Chapter 4 - The Midnight Downpour
The rain hit me the second I stepped through the glass doors of the penthouse building onto Michigan Avenue.
It wasn't a soft autumn drizzle; it was a torrential, ice-cold November downpour driven by the biting wind coming off Lake Michigan. The streetlights reflected off the black asphalt like smeared oil paint. The city was quiet, empty save for the occasional yellow taxi spraying sheets of water as it sped past.
I stood under the green canvas awning of the building, my heavy canvas duffel slung over my shoulder, my body shivering violently within seconds.
The doorman, an elderly man named Arthur who had tipped his hat to me every weekend for three years, stepped out of his small glass booth.
"Ms. Parker?" Arthur looked at my duffel bag, then at my wet hair, his brow furrowing in concern. "Is everything alright? Do you need me to hail a cab for you?"
"I'm fine, Arthur," I forced my voice to sound polite, normal. "Yes, please. A cab would be wonderful."
"Right away, ma'am." Arthur stepped out into the pouring rain, his whistle piercing the quiet night.
I stood under the awning, watching the water rush down the gutter toward the storm drain. Inside my bag, my cell phone began to vibrate violently.
I pulled it out. The screen illuminated with Miles’s name.
I didn't answer. I pressed the power button, held it down, and watched the screen go dark.
A yellow cab pulled up to the curb, its tires splashing water against the concrete. Arthur opened the rear door for me, holding a black umbrella over my head as I climbed into the back seat.
"Where to, ma'am?" the driver asked, a middle-aged man with a graying beard, looking at me through his rearview mirror.
"Logan Square," I said, giving him the address of my old apartment building. "Armitage Avenue."
The cab pulled away from the curb. I turned my head and looked up at the thirty-sixth floor of the Whitmore Tower. A single set of corner windows was illuminated, warm yellow light spilling out into the dark, rainy night. Somewhere inside that light sat eight hundred and twelve red roses, thirty-six dying candles, and a platinum ring sitting beside an unopened bottle of Dom Pérignon.
I leaned my head against the cold glass of the cab window and closed my eyes.
The drive to Logan Square took twenty minutes. As the high-rise luxury towers of Gold Coast gave way to the lower brick three-flats and tree-lined streets of the northwest side, the suffocating atmosphere of Miles’s world began to recede, replaced by the familiar, gritty quiet of my own life.
I paid the driver, grabbed my bag, and hurried up the wet wooden steps of my building.
The key turned in the lock with a familiar, metallic click. I pushed the door open and stepped into the dark foyer.
The apartment smelled of fresh paint and cardboard boxes. Every piece of furniture I owned was covered in white canvas sheets or packed into neat brown boxes stacked against the living room wall. My life was already packed away, ready to be moved into a penthouse that was no longer mine.
I dropped my duffel bag onto the hardwood floor, walked into the middle of the empty living room, and sat down on the cold floorboards.
The quiet was absolute. No hum of a high-tech climate control system, no panoramic view of the lake, no scent of expensive candles. Just the sound of rain drumming steadily against the windowpane and the distant hum of a bus passing on Armitage Avenue.
I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs, and finally, mercifully, began to cry.
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It wasn't a quiet, elegant weeping. It was a violent, tearing grief that ripped through my throat in ragged gasps. I cried for the three years I had spent carefully accommodating his schedule, his family, his moods. I cried for the proposal I had rehearsed in front of my bedroom mirror for weeks. I cried for my grandmother, who had loved him like a grandson.
Most of all, I cried for the girl who had stood barefoot among eight hundred and twelve roses, holding a ring box, completely unaware that she was nothing more than a prop in another man’s play.
