Chapter 11 - A Room for Music
I expected Philip to fire me. Instead he placed three options on the desk: suspend the redevelopment, accept an independent operating monitor, or resign while the board negotiated with the lender.
“What would you choose?” I asked.
“I would stop making decisions about other people's homes from this room.”
I agreed to the monitor and stepped away from property operations. For once the promise mattered more than whether it made me look weak.
The next afternoon I visited Lucy's practice room at the hotel. I didn't go inside. I stood in the hall, listening to her work through the same four bars again and again. The violin sounded uncertain, then stubborn, then almost confident.
Marisol came out and closed the door behind her. “She's trying out for the district youth orchestra on Saturday. They were supposed to hear her at her school.”
“I can arrange transport.”
“Someone else already did.” She folded her arms. “I appreciate that you're paying for the rooms. But every time you show up, Lucy wonders if her life is another problem for you to solve.”
That sentence stung because it was true. I had begun measuring my improvement by how often people thanked me.
“What would help?” I asked.
“Leave her alone for an afternoon. Let us decide how to live while you deal with the part that's yours.”
I left. On the drive back, I called my sister, Claire, who had stopped attending family company functions after my father died. She worked in a public school and had never trusted our habit of giving annual speeches about community responsibility.
“You used to bring Dad his dinner at the job sites,” she reminded me. “Remember what he'd do before eating?”
“Wash his hands.”
“He'd ask everyone else whether they'd eaten first.”
I remembered. I also remembered mocking him for wasting time.
Claire didn't offer absolution. She offered to connect the city housing coordinator with a nonprofit that helped people document rental histories. I gave her the coordinator's number and stayed out of it.
May you like
Saturday, Lucy played her audition with three hotel residents waiting outside as her improvised cheering section. She made one mistake, recovered, and kept playing. Marisol sent me no photograph. I was relieved that she didn't need to.
On Monday the independent monitor found a ledger in Russell's old storage unit, turned over under a records-preservation request. Its first page listed nineteen occupied apartments. In the margin beside the ownership-change date someone had written: TRANSFER OFF BOOKS.
