Chapter 4 - The Narrow Stairwell
Pilsen in late December was a world away from the manicured, heated sidewalks of the Gold Coast.
Here, the buildings were four-story walk-ups of weathered brick, their fire escapes clinging to the facades like iron skeletons. The streetlights flickered with an orange, sodium glare, and the wind blew trash and salt through the alleys with a hollow, mournful whistle.
Steven’s Phantom pulled up to the curb of 1842 West 19th Street. The engine idle was silent, but the sheer presence of the six-hundred-thousand-dollar automobile on the cracked, snow-rutted asphalt drew the immediate attention of two teenagers smoking beneath the awning of a corner bodega.
"Stay with the car, Thomas," Steven said, opening the door before the driver could step out.
"Sir, perhaps I should come with you?" Thomas asked, glancing nervously at the peeling door of the apartment building. "The neighborhood—"
"The neighborhood is fine, Thomas. Stay here."
Steven stepped onto the curb. He had left his vicuña overcoat in the car, wearing only his tailored three-piece charcoal suit. The cold hit him instantly, sharp and clean, scouring the cloying smell of amaryllis and vintage wine from his lungs. He walked up the three salt-crusted concrete steps to the entrance.
The outer door was unlocked, its latch broken. Inside, the vestibule smelled of boiled cabbage, radiator rust, and damp drywall. A bank of brass mailboxes hung from the wall, half of them missing their little plastic name tags.
Under number 3B, written in a neat, familiar hand on a strip of blue masking tape, was the name:
*BENNETT.*
Steven stared at the ink. He had traced that handwriting across dozens of letters, across grocery lists left on his kitchen island, across the margins of architectural magazines seven years ago.
He climbed the stairs.
The wooden risers groaned under his polished shoes. The stairwell was narrow, the green paint on the walls peeling in long, curling ribbons to reveal the yellow plaster beneath. A radiator on the second-floor landing hissed violently, spitting steam from a loose valve, but the air remained freezing, drafts whistling through the cracked transom windows.
On the third floor, the smell changed. It smelled of fried onions, cinnamon, and the cheap, synthetic wax of a supermarket candle.
Steven stopped in front of apartment 3B.
A child’s drawing had been taped to the center of the door: a crude, green Tyrannosaurus rex wearing a red Santa hat, drawn with wax crayons on cheap construction paper. In shaky, phonetic letters, someone had written:
*MAYAS AND LEOS HOUSE.*
Steven stood in the cold hall, his chest tightening until it was physically difficult to draw breath. His hand lifted, knuckles poised an inch from the scarred wood.
For ten seconds, the billionaire who had negotiated acquisitions worth billions across three continents was paralyzed by a sheet of construction paper.
He knocked.
Three sharp, firm raps.
Inside, the faint sound of a television—an old animated Christmas special—cut off. There was a scuffle of socks on linoleum, a low, urgent murmur, and then the sound of two deadbolts being turned in succession.
The door cracked open three inches, held fast by a heavy brass security chain.
Joyce’s face appeared in the gap.
She had taken off the coat and scarf. She wore an oversized gray sweatshirt that belonged to an Illinois community college, its cuffs frayed around her wrists, and her chestnut hair was pulled back in a messy knot with a wooden pencil pushed through it. Her skin was pale, shadows smudged beneath her eyes, but her eyes themselves were as wide, clear, and breathtakingly hazel as the day he had first seen her in the library courtyard at Northwestern.
The chain rattled as her fingers gripped the edge of the door.
She went completely white.
The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin like chalk. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. For three heartbeats, the universe contracted into that three-inch gap of cold wood and rusted iron.
"Joyce," Steven said.
His voice was broken. It carried none of the boardroom command, none of the cold, aristocratic polish that had defined him for seven years. It was simply the voice of a drowning man reaching for the surface.
"Steven?" she breathed.
The word was so faint it was nearly lost to the draft whistling up the stairwell. Her hand began to tremble, the door vibrating against the frame.
"It’s me," he said, stepping an inch closer. "Joyce, please. Don't close the door."
Behind her, in the warm, dim light of the apartment, a small voice piped up.
"Mama? Is that the pizza man? Did the pizza man bring the cheese?"
The boy.
Steven’s heart hammered against his ribs like a caged beast.
Joyce looked over her shoulder, her throat working convulsively as she swallowed back what looked like a wave of pure terror. "Stay in the living room, Leo," she said, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to steady it. "Maya, take your brother's hand. Go on."
She turned back to Steven, her eyes hardening into something fierce, defensive, and desperate.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered, her knuckles whitening on the wood. "How did you find this place?"
"I saw you," Steven said, his eyes searching hers, looking for the girl who had once spent four hours building a cardboard fort in his living room on a rainy Sunday. "At the bus stop on State Street. Joyce... I saw him. I saw Leo."
A sharp intake of breath hissed through her teeth. She moved to close the door.
"Wait!" Steven jammed the toe of his oxford into the doorframe. "Joyce, please! Just look at me!"
"Get your foot out of my door, Steven," she said, her voice dropping into a desperate, furious whisper. "Get it out, or I’ll call the police. I mean it. You don't have the right to be here. Your father made that very clear."
*Your father.*
The confirmation hit him with sickening force.
"My father lied," Steven said. He pressed his palm flat against the wood, leaning his forehead against the cold frame. "Joyce, listen to me. I didn't know. By everything I love in this world, I swear to you—I didn't know about them. I didn't know you were pregnant."
Joyce’s eyes flashed with a sudden, searing bitterness that took his breath away.
"You knew," she spat softly. "I left three messages with your assistant. I went to the tower on Wacker Drive. Your father’s security team met me in the lobby with a non-disclosure agreement and told me that if I ever tried to contact you again, they would have my mother’s medical care revoked. They said you had authorized it. They gave me twenty-four hours to leave the city."
Tears sprang into her eyes, hot and angry, spilling over her lashes without her permission.
May you like
"I didn't take their money, Steven. Not one cent. I scrubbed floors and I graded high school essays until my water broke on the floor of a laundromat. Don't you dare come to my home on Christmas Eve in your four-thousand-dollar suit and pretend you didn't know."
***
