Chapter 4 - The Tides of Pride
Pride is a luxury that requires an income. When Eleanor Vance finally stepped out of the 1998 Volvo, her knees buckled under her own meager weight. Michael caught her by the upper arm—she felt like a bundle of dry sticks wrapped in an oversized fleece jacket that smelled of old dampness and laundry detergent.
"I can walk," she gasped, trying to pull away, but her balance was gone.
"I know you can," Michael said, not releasing his grip until she found her footing against the fender. "You've been walking for weeks. Let someone else carry the weight for an hour."
He didn't wait for her permission. He reached into the back of the wagon, pulled out two battered duffel bags Scarlet pointed to, and slung them over his shoulder. The contrast was absurd—a man whose time was billed at four figures an hour haul-carting damp nylon bags across an abandoned industrial pier behind three girls and a woman who couldn't stand straight.
When Eleanor saw the interior of Michael's car, she stopped on the gravel. "We’ll ruin it."
"It’s cowhide and clear-coat," Michael said, opening the front passenger door. "It can be cleaned. Get in, Eleanor. Emma is already asleep."
Emma had indeed curled into a ball on the rear floorboard, using Dennis Harrow’s monogrammed terrace blanket as a nest. Lily was watching through the tinted window, her eyes round with fascination as she watched her mother being helped into the front seat.
Michael got behind the wheel, clicked his seatbelt, and turned the climate control to seventy-four degrees. Warm air scented with ionized cedar hissed softly through the vents. Eleanor let out an involuntary, shuddering sigh as the heat hit her face. Her hands, red and swollen at the knuckles, hovered over the air outlets like a traveler warming herself at a campfire.
"Where are you taking us?" she asked, her voice tight with suspicion. "Not a shelter. Please. If they separate the girls, I won't... I won't find them again. They assign people by beds, not by families."
"I own a townhome on Green Street," Michael said, putting the car into gear and pulling away from the rotting silos. "I haven't lived in it since my divorce six years ago. It has heat, running water, clean linen, and a refrigerator that my assistant keeps stocked with food that usually rots because I live out of hotels."
Eleanor turned her head toward him, her eyes wide with a combination of dread and disbelief. "Why would you do that for us?"
Michael kept his eyes on the road as they climbed the steep incline away from the waterfront. The headlights carved bright paths through the gathering fog. "When I was eight, my mother lost her job at a shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts. We lived in our car behind an all-night laundromat for twenty-six days. A man named Arthur, who owned the dry cleaner next door, came out every morning at six o'clock with a brown paper bag. Inside was four day-old bagels and a quart of whole milk. He never spoke to us. He never asked my mother for anything. He just put the bag on the hood, tapped the metal twice, and walked away."
He glanced at Eleanor. She was staring at her lap, where her thumbs were twisting the hem of Michael’s linen handkerchief into tight knots.
"I spent forty years wondering why Arthur did that," Michael continued. "Then, twenty minutes ago on that terrace, your daughter looked at a seven-dollar roll like it was the Holy Grail. I realized Arthur didn't do it because he was a saint. He did it because he knew that if he walked past that car without doing something, he would never be able to look at his own face in the shaving mirror again."
He turned onto Green Street, where the Victorian facades rose like pastel cliffs above the quiet, tree-lined sidewalks. "I like my shaving mirror, Mrs. Vance. I’d like to keep looking at it."
May you like
He pulled into the driveway of a four-story limestone townhouse, its dark windows reflecting the streetlamps. He pressed a button on the visor; the heavy wrought-iron gates swung open with a quiet mechanical hum, admitting them into a private courtyard screened by high boxwood hedges from the prying eyes of the street.
***
