New York Billionaires Series

“Hi,” she says. “I’m really sorry about this, you know.”

“I’m not,” I say, typing in the keycode for the elevator. “We’ll have your heater fixed tomorrow.”

“I don’t even know what happened. One moment, it was making a lot of noise and heat, and the next… complete silence. It won’t start,” she says. She gets into the elevator with me, but there’s hesitation in her features that she can’t quite hide.

“This is my private elevator,” I tell her. “It only goes to my apartment. I have it serviced twice a year.”

A shaky smile. “You’re telling me no elevator of yours would ever malfunction?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, yes. It wouldn’t dare to.”

And just like that, the ride is over. The doors open into my hallway. Freddie steps out, looking around, before turning to me with alarm in her eyes. “Your son. What did you tell him?”

“He’s not home tonight.”

Her eyes soften. “Right. Sorry, I just realized I had no idea what I was walking into.”

“No need to worry.”

“What were you doing tonight?”

“Come. I’ll show you.”

She follows me into the living room, lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that look over the park. The poker table is still in the middle, the coffee table shoved unceremoniously to the side. Four chairs are empty and abandoned around it.

Through Freddie’s eyes, this might look ostentatious. Showy. It screams of everything her apartment didn’t. Every descriptor an antonym.

“Wow,” she breathes. “The view must be amazing during the day.”

“It is. Especially after it’s snowed, actually. The entire park is white.”

She trails a hand along the green velvet that lines the poker table. Her eyes rest on the pile of hundred-dollar bills in the center. The guys must have forgotten to collect their winnings on the way out.

It looks obscene to me too, suddenly. But Freddie doesn’t comment, continuing on toward the gallery wall by the TV. Black and white pictures, all in dark frames.

I watch in silence as she takes them all in, seeing everything I’ve done in the past few years. Everything Joshua and I are, all that we’ve seen and all that we’ve lost.

Surprisingly, I don’t get the urge to cover them up.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

“This one is gorgeous,” Freddie murmurs, stepping closer to a large, black and white photograph of a volcanic coastline.

I clear my throat. “Hawaii.”

“Joshua and I took a helicopter. The photo’s taken from the air.”

Freddie studies the surrounding photographs. Joshua, standing at the foot of a waterfall in Yosemite. He’s grinning from ear to ear as the water cascades behind him at a ninety-feet drop. Something tiny compared to something huge. Another is Joshua, smaller than he is now, and myself on a boat in the Caribbean. Half of his small face is covered by a snorkel. He’s giving the camera a thumbs up and a smile lacking both front teeth.

“You really do take him everywhere,” Freddie murmurs.

“I try to, at least.”

“How come?” She works her way down the gallery wall, studying each photograph in turn.

“Well, I want him to see the world,” I say. It’s the truth, but it’s not all of it, and my response hangs in the air between us. Inadequate.

Freddie comes to a halt by the final black and white photograph. Jenny is smiling wide, her eyes laughing at the camera. The braid down her back has come half-undone in the whipping wind and tendrils of hair curve around her head like a halo.

She’s standing on a bridge with a harness strapped around her.

“My sister,” I tell Freddie.

“Joshua’s mother?”

“Yes. I took that picture right before she bungee-jumped for the first time.” It feels like Jenny is seeing us, looking out from beyond the years, the miles, the chasm that separates us today and her then. On the Rio Grande Bridge in New Mexico.

Freddie shivers. “Wow. I can’t imagine doing anything like that.”

“I jumped after her.”

Her eyes swirl back to me. “You did what?”

“Jenny wouldn’t have let me come that far with her and then not jump.”

“You said for the first time. She bungee-jumped more than once?”

“Oh, yes. She loved adventure.” I nod toward the wall of photographs, the testaments to our travels, Joshua and I. After Tahiti, I’ll send off another picture to be framed. “She’d have wanted her son to experience the world. To see it like she did, as a beautiful, complex, ever-changing playground.”

Freddie’s hand brushes against mine. Her fingers curl around it in the lightest of grips. “Did you travel with her often?”

I shake my head. “I was focused on Acture Capital. On growing the companies I took over. She was the one who couldn’t sit still. Who had a list as long as she was tall with all the places she wanted to visit and things to do.”

Freddie’s fingers tighten, and I look from Jenny’s familiar portrait to eyes that are soft, and strong, and kind.

“Joshua looks like her,” she says.

“He does.”

“He looks a bit like you, too.”

“Well, I am his uncle.”

A smile plays on her lips. “And his dad, as he informed me.”

I close my eyes. “I have to tell him one day how that sounds when he says it. Sometimes I imagine him telling teachers and other kids just that piece of information, no context. One day I’ll have police showing up here.”

“It’s sweet,” she says. “He didn’t seem upset when he told me.”

My fingers thread through hers into a latticework. “It’s not real to him.”