Chapter 2 - The Smell of Fresh Paint
The walk-up on 86th Street had never felt so small.
By the time we climbed the twenty-two wooden stairs—each one groaning under the weight of decades of footsteps—Theo was half-asleep against my shoulder, his sneakers left behind in the rental hall trash can where I’d dumped them alongside Cody’s muddy footprints.
Inside the apartment, the radiator in the corner was already clanking, banging its iron pipe against the plaster wall like an impatient neighbor with a broom handle.
"Mom?" Theo mumbled, his cheek pressed against the rough wool of my gray cardigan. "Are we poor now?"
I stopped with my hand on the brass chain of the overhead bulb. The single yellow beam flickered to life, casting long shadows across the sagging floral sofa that had come with the sublet and the small deal table where I kept my ledger, my black-ink pens, and my old, heavy HP calculator with the stuck zero key.
"No, buddy," I said, setting him down gently on the edge of the cot in the back alcove. "We’re not poor. We’re just... starting over with the change in our pockets."
"Did Aunt Drew hate the cake?"
"Aunt Drew doesn't like anything that doesn't come with a label," I murmured, untying his sweatshirt and folding it over the back of a straight-backed chair. "Wash your face, Theo. We’re having peanut butter toast and vanilla ice cream out of the tub. The real kind. With the black specks in it."
His eyes widened in the gloom. "Real vanilla?"
"The kind that costs six dollars a pint," I said, forcing a smile that felt like it might crack the dry skin around my mouth. "Go on."
As he shuffled toward the tiny bathroom with its peeling linoleum and sulfur-smelling tap, I walked over to the narrow window that overlooked 86th Street. Below, the evening traffic was thinning out. The red tail-lights of a crosstown bus smeared against the wet asphalt. Across the street, the neon sign of Bakery Bros flickered—OPEN 24 HOURS—casting a sickly pink glow across the iron fire escape.
My phone buzzed in my cardigan pocket.
It wasn't a call. It was a text preview flashing across the cracked screen.
From: Drew Text: Are you insane? The headmistress just called my cell because the portal wouldn't process the October wire. Cody is crying. He needs that phone for the school trip on Thursday. Call me back right now or don't ever expect to see the kids again.
I stared at the glowing letters for five seconds.
Then I pressed my thumb against the screen, opened the contacts list, tapped Drew’s name, and hit BLOCK CONTACT.
A small dialog box appeared: Are you sure you want to block this caller? You will no longer receive calls or messages.
I tapped BLOCK.
Instantly, the notification vanished. The screen went dark, reflecting only my own eyes—tired, ringed with gray shadows from three nights of balancing client ledgers until two in the morning, but steady. For the first time in six years, there was no red dot in the corner of my message icon waiting to tell me how I had failed my family.
My phone buzzed again immediately.
From: Mom (Eleanor Barrymore) Text: Maggie, what did you do to your sister? She’s hysterical in my kitchen. Put the money back right now. You know how delicate her nerves are since the divorce.
I didn't block my mother. Not yet. I lacked the stomach for the double-header. Instead, I dropped the phone onto the deal table, right on top of Mrs. Gable’s payroll ledger, and walked into the tiny kitchen area to find the tub of vanilla ice cream.
The spoon hit the frozen surface with a dull thunk.
Six years.
Six years of waking up at 5:00 AM to review tax returns for local plumbers and dry cleaners so that Cody could take private cello lessons and Chloe could wear imported cashmere cardigans to Sunday brunch. Six years of listening to my mother lecture me about "family solidarity" while I ate dry toast in the kitchen so there was enough ground beef for Drew’s organic taco nights.
And why? Because nine years ago, when our father died and left behind a modest life insurance policy, Drew had cried until our mother signed over the bulk of it to help "launch Drew’s boutique PR firm." A firm that had lasted fourteen months before folding under a mountain of unpaid bar tabs in Williamsburg.
When the money ran out, Drew didn't get a job. She got married. And when that husband left, she simply transferred her financial dependency from a man with a checkbook to a sister with a conscience.
Thump-thump-thump.
The radiator banged again.
I scooped two massive blobs of ice cream into two chipped ceramic mugs—the ones with the faded blue cornflowers—and carried them over to the deal table.
"Here," I said, setting one down in front of Theo as he padded back from the bathroom with a towel over his head. "Birthday dessert, round two."
He climbed onto the wooden stool, his small legs dangling six inches off the floor. He didn't ask about his cousins. He didn't ask about the baseball cake. He just took his spoon, carved out a white mountain of cream, and took a bite so big his eyes crossed for a second.
"It’s good," he mumbled around a mouthful. "It tastes like real vanilla."
"It is," I said.
I pulled out my business ledger—the old green-lined book with the frayed cloth spine—and opened it to page 114.
At the top of the page, written in my neatest, most precise accountant’s hand, was the heading: FIXED EXPENSES.
Beneath it, in ink that was already beginning to fade, were the lines I had stared at every month while my bank account bled to death:
St. Catherine’s Academy: $5,350.00
Howerin Auto: $840.00
Verizon Family (Drew): $312.00
Storage Unit (Drew’s "antiques"): $450.00 (which I had been paying under the alias "M. Barrymore LLC" because Drew claimed her credit score was "too fragile").
I took a red pen from the mug on the desk.
With a single, slow, deliberate stroke, I drew a thick, bloody line through every single one of them.
Then, in the margin beside the total, I wrote a new number.
Rent: $1,400.00. Groceries: $450.00. Savings: $3,000.00.
For the first time since my divorce, my column didn't end with a negative sign.
At 9:15 PM, my mother called.
I let it ring. The vintage rotary-style landline on the wall—an antique I kept because it didn't require batteries—barked its metallic double-ring four times before cutting to the digital answering machine downstairs.
Then my cell phone chimed again, vibrating against the wooden tabletop. Not a text. An email.
I leaned over and squinted at the screen.
From: [email protected] Subject: URGENT: Payment Failure for Howerin, Cody (Grade 6) Dear Mrs. Barrymore, We have received an automated notice regarding the non-payment of the October tuition installment...
I tapped the screen, selected the message, and dragged it directly into the trash folder.
"Mom?" Theo said, his spoon scraping the bottom of his mug.
"Yes, buddy?"
"Can we go to the park tomorrow morning? Before school?"
"The big one?"
"With the real baseball diamond. Not the broken one behind the school."
May you like
I looked down at the red pen in my hand. The ink was cool against my fingers. Outside, a police siren wailed down Fourth Avenue, its red and blue lights washing over the peeling paint of the ceiling in slow, rhythmic pulses.
"We can go wherever you want, Theo," I said, and for the first time in forty-one years, the words didn't taste like ash. "We’ve got all the time in the world."
