Chapter 4 - Lancaster Avenue
The morning traffic on Lancaster Avenue was already thick with delivery trucks and commuters grinding their gears against the wet asphalt. My sedan was parked beneath a dripping sycamore tree that dropped wet leaves across the windshield. I cleared them off with the back of my glove while Grace strapped the children into the back seat, securing a makeshift booster cushion she carried in her canvas tote.
When I slid into the driver's seat, the heater kicked on with a low, dusty roar, filling the cabin with the smell of warm antifreeze and damp wool. Grace sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead at the dashboard clock as if it held the secrets of the universe.
"Left at the light," she said quietly as we pulled away from the curb.
We drove in silence for ten blocks through the faded West Philadelphia neighborhood—row houses with peeling paint, small corner groceries with iron security bars on the windows, and narrow sidewalks slick with fallen leaves. It was a long way from the sleek architectural glass and steel offices downtown where I spent my days designing corporate towers for people who measured success in square footage.
We pulled up in front of a three-story brick walk-up with a faded green canvas awning over the entrance. A hand-painted sign by the bell read *Apartments 1-4*.
"Here," Grace said, her hand resting on the door handle before I had even put the car in park.
I killed the engine. The sudden silence in the car was heavier than the sound of the motor. "Let me help with the bags."
"Julian, no." She turned to me, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp panic. "You’ve driven us here. You’ve bought breakfast. That’s enough. More than enough."
"They're my children, Grace." I said it without heat, but with a firmness that made her hand drop from the door handle. "You can't spend the next ten years treating me like a ghost you happened to summon by accident. I saw them. I spoke to them. I'm not walking back out onto Broad Street."
She opened her door and stepped out into the damp morning air without answering. By the time I came around to the back to unbuckle the twins, she had already unlocked the heavy front door of the building and was herding the sleepy children up the worn linoleum stairs.
The hallway smelled of floor wax, boiled cabbage, and old radiators. Apartment 2B was at the end of the second-floor corridor. The door was painted a dull battleship gray with a number stamped in crooked brass digits. Grace fumbled with the deadbolt, her fingers shaking slightly as the key caught in the lock.
Inside, the apartment was surprisingly neat, despite its cramped proportions. A small sofa with a floral slipcover sat against one wall beneath a tall, uncurtained window that looked out over a brick alleyway. A wooden table with two mismatched chairs occupied the corner serving as both kitchen and dining room. There was no television, just a stack of library books on the floor and a row of small, drying rain boots lined up beneath the radiator.
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"It's not Spruce Street," Grace said defensively, dropping her canvas bag onto the floor with a dull thud.
"It's dry," I said, closing the door behind us and setting the velvet ring box down on the small entryway shelf. "And it's warm."
