It’s early April day and I’m seeing the world through a haze of silvery droplets—it might be the mist—but considering my pain at missing Jillian, it could easily be something else.
I push myself to be busy, tidying up the building and compiling an inventory of what needs to be repaired—but all the while inwardly, I’m taking stock of my life as usual, and becoming very depressed.
It is what it is, I tell myself and I’m determined to try to get on with my life. But this day, Jillian shows up, equally determined to invade my space.
“You can’t hide away here forever Jess, behind some Maginot Line of your own defence.”
I’m carrying a shovel and bucket of pitch on my way up to fix the roof, now that the rain has stopped. “I’m not hiding, Jill, just facing the facts—you’re the princess and I’m the pauper—it’ll never work.”
“You know it’s never been about money with us—I can’t help the fact of my birth. Why are you so prejudiced?”
I arch an eyebrow and tramp on ahead up the stairs—as if I’m even going to try to dignify such a remark with a reply.
But one thing about Jilly Bean—she doesn’t give up easily. I hear her scampering up after me. I get to the roof and drop pail and shovel beside the other supplies.
When I turn around I’m expecting her defiant pose—arms akimbo, sneakers spread apart and jaw resolute—but I don’t see that.
I see an elfish urchin in ski jacket and jeans, blonde hair tied in a ponytail, her chin quivering, and trying hard not to cry.
Something inside me breaks. “Oh Jill,” I moan and gather her into my arms.
She’s shaking and I hold her tight to calm her, brush her cheek with my lips and taste the salt of her tears.
And it’s all over then—I’m defeated, and I know I’m not going to leave her—ever. And I continue to hold her until the spasms of sobs subside. We cling to each other, swaying gently on the roof where we shared our candlelit dinners and planned the rest of our lives.
“I missed you,” she whispers. I hug her hard and see she’s shivering in the raw April breeze.
“C’mon, we should get inside.”
We go back down the stairs and Jillian stops outside a door with a small brass nameplate engraved with the name Hiram O. Morton, Prop.
Her eyes dance. “I never saw this before. Was this your grandfather’s apartment?”
“Yep,” I smile, “the ‘Penthouse Suite’, as Dad used to call it. It was old Hiram’s apartments until he died—and when he passed, Dad closed the rooms and vowed never to enter them again. And since then, neither did I.”
She furrows her brow. “But what’s the point? Rooms are rooms, and I’d think wasting potential income is a luxury your dad could ill afford.”
“True. I never gave it much thought I guess. Maybe I should take a look inside and consider renting the unit out—seeing as I can’t bring myself to raise rents on my other mostly retired tenants.”
She squeezes my hand. “Like father, like son, huh? Both generous to a fault.”
“Yeah—but not like old Hiram. He’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes,” I laugh.
I fish in my pocket for my ring of keys, and open a door that’s been closed a long time.
My jaw drops when I peek inside. I sure as hell didn’t know what to expect, but I’m sure it wasn’t a mattress on a bare floor.
I tentatively poke my head in further, half-expecting a blast from Hiram for invading his premises, but he and Dad are both long gone and there’s nothing but dusty, half-empty rooms and a sterile wasteland of unfurnished gloom.
Jillian’s eyes are huge as we enter.
The oak door swings shut behind us and its echo reverberates down a desolate labyrinth of eremitical cells.
I’m dumbfounded as we slowly explore a warren of deserted rooms.
“This isn’t exactly the abode of a high-rolling capitalist,” she whispers.
I nod distractedly, letting my gaze wander over dust-laden rooms, our footsteps echoing hollowly through the emptiness.
“Why did Hiram lead such an ascetic life?” I think aloud, and the words seem to boom back at me from bare walls and oak floors.
“Oh look, Jess!” Jillian spots a slant front desk with ball and claw feet. “Maybe you can find some answers here.”
I open the fold-down top and find a ledger.
“Look at this, Jill,” I shout excitedly, “Back in his day, Hiram had been allowing his tenants to make only partial payments and was covering the balance of the rent from his own funds.”
I stare at the ledger perplexed. Here was the man my father held up as a model of good business sense, who was in fact a philanthropist posing as a capitalist.
There are no records past 1970 but I know my father continued to respect the lease terms for original tenants—I simply didn’t know most of them paid little or no rent.
But suddenly, it all began to make sense—my father pushing me to get an education, and refusing to encourage me to follow in his steps.
“Do something practical with your life,” he’d say. I thought he lacked confidence in me, but all the while he wanted something better for me than being a custodian.
It seems the paradigm through which I was viewing my family and my own life was seriously flawed.
All this time I felt I was a failure for not being a good man of business and not making the apartment building profitable and it turns out both my father and grandfather were philanthropists and it’s in me as well—in my DNA.
I’ve been haunted by a spectre that’s not even real and it explains why I don’t know myself because ultimately I was operating under a false impression of duty and it almost caused me to lose Jillian, the person I truly loved.
