Chapter 1 - Forty-Three Dollars
The sewing needle stopped above the little girl's trembling hand.
"Please don't take our home."
Nathan Moretti stood over an envelope containing exactly forty-three dollars.
A tiny silver thread clung to its torn edge.
Then he noticed the same silver color beneath the old sewing machine.
This wasn't an ordinary unpaid-rent visit.
Nathan had entered Apartment 4B expecting excuses.
He was accustomed to excuses.
In his world, people invented dying relatives, delayed paychecks, missing bank transfers, dishonest business partners, and every other explanation imaginable when money came due.
Nathan had learned young that sympathy could become expensive.
His father had taught him that.
His childhood had taught him harder.
Three months of unpaid rent was three months too many.
The building manager had called twice.
Nathan had ignored the first call because the amount was insignificant compared with the commercial properties his company controlled across Chicago.
He hadn't ignored the second.
The tenant, Sarah Bennett, had stopped answering calls.
No payment.
No explanation.
Nothing.
Nathan happened to be visiting another property nearby that afternoon, so he had made a decision that surprised even his assistant.
He would handle Apartment 4B himself.
Then the door had opened.
And instead of Sarah Bennett, he found Lily.
She couldn't have been older than seven.
Her brown hair had been twisted into a messy bun that looked as if she'd done it herself. Loose strands framed an exhausted little face. Her pink floral dress had been repaired at one shoulder with uneven stitches.
She stared at Nathan as if she already knew exactly who he was.
"Are you Mr. Moretti?"
Nathan glanced down at her.
"Yes."
Her fingers tightened around the door.
For some reason, that bothered him.
Adults were afraid of Nathan sometimes. He knew the reputation his name carried in business. He was demanding, impatient, and almost impossible to negotiate with once he believed someone was lying.
But children weren't supposed to know any of that.
"Where's your mother?"
Lily hesitated.
"She's sick."
Nathan's irritation faded by a fraction.
"Can she speak?"
"Sometimes."
"Then I'd like to speak to her."
Lily didn't move.
Nathan looked beyond her.
The apartment was small but clean.
Nothing matched the image he'd built in his mind of someone irresponsibly refusing to pay rent.
There were no shopping bags.
No expensive electronics.
No evidence of money being wasted.
There were medicine bottles.
Lots of them.
A nearly empty fruit bowl.
Two cans of soup on a kitchen shelf.
And beside the sunlit window stood an ancient black sewing machine decorated with faded gold flowers.
Fabric covered the table around it.
Nathan looked back at Lily.
"May I come inside?"
She considered him with an seriousness that felt too old for her face.
Finally she stepped aside.
Nathan entered.
The apartment smelled faintly of medicine, fabric, and lavender.
The lavender stopped him for half a second.
His mother had smelled like lavender.
He pushed the memory away.
"Your mother owes three months' rent."
"I know."
Nathan looked down.
"You know?"
Lily nodded.
She hurried to a small cabinet, opened the top drawer, and removed a wrinkled white envelope.
She returned and held it toward him with both hands.
Nathan took it.
Inside were small bills.
Singles.
Fives.
A ten.
Loose change.
Nathan counted automatically.
Forty-three dollars.
He looked at Lily.
"What is this?"
"Rent."
"This isn't the rent."
"I know."
"Then where did it come from?"
Her eyes shifted toward the sewing machine.
"I'm making the rest."
Nathan thought he had misunderstood.
"Making it how?"
"I fix things."
She pointed toward a pile of clothing.
"Mrs. Alvarez downstairs gives me two dollars for buttons. Mr. Harris gave me five dollars for his pants. Sometimes people leave clothes by the door."
Nathan stared at her.
"You do the sewing?"
Lily nodded.
"Who taught you?"
"Mom."
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Since she got worse."
Something uncomfortable moved through Nathan's chest.
He looked toward the closed bedroom door.
"How sick is she?"
Lily immediately became guarded.
"She's getting better."
It was the kind of lie children told because they needed it to be true.
Nathan knew because he had once told the same lie.
He had been nine.
His mother, Elena, had been sitting beside a sewing machine late at night.
She'd been coughing.
Nathan had asked if she was sick.
Just tired, she'd told him.
She had died eleven months later.
Nathan looked away from Lily.
"Show me what you're doing."
Lily climbed onto the wooden chair.
Her feet barely reached the pedal.
She positioned a torn floral dress beneath the presser foot.
Nathan watched her push down.
The machine began moving.
Clack-clack-clack.
The sound hit him harder than expected.
His mother's kitchen.
His mother's hands.
Coins stacked beside a coffee cup.
Nathan doing homework while Elena Moretti repaired strangers' clothes at midnight.
Clack-clack-clack.
He hadn't heard that sound in decades.
Lily leaned closer.
Too close.
Her small fingers guided the fabric.
Then she flinched.
Nathan saw the tiny red mark appear.
"Stop."
Lily continued.
Nathan stepped forward and switched off the machine.
"I said stop."
"I have to finish Mrs. Alvarez's dress."
"No, you don't."
"She pays me three dollars."
Nathan stared at the tiny spots on Lily's fingers.
She wiped them against her dress.
"I need the money."
"Why?"
Her answer came immediately.
"Mom needs medicine."
Nathan felt something inside him crack.
Not visibly.
Nathan Moretti had spent his adult life making sure nothing happened visibly.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet.
Several hundred-dollar bills appeared between his fingers.
Lily's eyes widened.
Nathan placed them on the table.
"Take those."
She didn't touch them.
"It's not enough for the rent."
Nathan almost laughed, but nothing about the moment was funny.
"It's more than you've got."
"Mom said we don't take money that isn't ours."
"Consider it an advance."
"For what?"
Nathan looked around.
He couldn't think of anything.
"Future sewing."
Lily narrowed her eyes.
"You don't have anything ripped."
Nathan looked at his expensive black jacket.
"No."
"Then I can't."
Nathan slowly returned the money to his wallet.
The stubbornness was familiar too.
Painfully familiar.
"Fine."
He pointed toward the bedroom.
"Then I need to speak with your mother."
Lily jumped from the chair.
"No."
Nathan stopped.
The speed of her response changed everything.
"Why not?"
"She's sleeping."
"You said she could speak sometimes."
"Not now."
"Lily."
The girl moved directly between Nathan and the bedroom door.
Nathan's voice softened.
"I'm not going to hurt your mother."
"I know."
"Then what's wrong?"
Lily looked down.
Nathan waited.
He had spent years in negotiations with men who controlled companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
None had made him as uneasy as this silent seven-year-old.
Finally she whispered, "Mom told me something."
"What?"
"She said if somebody named Moretti ever came here, I shouldn't let him see her."
Nathan didn't breathe.
"What exactly did she say?"
Lily swallowed.
"She said if Mr. Moretti came, tell him she's not here."
Nathan stared at the bedroom.
"Did she say Nathan Moretti?"
Lily nodded.
The apartment seemed suddenly smaller.
"How does your mother know me?"
"I don't know."
Nathan took one step toward the bedroom.
Lily grabbed his sleeve.
"Please."
He looked down at her.
She was genuinely frightened now.
Not of him.
For her mother.
Nathan crouched so they were closer to eye level.
"Lily, listen to me. I'm not here to hurt anybody. But if your mother knows who I am, I need to understand why."
Lily's eyes filled.
"She cries when she hears your name."
Nathan felt the floor disappear beneath him.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
A crash came from the bedroom.
Glass breaking.
Lily spun around.
"Mom!"
She ran toward the door.
Nathan followed.
Before Lily reached the handle, a voice came from inside.
Weak.
Breathless.
But unmistakable.
"Nate?"
Nathan stopped.
Thirty years vanished.
Nobody called him Nate.
Not his employees.
Not his friends.
Not even the women he'd loved.
His mother had called him Nate.
And once, long ago, so had someone else.
Nathan's hand slowly closed around the bedroom doorknob.
"Lily," he whispered. "Move."
She stared at him.
The voice came again.
"Nate... is that really you?"
Nathan opened the door.
Sarah lay beneath a thin quilt.
Her face was pale and hollowed by illness.
Her brown hair rested against the pillow.
Thirty years had changed almost everything.
Almost.
Her eyes hadn't changed.
Nathan knew those eyes.
"Sarah?"
She stared at him.
A tear slipped silently toward her temple.
"Hello, Nate."
Nathan forgot the rent.
Forgot the building.
Forgot the thirty years separating them from the last night he'd seen her.
Then his gaze moved past Sarah.
Something stood beside the bed.
The old sewing machine.
From this angle, sunlight touched its wooden base.
Nathan saw a tiny piece of metal embedded in the wood.
A rose.
Silver.
His mother's rose.
Nathan crossed the room.
His fingers hovered over it.
"No."
Sarah closed her eyes.
Nathan turned toward her.
"Where did you get this?"
Sarah said nothing.
"My mother sold this machine."
"I know."
"Thirty years ago."
"I know."
Nathan's voice dropped.
"The night you disappeared."
Sarah opened her eyes.
Lily had entered behind him.
Nathan looked at Sarah.
Then Lily.
Seven years old.
A thought began forming.
It made no sense.
And yet Sarah saw it.
Whatever strength remained in her face seemed to collapse.
"Nate," she whispered, "there's something you don't know."
Nathan stepped closer.
"What?"
Sarah's hand disappeared beneath her pillow.
She pulled out an old photograph.
Nathan recognized the woman in it immediately.
His mother.
But Elena Moretti wasn't alone.
Sarah was standing beside her.
And between them was someone Nathan had spent thirty years believing had never known Sarah existed.
His father.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date.
The night Sarah vanished.
Beneath it were four words.
Nathan read them twice.
Then Sarah whispered the name he'd feared hearing for thirty years.
May you like
The bedroom door moved behind him.
Someone had just opened it from the hallway.
