Chapter 4 - THE EVICTION NOTICE WITH HIS NAME ON IT
“She's trying to make my mother homeless.”
Nicholas stared at the notice.
Then he picked up the house telephone.
“Get me the property manager for Cicero Gardens.”
It was almost midnight.
I stood beside his desk, wondering whether Celia had any idea how much Nicholas already knew.
Within minutes, the manager answered.
Nicholas identified himself.
“I understand your office is scheduled to begin removing residents tomorrow.”
A pause followed.
Then his expression darkened.
“Under whose authorization?”
Another silence.
“My signature?”
He looked at the document again.
“I didn't authorize it. Suspend the removals while the ownership and notices are reviewed. And don't threaten a single resident.”
The man began explaining that the redevelopment company now controlled the property.
Nicholas interrupted.
“Then give me the name of the person who signed the purchase agreement.”
I watched him write it down.
Celia Romano.
He ended the conversation and leaned against his desk.
“She's already transferred the property. I can't simply make the sale disappear.”
“What happens to the people living there?”
“I'm going to make sure they have somewhere safe to stay while we challenge it.”
I thought about my mother.
Her mortgage payment had gone up after my father's death.
Some months, she chose between buying groceries and paying for heating oil.
Forty-one households.
Forty-one families who might be facing the same fear.
“Can I come with you tomorrow?” I asked.
Nicholas looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because someone needs to tell those people what's happening without scaring them half to death.”
For the first time that evening, he smiled.
“That's a good reason.”
By eight the following morning, we were standing outside Cicero Gardens.
The building was old but clean.
Small flowerpots lined the entrance.
Someone had planted yellow chrysanthemums beside the steps.
A woman with a walker stood reading a notice taped to the front door.
She looked close to tears.
“My husband died here,” she told Nicholas when he introduced himself. “I've lived in this apartment for twenty-seven years.”
Her name was Dorothy Bell.
She was seventy-eight.
“Are they really making us leave?”
Nicholas examined the notice.
“They're trying to.”
Dorothy gripped her walker.
“I don't have children nearby. Where am I supposed to go?”
He crouched slightly so she could hear him clearly.
“You're not going to be put on the sidewalk today, Mrs. Bell. I'll help you understand your options.”
She studied his expensive suit.
“You own the company doing this?”
“My family's involved.”
“Then why are you helping us?”
Nicholas glanced toward the building.
“Because someone should have stopped this before it reached your door.”
For the next hour, we helped residents gather copies of their leases and notices.
Nicholas arranged independent housing assistance and emergency transportation for anyone who needed it.
He instructed his financial office to cover the residents' immediate legal and relocation expenses.
He didn't promise that everything would magically disappear.
He promised they wouldn't face the problem alone.
That mattered.
I watched Dorothy take his hand.
“You have your mother's eyes,” she said.
Nicholas went still.
“You know her?”
“Teresa? Of course. She's the lady who checks on everyone when they're sick.”
Dorothy smiled sadly.
“She brings soup upstairs when my arthritis gets bad. She fixes buttons for Mr. Henderson. She even reads to the little girl on the second floor when her mother works late.”
Nicholas looked toward the entrance.
For twenty years, he'd imagined his mother enjoying another life somewhere far away.
Instead, she'd been living less than an hour from his mansion.
Helping strangers.
Remembering his birthday.
And being turned away from his gate.
He looked almost physically ill.
Back at the mansion, Celia was waiting in the library.
She stood beside a silver coffee service, looking perfectly composed.
“I heard you went to Oak Lawn.”
Nicholas placed the property agreement on the desk.
“Why did you sell my mother's building?”
Celia didn't deny it.
“The property has been losing money for years.”
“So you ordered forty-one families removed?”
“The buyer intends to redevelop the site. Those people have leases, Nicholas, not permanent ownership.”
“Why was my mother listed first?”
Celia looked toward me.
“Why is Emma attending private family meetings now?”
“Answer me.”
Celia sighed.
“Because Teresa had already been warned to stop coming to this house.”
Nicholas stared at her.
“You used an apartment building to punish an old woman for wanting to see her son.”
“An old woman who nearly destroyed this family!”
Nicholas slammed the agreement onto the desk.
“Stop saying that unless you're prepared to prove it!”
Celia recoiled.
For a second, she looked much older.
Then she whispered, “You think your father was a good man because I made sure you remembered him that way.”
Nicholas fell silent.
Celia continued.
“After Anthony died, his associates circled this house like wolves. The family accounts were frozen. Men were demanding payments. You were a frightened boy who woke up without his father.”
“So you took my mother too?”
“I kept you alive!”
“Then why are you still lying to me?”
She couldn't answer.
Nicholas pointed toward the door.
“Until this is resolved, you will not direct the household staff, my mother's visitors, or any transaction involving her property.”
Celia stared at him.
“You can't simply erase me.”
“No. But I can stop giving you more power.”
After she left, Nicholas sat heavily in his chair.
I poured him coffee.
He didn't drink it.
“Do you think I'm cruel?”
The question surprised me.
“No.”
“You don't know everything I've done.”
“Neither do you know everything I've done.”
He looked up.
I smiled faintly.
“I once told my mother I'd eaten dinner so she wouldn't give me half of hers.”
Nicholas lowered his eyes.
“Emma.”
“My point is, people make choices for reasons other people don't see. Some choices are still wrong.”
He nodded.
“Celia always said weakness was dangerous.”
“My father used to say kindness costs something. But cruelty usually costs more.”
Nicholas looked at me for a long moment.
Then he stood.
“I need to find out what happened to the money.”
His family's accounting department occupied an office in downtown Chicago.
That afternoon, Nicholas brought back a stack of financial records.
A trust established twenty years earlier had been intended to provide for Teresa and Nicholas after Anthony's death.
Most of its money had disappeared.
Large transfers went into property companies controlled by Celia.
Some payments were labeled family security.
Others had no explanation.
“Why didn't you see this before?” I asked.
“Because I trusted her. And because the family business has plenty of accounts I should have questioned years ago.”
He looked ashamed.
“My mother was working part-time to pay her rent while money meant for her was being used under my name.”
He turned another page.
Inside the financial records was an old folder labeled Hospital Incident—Restricted.
Nicholas opened it.
The first page was a medical summary.
The second listed his injuries.
The third was a copy of an emergency intake note.
A nurse had recorded the words he repeatedly spoke while drifting in and out of consciousness.
Nicholas read them silently.
His face drained of color.
I stepped closer.
“What does it say?”
He turned the paper toward me.
Under Patient's Statements, a nurse had written:
Patient, male, age fourteen, repeatedly states: "It was my fault. I made him fall."
Nicholas gripped the desk.
For twenty years, he'd believed his mother had killed his father.
May you like
Now he looked at the broken silver watch beside his hand.
“Emma,” he whispered, “what if my aunt didn't forge that statement to protect herself? What if she forged it to protect me?”
