for the night.”
“No.”
His patience snapped.
“Grace, your daughter is asleep in a car on Christmas morning and you are sitting on a basement floor next to wet clothes. Pick one thing you will let somebody do.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t get to order me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His jaw tightened.
Then he sat down on the bottom stair.
“You’re right.”
That took some of the fight out of me.
He looked around the basement.
“My mother used to hide bills in the freezer.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She said nobody stole frozen peas.”
I almost laughed.
He looked down at his hands.
“When I was nine, our heat got shut off for six days. She told me we were camping indoors.”
I had not expected that from James Moretti.
His suits looked custom. His watch probably cost more than my car had before the transmission died.
“You expect me to believe you grew up poor?”
“No. I expect you to believe I remember being cold.”
The furnace kicked on behind the wall.
Warm air moved through a vent above us.
I looked at the boxes again.
“Victor helped me get this apartment,” I said. “The owner didn’t want someone with my credit. Victor said he knew him.”
“So the apartment became another string.”
“I didn’t see it that way.”
“Why would you?”
I wiped my face.
“Because I’m stupid.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to make me feel better.”
“I’m not. You lied about Maya. That was wrong.”
I looked at him sharply.
He held my gaze.
“But accepting help when your kid was sick was not wrong.”
I hated how much I needed to hear that.
Footsteps came down the stairs.
Elias appeared carrying Chloe.
Her face was flushed.
“Grace.”
I stood.
“What?”
“She woke up coughing.”
Chloe opened her eyes.
“Mommy, my chest hurts.”
I touched her forehead.
Hot.
Too hot.
My fear changed shape instantly.
“How long has she been this warm?” James asked.
“I don’t know.”
Chloe coughed again, deeper this time.
I pulled out my phone.
The screen showed 1:17 a.m.
Christmas morning.
The nearest urgent care was closed.
James stood.
May you like
“We’re going to Mass General.”
This time, I did not argue.
