Chapter 5 - The Oak Street Complex
The Oak Street residential complex was a brick building constructed in the late 1920s, featuring heavy arched windows, wrought-iron fire escapes, and a wide central courtyard lined with oak trees that were currently bare under the winter sky.
Grant had purchased the property five years ago, preserving its classic Chicago architecture while modernizing the heating and structural frames.
He walked through the front iron gates at four-thirty, his boots crunching on the fresh snow.
In the central courtyard, he saw two figures.
Rachel was standing near the main entrance door, wearing a heavy blue winter coat provided by the company’s apparel office, holding a clipboard with a fresh set of building keys.
Beside her, Maya was currently attempting to shovel a small path through the snow using a plastic red spade that was clearly designed for building sandcastles at the beach.
Grant walked down the stone path, his hands shoved deep into his overcoat pockets.
"The spade is too small for wet snow, Maya," Grant said as he approached.
Maya stopped, leaning on her plastic shovel and looking up at him. She was wearing a new pair of bright pink mittens—real mittens, sized properly for her hands—that Grant had insisted Claire purchase from the department store downstairs before they left.
"It works if I push really hard," Maya declared, demonstrating by violently shoving the red blade into a drift. The spade bent alarmingly, tossing a tiny scoop of snow onto Grant’s leather boot.
Rachel gasped. "Maya! Watch out!"
"It's fine," Grant said, looking down at his snow-dusted shoe without a hint of annoyance. He looked up at the brick facade of the building. "How are the quarters, Rachel?"
"They are incredible, Mr. Holloway," Rachel said softly. She held the clipboard tight to her chest, her eyes bright with tears she was working hard to suppress. "The superintendent showed us the ground-floor steward apartment. It has two bedrooms. Real radiators that don't rattle. A small window that looks out at the courtyard trees."
She looked at him with an intensity that made Grant feel strangely exposed.
"Maya has had to share a fold-out couch with me in a studio apartment above a auto-repair shop since her father passed away three years ago," Rachel whispered. "She's never had her own room."
Grant looked away, his eyes settling on the dark brick arches above them.
"Every child should have their own room," Grant said flatly, as if stating a universal law of civil engineering. "The contract includes maintenance of the courtyard garden in the spring. If you need tools, request them through the steward's budget."
"Mr. Holloway," Rachel said, stepping closer to him. "I don't know how to thank you. I don't know how I will ever repay this."
"You don't repay an employment contract, Mrs. Bennett," Grant said, his voice resuming its rigid, professional tone. "You do the work. Keep the stairs clear of ice, ensure the tenants' requests are logged properly, and make sure your daughter doesn't break her plastic shovel on my pavement."
Maya looked up from her shoveling. "Can I keep the yellow gloves?"
Grant looked down at the little girl. "Which ones?"
"Mommy's yellow work gloves," Maya said seriously. "I left them on your big brown desk."
Grant remembered the two flopping yellow rubber shapes sitting beside his high-end silver pens and executive leather blotter.
"Yes," Grant said quietly. "You can keep them. But leave them in my office. They are currently acting as security guards for my paperwork."
May you like
Maya giggled—a bright, ringing sound that seemed to reverberate off the cold brick walls of the courtyard.
For the first time in ten years, Grant Holloway allowed a real, genuine smile to break across his face.
