Chapter 3

Another ten years slipped quietly by, between the attic's sweltering summers and bitter winters and the neighbors' sneers and jabs.

It was 2018 now.

Boston looked nothing like it had twenty years earlier. Along both banks of the Charles River, towers crowded the skyline and neon blazed, like a distant, surreal dream.

Starling Court, meanwhile, was like a forgotten, aging corner at the edge of that dream.

Plaster peeled off the walls in great sheets, exposing the gray-blue brick beneath. Tangled power lines crisscrossed overhead like an enormous spider web, blanketing the narrow strip of sky above the court.

Walter, too, had gone from a young man of thirty to a middle-aged man nearing fifty, his temples gone gray.

After the layoff, he had learned to repair appliances. He had a knack for working out how things ran, and his skills turned out to be decent. Fixing things for people around the neighborhood barely covered the household expenses and his son Jake's tuition.

Jake was in college now, the family's one source of pride.

But it was his steep tuition and living expenses that had long since buried the family in debt.

Susan's textile mill had shut down too. She now worked as a cashier at a supermarket, and years of standing on her feet had left her with a bad back and aching legs.

Twenty years of attic life had worked on her like a dull knife, grinding away all her spark and hope until only numbness and exhaustion were left.

That day, the air over Starling Court, still for twenty years, was blown wide open by an official document posted on the bulletin board.

This time, it wasn't a rumor.

It was in black and white, stamped with a bright red official seal.

"Notice of Housing Redevelopment Buyout: North End Parcel."

The whole court went crazy.

People streamed toward the little bulletin board from every direction, their faces showing excitement, greed, anxiety, elation... every tangled emotion at once.

Dennis stood in the middle of a crowd of neighbors like a general who had just won a battle. He held a calculator, punching the keys with a rapid clatter, and kept shouting:

"We're rich! This time our family is really going to be rich!"

The noise of the crowd poured into the tiny attic like a tide.

Susan was making dinner for Walter. When she heard the commotion outside, her hand jerked, and a plate of stir-fried greens crashed to the floor.

She rushed to the window and looked down at the celebrating crowd below. Then she turned and stared hard at Walter, her eyes bloodshot.

"Walter, let me tell you something!" Her voice had gone shrill with emotion, and it shook.

"Twenty years! For twenty years I've followed you in this hellhole, living worse than a dog!"

"This time, if we don't get the money to move out this time, I'm divorcing you! I won't stay here one more day! I've had enough!"

Those last three words came out almost as a scream.

It was the cry she had kept buried in the deepest part of her heart for twenty years, and it was her final ultimatum to Walter.