Chapter 16: The Deed

The loading dock behind the Arts Hall smelled of rain and cardboard.

I sat on the edge of it in my mother's green dress with my feet hanging over the drop.

Bram stood beside me with his hands in his pockets.

Inside, the guest pianist was finishing a Chopin nocturne to a room that had decided to forget the evening.

I'd come out to breathe.

He had followed me and kept his distance.

"Cecily said to ask you something," I said.

"I know."

"You know?"

"Her lawyer called me at the table at ten past eight."

His mouth twisted.

"She likes an audience, even for a phone call."

"Then ask yourself, Bram. What is Keene Harbor buying on Wickenden Street?"

He took a long breath.

Then he sat down next to me on the concrete, in his black suit, with a foot of cold air between us.

"Your building," he said.

I turned my head.

"Number 214. The one with the bad window. Spalding Pianos, the flat upstairs, and the tailor's next door."

"We rent that building from the old man who owns the tailor shop."

"You did. He sold it in March."

"To whom?"

"To a company called Wexler Home Group."

The loading dock went very quiet.

I could hear my own pulse.

"They didn't tell Pearl," Bram said.

"The notice was due this month. Triple the rent starting June. It's what they do when they want a tenant out."

"Cecily," I said.

"Or Preston. It doesn't matter. The paper had her signature on the board resolution."

I thought of my father's name in flaking gold.

I thought of Pearl on a ladder, telling a story about a ham.

"She was going to take the shop," I said. "Whether I married him or not."

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