Chapter 6: The Small Apartment
The yellow cab took us away from the polished limestone blocks of the avenue and down through the grid of the lower avenues where the neon signs flickered against the damp pavement. Inside the backseat, the air smelled faintly of worn upholstery and rain. Clara sat very still by the window, her beige cardigan clutched tight across her chest, her pearl necklace catching the amber glow of a passing traffic light. She didn't speak during the ride, but every so often her fingers traced the edge of her small handbag as if checking to ensure it was still there.
When the driver pulled up to a brick walk-up building with iron fire escapes scaling the front, I reached across the split-vinyl seat to pay the fare. Clara protested with a soft, papery wave of her hand, but I shook my head and handed a folded twenty to the driver through the partition.
"Let me," I said, my voice softer than it had been in the restaurant. "You're my guest tonight."
The lobby smelled of floor wax and old steam pipes. Clara lived on the third floor, past a heavy wooden door marked 3B. When she unlocked it and pushed it open, the interior offered an immediate contrast to the soaring ceilings and crystal chandeliers of my workplace. It was a modest, clean space—a small living room with a faded floral rug, a set of bookshelves crowded with paperback novels, and a single broad window looking out over the brick facade of the laundry across the street. A shaded floor lamp cast a warm, yellow pool of light over an armchair upholstered in worn green tweed.
"It isn't much," Clara murmured, setting her handbag on the small laminate side table. "Julian used to say it looked like a museum of forgotten things."
"It's comfortable," I said, stepping inside and pulling the door shut behind us. "It's quiet."
She moved toward the small kitchenette to put on the kettle, her steps slow and measured. I followed, gently taking the small enamel pot from her hands and filling it at the sink myself. While the water heated on the small gas burner, Clara walked over to a mahogany sideboard beneath the window. She picked up a framed photograph resting beside a small ceramic vase.
"Here," she said, holding it out to me. "This was the summer before he started at the academy. He was so stubborn about that tie."
I wiped my hands on my apron—still tied securely around my waist—and took the frame. The glass was cool. Inside was a black-and-white photograph of a young boy with dark, unruly hair and a stubborn set to his jaw, wearing a dark suit that clearly belonged to an older cousin or uncle. Standing beside him with her arm around his shoulder was a younger Clara, smiling with an expression of absolute pride. Even then, the curve of the boy's mouth and the sharp line of his cheekbones were unmistakable. It was Julian Vance, stripped of the tailored Italian wool and the cold corporate hauteur he wore like armor in the dining room.
"He looks a lot like you around the eyes," I said, handing the frame back carefully.
Clara traced the wooden edge with her thumb. "He has his father's ambition, God help him. And his father's fear of looking small. When a man spends his whole life climbing out of a basement, Maya, he spends the rest of it terrified someone will push him back down the stairs."
The kettle began to whistle softly, a thin hiss cutting through the quiet of the apartment. I turned off the burner, found two mismatched ceramic mugs in the overhead cabinet, and steeped a pair of chamomile tea bags. I carried them over to the small table by the window, helping Clara lower herself into the green tweed armchair. She sighed as her shoulders finally relaxed against the cushioning, closing her eyes for a long moment before accepting the warm mug between her palms.
"Drink it slowly," I instructed, pulling up a straight-backed wooden chair to sit across from her. "The ginger biscuits are in the tin, if you want them."
"No, thank you, dear. The warmth is enough." She opened her eyes, looking at me with a steady, searching intensity that made me feel as though I were the one being examined. "You risked your job tonight. Arthur is a good man, but he has a business to run. People like Julian—they own the leases on half the commercial blocks in this district."
"He was being cruel," I said, keeping my tone flat to mask the small spike of anxiety that still lingered in my chest. "Nobody has the right to talk to you like that. Not in a public dining room, not anywhere."
Clara took a slow sip of the tea, her gaze drifting toward the dark window where our reflections hovered faintly against the night. "He's my grandson, Maya. And he's a lonely man, though he'd rather swallow glass than admit it. He thinks affection is a liability." She set her mug down on the side table with a soft click and reached into her handbag. Her fingers emerged holding a thick white envelope, the paper heavy and cream-colored, sealed with a dab of red wax bearing an initial I couldn't make out in the dim light.
"I didn't come to the restaurant to cause a scene," she whispered, her voice dropping lower. "I came because I mailed three letters to his office this month, and they were all returned unopened. Marked return to sender. Refused at the security desk."
She slid the heavy envelope across the coffee table toward me. It rested on the worn grain of the wood like a piece of evidence.
"I need someone he won't recognize immediately," Clara said, her eyes welling with sudden, unshed tears that she blinked back with quiet pride. "Someone he can't have thrown out by his private security detail before he even reads the first line. Will you help me deliver it to him, Maya? Just the letter. Just to make sure he reads it once, all the way through."
May you like
I looked down at the envelope, then up at Clara's face—at the lines around her mouth that matched the man in the photograph, and the fierce, enduring love that had survived decades of silence. The streetlamp outside flickered, casting a long shadow across the floral rug. My shift was over, my feet ached through the soles of my shoes, and my job hung by a very slender thread. But the memory of Julian's hand hovering in the air above her shoulder pushed all hesitation aside.
"Give it here," I said, picking up the envelope and tucking it securely into the inner pocket of my vest. "I'll take it to his building tomorrow morning."
