My father stood near the fireplace like a CEO about to deliver quarterly results. Mom perched on the edge of her armchair, fingers twisted anxiously in the hem of her cardigan. My older brother Eric paced with restless energy, jaw clenching and unclenching in a way that telegraphed his agitation. His wife Shannon sat very straight beside Mom, both hands resting protectively on her small but unmistakable baby bump.
No one had said it out loud yet, but the pregnancy was the gravitational center of the room. Everything we did or said lately bent toward it, orbited around it, existed in relation to it.
“Thank you all for coming,” Dad began, using the smooth, practiced cadence he employed at work. My stomach dropped. That tone never preceded good news.
“We need to discuss the downtown apartment situation.”
The downtown apartment. He didn’t even use the address at first, but I could see it clearly in my mind: the red brick building at 1247 Westbrook Avenue, the narrow entryway with old checkerboard tile, the slightly crooked silver mailbox with “Morrison” stenciled on it in fading letters. My grandfather’s building. My building. My home for the past four years.
Dad cleared his throat with performative authority. “As you all know, the two-bedroom unit at 1247 Westbrook has been in our family since your grandfather bought the building in 1987.”
He glanced between Eric and me as if we’d somehow forgotten the story we’d grown up hearing—how Grandpa had scrimped and saved to buy “a piece of the city,” how he’d dragged Dad to the signing when Dad was still in college, telling him that real wealth was something that paid you while you slept.
I knew all of that. I knew every creaky stair and every drafty window in that building. I’d been living there for four years, managing it, maintaining it, making it not just a place to live but a small business I tended with care.
