Chapter 6 - THE SCREEN AT 7:15
The rain had started again by six, turning the gutters along Willow Lane into churning brown rivers of dead leaves and street dirt.
Inside Number 412, the kitchen was warm and smelled of toast and cheap tomato soup. Nora stood at the counter, her hair still damp from the shower she had taken after her shift ended at five. She had her small, seventeen-inch tube television turned on atop the refrigerator, an old set with rabbit-ear antennas that picked up three local channels with varying degrees of static.
She was waiting for Adrien.
He had promised to be there at seven with dinner. It was now 7:12. Toby was sitting at the low coffee table in the front room, meticulously organizing his plastic dinosaurs in a straight line according to height, his blue plastic watch held close to his face every thirty seconds.
"He's twelve minutes late, Mom," Toby called out. "Adrien said logistics people are never twelve minutes late unless the boat hits a rock."
"He's probably stuck in traffic on the bypass, baby," Nora said, drying a bowl with a cotton towel. "The rain is really heavy."
She walked into the living room, wiped her hands on her jeans, and looked out the front window. The street was empty. The rusted streetlamp at the corner flickered, its amber bulb buzzing in the damp air.
She felt an uneasy prickle at the back of her neck—a cold, crawling sensation that had been dogging her since she had picked Toby up from school. Mrs. Gable had looked at her strangely at dismissal, asking if everything was "all right at home" and mentioning that some men in suits had come to the classroom looking for Toby’s visitor.
Toby hadn't understood what happened, only that Adrien had left in a hurry before the class could ask him about his cargo ships.
At 7:15, the tinny speakers of the television atop the refrigerator chimed with the opening brass fanfare of the *Channel 4 Action News at Seven*.
Nora turned back toward the kitchen to turn down the volume.
"...breaking news tonight in the city's largest business development project in twenty-five years," the anchorman's polished, gravelly voice announced over the hum of the refrigerator compressor. "The controversial twelve-billion-dollar maritime logistics merger between Cole Global and the Port Authority was finalized late this afternoon, following an unprecedented corporate power struggle."
Nora reached up to twist the plastic volume knob.
A photograph filled the screen.
It was a full-screen, high-definition graphic. In bold white letters across the bottom was the name: **ADRIEN COLE — FOUNDER & CEO, COLE GLOBAL HOLDINGS.**
The picture showed the man she had sat across from at the diner.
The man who had eaten stale crackers and cold vegetable broth. The man who had spent three hours on his knees on her front porch fixing a squeaking floorboard with twenty-cent drywall screws. The man who had bought Toby a seven-dollar plastic watch from a gas station rack and taught him how to draw cargo hulls on butcher paper.
He was wearing a tuxedo in the photograph, standing on the red carpet at an international gala in Geneva, his hair swept back, his slate-gray eyes cool, distant, and utterly untouchable.
Beside his head was a graphic of a skyscraper, a fleet of container ships, and a gold number: **$12.4 BILLION NET WORTH.**
Nora’s hand remained frozen on the plastic television knob.
The room seemed to lose all sound. The rush of the rain outside, the hum of the old television tube, the clicking of Toby’s dinosaurs in the living room—everything went dead and hollow, like the air inside a vacuum tube.
"...Cole, who has famously avoided the public eye for the past three years following the death of his late father, made an unexpected appearance earlier today at a local public elementary school before retreating to the corporate headquarters downtown," the reporter continued, the voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well. "Sources confirm the billionaire has been conducting what insiders describe as an 'informal assessment' of local infrastructure..."
The towel in Nora's left hand slipped from her fingers. It hit the linoleum floor without a sound.
"Mom?"
Toby's small voice came from the hallway archway. He was holding a green plastic tyrannosaurus by its tail. "Is that Adrien on the TV?"
Nora didn't move. She couldn't. Her chest felt as though an iron band had been cinched tight around her ribs and torqued with a wrench until the bone groaned.
*An informal assessment.*
*Logistics consulting.*
*I work for a living, just like your parents do.*
Every memory from the last month surged through her mind like dirty floodwater through a broken levee: his expensive wool coat that he claimed was a thrift-store find; his pristine, hand-stitched leather shoes; the way he had never let her see the registration in his rental car; the sudden, smooth way he had paid cash for every small thing, never once pulling a credit card from his wallet in her presence.
He had sat in her kitchen. He had watched her struggle to balance a seventy-dollar grocery budget on a piece of scrap paper. He had watched her scrape burned bread into the trash can. He had watched her count nickels from a jar to pay for Toby's antibiotic syrup when the boy had the flu last week.
A man worth twelve billion dollars had sat in her chair and watched her count nickels.
A car door slammed outside.
The sound was sharp, distinct, cutting through the silence like a gunshot.
Heavy footsteps mounted the front porch steps. Two firm knocks shook the wood of the front door—the same familiar cadence that had brought a secret, fluttering joy to her chest every evening at seven for four weeks.
Toby dropped his dinosaur. He took two eager steps toward the door. "Adrien's here! He brought the—"
"Toby," Nora said.
Her voice wasn't loud, but the sheer, terrible coldness in it stopped the little boy dead in his tracks. He turned, looking at her with wide, frightened eyes.
"Go to your room," she said.
"Mom, but Adrien is—"
"Go. To. Your. Room. Now."
Toby’s lower lip trembled. He had never heard that voice before. It wasn't the voice she used when she was tired, or when the bills were late, or when he broke a glass. It was the voice of a stranger who had walked into their home and put out all the lights.
He turned and ran down the narrow hallway, his bedroom door clicking shut behind him.
May you like
Nora walked to the front door. She didn't look through the peephole. She didn't smooth her hair. She reached down, turned the brass deadbolt, and pulled the door inward.
***
