Chapter 11: The View from the Gutter
A year later, the central park lines in the northern sector were covered in a thick blanket of gray autumn leaves.
I was sitting in the back of my armored town car, reviewing the quarterly balance sheets for our new housing project, when the car slowed down near a public construction site near the subway entrance.
Through the tinted glass, I saw a woman wearing a faded orange safety vest, her hair completely gray, sweeping debris into a plastic bin beside a pile of concrete blocks.
It was Linda Vance.
Because of her corporate restitution penalties, her monthly stipend had been redirected by the civil court to satisfy the remaining child support liens from Julian’s old estate files. She was sixty-seven years old, and she was working as a municipal cleaner to pay off the interest on her son's crimes.
She didn't look up as the expensive town car rolled past her. She couldn't. Her head was bowed against the freezing wind, her eyes fixed onto the trash at her feet. She had finally learned to look straight ahead, down into the reality she had built for herself.
I didn't roll down the window. I didn't feel revenge, and I didn't feel pity. The ledger was balanced. She was exactly where her choices had led her, and I was moving forward into the light.
May you like
"Drive on, Thomas," I said softly to the driver.
"Yes, Ms. Sterling," the old butler replied, shifting the car into drive and accelerating toward the harbor.
