Chapter 8 - The Reconstruction
Rebuilding a life after six years of calculated shrinkage is a bit like restoring an old house that’s been painted over with fifty layers of cheap white latex: you don't scrape it all off at once, or the whole structure will collapse into dust. You start with the corners. You take a heat gun to the window frames, strip away the rot, and find the solid oak beneath.
By March, the snow in Boston had melted into grey slush, and the crocuses were starting to push their purple heads up through the mulch in the Brookline garden.
My office on the seventh floor of the Whitcomb-Hallowell tower had changed.
The three computer monitors had been upgraded to dual-screen curved displays that could track twenty different market streams simultaneously across London, Tokyo, and New York. On the wall where my Wharton diploma hung, Everett had added a second frame: an original 1894 stock certificate for the Boston & Maine Railroad signed by our grandfather.
“You’re spending too much time on the energy desk, Maddie,” Everett said one Tuesday afternoon, dropping a thick dossier onto my blotter. “Silas wants you to take over the European sovereign debt portfolio before the summit in Zurich next month.”
“Silas just wants someone else to blame if the Greek bonds go south,” I said without looking up from my terminal.
“True,” Everett admitted, leaning against the edge of the desk with a cup of black coffee. “How’s Sophie?”
“She asked me yesterday if we could paint her bedroom pink again. I told her she could paint it any color she wanted—including neon orange if she promised to clean up her own paintbrushes.”
Everett grunted—his version of a warm family laugh. “And Harlan?”
“Caleb?” I paused, my fingers resting on the mechanical keyboard. “He took a job managing a mid-tier regional supply chain warehouse out in Worcester. Living in a two-room apartment above a dry cleaner’s three blocks from where my father used to teach calculus.”
“Poetic,” Everett observed. “Did he try to call?”
“Once. Last week. He wanted to know if I could help him get his driver’s license reinstated after the bank repossession.”
“And?”
“I told him to talk to my attorney. Which is Silas.”
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Everett laughed out loud—a deep, booming sound that made the junior associates in the hallway jump. “Silas would charge him two hundred and fifty dollars just to pick up the phone.”
“Three hundred,” I corrected him. “It’s inflation.”
