Chapter 5
Chapter Five
January 2025 - Chicago, Illinois
H ere on the nearly empty tenth floor of a building in downtown Chicago—just off The Loop—Ryan Lewis sat at his desk and tapped his pencil on a blank notepad and remembered his first day of work at the advertising agency. That had been fourteen years ago. He’d been twenty-seven years old and green and eager, with a pregnant and optimistic wife at home. The third idea he’d pitched had been made into a commercial, and the creative energy that came with that “yes” had taken him far. It had been a lucrative time—a time of business lunches and travel budgets. At the time, he’d assumed that lush life would go on forever. He’d assumed that the company’s dime would stretch and stretch.
Now, his boss, Mike, appeared in the doorway and tugged on his tie. His face was gray with worry. “You ready for this?”
What could Ryan say? No. Please. Anything but this. But Ryan didn’t have that kind of leeway. The bank hadn’t agreed to a loan. He’d written half a business plan for his own company, but with advertisement budgets so low across all websites and publications, he didn’t have a lot of faith in the industry. Clients had abandoned the advertising agency left and right.
Now, it was up to Ryan and Mike to fire another twelve employees. The phrase “eat or be eaten” had come to Ryan’s mind. He hated himself for that.
If only my mother could see me now.
The staff was well aware of the continued cutbacks. In their cubicles, they sat like panicked children, waiting to be reprimanded. Ryan called his least favorite remaining employee first, a guy named Travis who’d once insulted a client over a steak dinner. Why Travis had kept his job after that was beyond Ryan’s pay grade to understand. Mike had said something about the client “respecting Travis’s harshness.” That had reminded Ryan of his grandmother, too. She’d demanded respect, all right.
Now, Travis sat opposite Ryan’s desk, looking smaller than Ryan remembered. Ryan suddenly couldn’t remember the dynamic of Travis’s home life. Did he have children? He wore no ring. A few seconds later, Evie from HR entered, her badge swinging from her neck. Evie entering a room like that never meant anything good for anyone.
Of course, Ryan knew that Evie’s job was ending at the end of today, too. He wondered if Mike had told Evie that already. Was he really going to force Evie to help him fire everyone all day and then kill off her job as well?
Now, Travis spread his hands out in front of him. “I know what this is about, Ryan.” He flashed a strange smile, adding, “You want to bring me up into the big leagues. Right?”
Ryan wasn’t sure if this was some kind of ill-formed joke. Maybe Travis was just trying to make this more difficult on Ryan. Perhaps he resented that Ryan was his boss rather than the other way around.
Ryan and Travis had started around the same time. But Ryan had risen in the ranks, while Travis had gotten murky raises here and there.
Ryan sighed and explained what he knew: they were doing another round of cutbacks, and unfortunately, Travis was being let go. “We’ve appreciated you every step of the way,” Ryan said. “We hate to see you go. But I think you’ll find that the severance package is…”
But suddenly, Travis was on his feet and storming out. Evie hurried after him, clutching her clipboard. “I’ll give him his exit folder,” she said. “I’ll have him out in ten.”
The next three hours went about the same as Travis’s firing, save for one exception.
Ryan was forced to fire Scott—a friend and, incidentally, the father of another ten-year-old girl with autism. They’d bonded over this over what felt like fifty-plus beers, plunging into the depths of their souls to say things they couldn’t to their wives. They told each other what they’d wanted for their daughters. They’d told each other how difficult it was to fathom their daughters’ futures. They told each other how much they’d wanted to walk their daughters down their wedding aisles and dance with them after that. “I couldn’t wait to hate her boyfriends!” Scott had confessed. “I couldn’t wait to give her life advice! I couldn’t wait to move her into her first apartment! And now? Now, it’s like her life has been stolen away from her. All these experiences have been ripped away.”
When Ryan told Scott he was being let go, Ryan felt as though he was punching himself in the face. He couldn’t look at his friend at all.
Scott let out a harrowing gasp. Softly, he said, “I knew this was coming. But I didn’t think they’d make you do it.”
Ryan forced himself to make eye contact with Scott. He spread his hands out on the table. “I’m on my way out, too.”
Scott rubbed his ever-widening bald spot and turned to look out on the nearly empty floor. Ryan willed himself back to five years ago, when he and Scott hadn’t known about their daughters’ diagnoses and they’d occasionally played tennis at a local sports club and talked about leaving their childhoods out East.
It occurred to Ryan that Scott was the closest thing he had to family in Chicago.
Why was he firing his family? Was he really willing to lose more people he loved? After everything else?
Suddenly, he blurted, “Do you want to get out of here?”
Scott’s eyes were rimmed with red. Beside Ryan, Evie hesitated and gave Ryan a look that meant Don’t we have a few more people to fire?
But Ryan had had enough. He was on his feet, removing his suit jacket and sweeping across the room to grab his coat. “I quit. Let’s go to Steiner’s.”
Scott gaped at him. “You don’t have to be rash. Not on my account.”
Ryan was on the verge of tears. “You don’t have to come. But I’d like you to.”
Evie pushed the folder across the desk and stuttered, “Ryan, if you’re really quitting, I need to talk to Mike about the process here.”
But Ryan already had his coat on. “Have him call me. I don’t care.”
Five minutes later, Scott and Ryan were out in the swirling snow of downtown Chicago. Ryan’s face felt chapped, but his smile was bigger and more natural than it had been in months. He felt as though he was taking charge of his life.
He didn’t want to think about the fact that he wouldn’t receive a severance package since he quit. What was he going to tell Trisha? How was he going to pay the mortgage next month? How were they going to afford Willa’s medication and Gavin’s sports memberships and Rudy’s whatever?
He didn’t want to think about any of that yet.
At the bar, Ryan and Scott ordered beers and sat hunched over. Scott drank faster than Ryan and seemed unwilling to come up with a conversation topic. Ryan empathized. Today had been a whirlwind.
“Do you remember when you first moved to Chicago?” Ryan asked.
“Like it was yesterday,” Scott affirmed. “I thought I was king of the Midwest.”
Ryan chortled. “I was sure that I’d left all that pain and suffering and misunderstanding back East.”
Scott raised his glass. “Here’s to bringing the pain and suffering across the continent with us.”
Ryan sighed and rubbed his temple. “You know, Trisha and I asked for a loan from the bank the other day? Trisha wants me to start my own company, and we need cash—more of it for Willa than we ever thought, plus enough for Rudy and Gavin. I want to make sure Rudy and Gavin don’t get left behind in the chaos. I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life. Trisha was buttering the banker up, trying to get him to like us. I wanted to storm out of there and scream I don’t care if you like us! We don’t need you! But the horrible thing is, we do need him, or we need somebody like him. We need to lick somebody’s bootstraps to survive this.”
Scott groaned and closed his eyes. “Alicia is going to kill me.”
They were quiet for a full minute. A few times, the bartender glanced their way with interest. It was only one in the afternoon. It was rare to have men coming in here, wearing suits and bemoaning their entire lives.
“Do you know what you’re going to do?” Scott asked finally.
“I’m taking ideas.”
Scott snorted. “Maybe we should start our own business? Together?”
“Sure. But where are the clients? Where will we get the money? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel creative in the slightest. I can’t imagine finding joy in writing another commercial .”
Another few minutes of silence passed. Ryan resented himself. He resented the fact that all he could think about was doom and gloom. He checked his phone, half imagining that Willa needed to be picked up from school again. He needed to stop drinking this beer. He needed to get home and vacuum the living room and figure out the next steps of his life.
Scott seemed to sense this, too. His beer remained half empty.
“Should we get the girls together tonight?” he suggested.
“We can pick them up together.” Ryan allowed his heart to fill with gladness. At least there was this.
Abandoning their beers, Ryan and Scott struck out through the streets of Chicago, wandering until they found a cheap sandwich place. It felt good to be out of that dank bar. It felt like only desolation and hopelessness lurked there.
At three thirty, Ryan and Scott were waiting for Willa and Scott’s daughter, Margaret, both with open arms.
“Can Margaret come over?” Willa asked.
“She sure can,” Ryan agreed.
He and Scott shared a soft smile.
That evening, Scott, Ryan, Trisha, and Alicia sat with light beers as their girls played dolls upstairs and their boys played video games in the basement. Snow continued to fall softly outside. Alicia and Trisha both looked shell-shocked at Ryan’s and Scott’s loss of jobs. But the sounds of their girls giggling upstairs brought gladness to their hearts. There was renewed optimism when they spoke of what they would do next.
“Maybe we should do something crazy,” Alicia suggested. “We could finally move to Hawaii. We could open a surf school.”
Scott snorted. “Do we have to learn how to surf first?”
“I thought you already knew how!” Alicia teased.
“I’ve gone once,” Scott said. “Don’t tell me you only married me because you thought I was some cool surfer guy.”
Alicia cackled. “My entire marriage is a lie!”
Love echoed between Scott and Alicia. Ryan sipped his beer and glanced at Trisha, wondering if the same love still existed somewhere between them. Could Scott and Alicia sense the distance between them? Could they tell that things were sour and cold? Probably.
Ryan tried not to feel too embarrassed by this fact.
He didn’t want to be like Grandma Dana—obsessed with what everyone else thought.
“Did we ever tell you what happened on our wedding day?” Trisha began suddenly. She wore a strange expression.
“No! Were you married out East?” Alicia asked.
“We were. We met in Nantucket and were married there,” Trisha said.
Ryan felt as though there were rocks in his stomach. He wanted Trisha to stop talking immediately. He wanted Scott and Alicia to leave.
“It was a very ritzy celebration,” Trisha said. “My family came from nothing, and they were really intimidated by the Suttons and everything they had. I knew what Ryan’s family thought of my family, but I tried to put it out of my head. You know, because I loved him so much.”
Was that sarcasm? Why was she using the past tense? Ryan’s heart ached.
“Anyway, at one point, my mother overheard Ryan’s mother suggesting that my family was stealing things from inside the house.” Trisha flared her nostrils.
“Oh my!” Alicia gaped at Ryan as though Ryan had been the one to say it, as though Ryan had gone out of his way to ask his family to act like pompous fools on his wedding day.
He’d been in love! He’d been blind to their idiocies! He’d been twenty-five years old!
“My mother was obviously really upset,” Trisha went on.
“I should say so,” Alicia said.
Over the table, Scott gave Ryan a look that seemed to mean Uh-oh. Where is this going?
Scott was wise enough to know that the airing of dirty laundry after a difficult day never led to anything kind or good.
“But immediately after that, Ryan’s grandfather had a heart attack,” Trisha continued, her nostrils flaring. “We all waited at the reception, crying and panicking. My family was drunk and still really upset. But they didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t leave.”
Trisha suddenly looked reticent. With shaking hands, she folded a napkin several times.
“What happened?” Alicia asked.
“He passed away,” Ryan answered, wishing his voice sounded stronger than it did. “It was a tragic day.”
“Your wedding day?” Scott raised his eyebrows.
“That’s how it all began,” Trisha affirmed. “And Ryan’s grandmother and mother never forgave me for it.”
“But it wasn’t your fault,” Alicia said. “It was a tragedy. It came out of nowhere.”
“For the Suttons, perfection is key,” Trisha explained. “I was not perfect. My family was far from perfect. And suddenly, their perfect Grandpa Jeremy was gone. Grandma Dana thought it was the stress of having to witness their perfect Ryan marrying trashy Trisha.”
Ryan folded his arms over his chest and looked at his wife. Bags hung beneath her eyes. She was only thirty-seven years old, but the weight of the world was heavy upon her shoulders. All night last night she’d stayed up with Willa, trying to talk her down from a panic attack.
Was Grandpa Jeremy’s death a warning?
A long silence filled the kitchen. Ryan hardly dared to breathe.
Finally, Scott raised his beer. “I’m beginning to understand why you left Nantucket.”
Trisha laughed. “It’s not so idyllic, is it?”
Alica touched Trisha’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
Trisha raised her shoulders. “Because it doesn’t matter. All that matters now is our family here. All that matters now is that we get through this difficult time.”
A few minutes later, Ryan excused himself to the back porch. For the first time in years, he yearned for a cigarette. When Scott appeared beside him, zipping his coat to his chin, Ryan asked, “You don’t by chance have…?”
“I quit fifteen years ago.”
“Shoot.”
Scott laughed gently and eyed Ryan.
“All right,” Ryan said. “You’ve heard the whole origin story. Tell me what you think.”
“I don’t know if it’s my place,” Scott said. “Family complexities are difficult to judge. There are so many competing stories. So many feelings have gotten hurt along the way.”
Ryan sighed. “You’re the person I feel closest to in the world right now.”
Is that too much? Ryan wondered. He let a beat pass before he added, “Trisha hardly looks at me. I think she hates me.”
Scott lowered his gaze. “She doesn’t hate you, man. Marriage is hard.”
Ryan’s throat was too thick to answer.
“Okay. Listen.” Scott rubbed his five o’clock shadow. “It sounds like you come from money. Like real money.”
Ryan let his shoulders fall forward. It was difficult for him to fully face this.
“Maybe Trisha hates your family, and maybe she has good reason to,” Scott said. “But if I had a lifeline like the Sutton family right now, I would use it.” Scott snapped his fingers. “Don’t be too proud, man. Think about Willa. Think about Gavin and Rudy.”
Ryan let his eyes trace the falling snow, the aging porch swing, the ragged house they’d moved into because they couldn’t afford anything else.
“I told myself I didn’t need them,” Ryan whispered, mostly to himself.
“People need people,” Scott reminded him, then smiled. “I can’t get over what you did for me today. Quitting in solidarity with my firing? That was crazy, man. But it came from the heart.”
Scott elbowed Ryan in the bicep, and Ryan quaked back and forth, laughing.
“I’ll never forget it, man,” Scott said, then folded his lips. “Man, your family must miss you. Can you imagine if Willa, Gavin, and Rudy took off one day and never saw you again? Can you imagine what that would do to your soul?”
Ryan sighed. He considered saying that he would never judge their choice of life partner like his mother and grandmother did. He would never put them in the same position.
But at the same time, a voice in the back of his mind said, They made mistakes. So did you.
Not long after that, Alicia and Scott’s children fell asleep, strewn all over Trisha and Ryan’s house, over-sugared and exhausted. Alicia and Scott picked them up and carried them one by one to their cars, then hugged Trisha and Ryan goodbye and went out into the night. This left Trisha and Ryan alone with their own sleepy children. They spent the next half hour getting everyone ready, then parted ways—Trisha into the living room and Ryan into the bedroom.
There, lying in the darkness, Ryan got on Sutton Real Estate’s website and found his mother’s phone number.
It was as simple as anything.
He tried to imagine what Jackie was doing right now. It was eight thirty in Chicago, which meant it was nine thirty in Nantucket—an hour ahead and plunged in darkness. Did his mother and father watch television together at night? Did they have a glass of wine? Were they preparing to retire, talking about the places they planned to travel to and the things they wanted to change in the house? With his mother at sixty-three, it was a surprise that she hadn’t hung up her hat yet. But Ryan remembered Jackie loving the real estate game. Maybe it was hard to pull away.
Taking a deep breath, Ryan dialed his mother’s real estate phone number and listened as it rang and rang across the continent.
Nobody answered.
Feeling foolish, Ryan threw his phone to the end of the bed and put his hands over his face. His heart throbbed with pain.
That’s it, he thought. I’ve exhausted all my resources. It’s over.
What now?