Chapter 21: Nicholas's POV: A Door on Ames Row

Nicholas's POV

The shop three doors down from my father's office had been empty for eleven years.

Its window was soaped white and its door was chained.

On Monday morning I stood in front of it with a man from the bank and a man who owned it.

"It's not much," the owner said. "The roof leaks. The floor sags at the back."

"How much?"

He named a number.

It was what a buyer had paid me at nine o'clock that morning for my half of the house in Evanston.

I had not planned the numbers to match.

I took it as a sign, because I had run out of ways to ask for one.

"I'll take it," I said.

The banker raised his eyebrows.

"Mr. Linden, you've just withdrawn from your position. You're being sued by your wife's company."

"It isn't my wife's company anymore. She dropped the suit at the board meeting on Sunday. It's gone."

"Then you have no income."

"I have an evening class that starts next week. I teach drawing at the community college. They pay by the hour."

"For a shop that leaks."

"For a shop that belongs to someone," I said, and I signed.

The owner unlocked the chain.

Inside, the air was cold and smelled of old thread.

The light came in grey through the soaped glass.

A long wooden table ran down the middle, with a rusted iron frame under it.

Against the back wall there were shelves, and in the corner a stack of empty bobbins as tall as my knee.

I stood in the middle of it and my chest hurt.

This was where her mother had started.

She had sewn hems for neighbours at this table, three doors from my father's drafting room.

The door chimed behind me.

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