16. Tristan
Tristan
Tristan knelt on the scuffed floorboards of the fourth-floor living room, shifting his weight to take the pressure off his knees.
He wore faded denim and a plain sweater, a drastic departure from the corporate armor hanging abandoned in his city closet.
He hunched over a scattered array of wooden slats and plastic bags.
The dry, manufactured scent of compressed sawdust hung in the cold air.
He pinched a tiny Allen wrench, attempting to drive a stubborn screw into a pre-drilled bracket.
The skin across his palms was thick, cracked, and blistered from fourteen consecutive days of scrubbing cast-iron cookware in Hazel’s dish pit. He pressed down hard on the tool, desperate to force the cheap hardware to align.
“Catch the thread,” he muttered, fighting the metal.
Instead of catching, the metal stripped with a grating squeal.
The wrench slipped from the groove, scraping his right hand hard against the unfinished edge of the particleboard.
He winced, dropping the tool. A thin line of blood welled up across his knuckle, stinging in the frigid draft leaking through the window frames.
He stared at the torn skin, fighting a sudden urge to kick the half-assembled frame across the room. He refused to call an assembly service. He needed to build this structure with his own two hands to prove he could actually provide for his growing family without signing a check.
Marianne zipped her canvas work bag shut. She shoved her feet into her winter boots, securing the laces with a practiced rhythm. Her rubber soles thudded against the floorboards. She grabbed a knit scarf, wrapping it around her neck. She didn’t spare a single glance toward his corner of the room.
He hated how easily she ignored him. He had spent the last two weeks bleeding into scalding sink water just to earn the privilege of hauling this flat-pack box up four flights of stairs.
He wanted her to notice the effort. He wanted a single ounce of the respect he used to demand from his executive board.
“You shouldn’t be on your feet for another eight hours,” he said as she adjusted the strap over her shoulder.
Marianne kept her focus on her jacket buttons.
She brushed off the unsolicited coddling like he wasn’t even there.
Her silence forced him to look back down at the ruined screw and the disjointed wooden rails mocking him from the floor.
He picked up the wrench, his frustration mounting as he stared at the nonsensical paper instructions.
The diagrams consisted of nothing but vague arrows and geometric blobs.
“These schematics are flawed,” he said. “The pre-drilled brackets on the bottom rail don’t even match the side rails.”
She turned her head, fixing him with an unsympathetic stare. She zipped her coat up to her chin, preparing to brave the coastal wind. She gripped the bag on her shoulder, refusing to engage.
“Thousands of people put those exact frames together every single day, Tristan,” she said. “You just have to actually read the diagrams instead of trying to brute-force it.”
The calm dismissal offended him. He was a man who negotiated international buyouts and restructured massive financial institutions before lunch.
Being lectured about a cheap wooden box by a woman heading out to sell pastries stung.
He pointed the wrench at the ruined bracket, refusing to admit he was out of his depth.
“I oversee billion-dollar commercial infrastructure, Marianne. I guarantee you the structural engineering on this particle-board is a complete joke.”
Tristan tightened his grip on the wrench, preparing to tear apart the design flaws.
Before he could speak, the apartment’s old, exposed iron radiator clanked.
The harsh sound echoed off the bare drywall.
It sputtered twice, the iron piping shuddering under the windowsill.
A hollow, rattling hiss followed, filling the quiet space for a brief moment before dying out.
Within seconds, a frigid draft swept across the floorboards. The sudden, freezing air sliced straight through his sweater, biting at the exposed skin of his neck.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
He threw the wrench. It struck the floorboards, skidding under the edge of the ruined crib. Tristan pushed himself up from the floor, his knees aching. He rubbed the back of his neck, pacing across the living room. The biting cold was already seeping through the thin, rattling window frames.
He stared at the dead radiator, his fear spiking. Marianne was pregnant. She was deep into her second trimester, and she was standing in an apartment that felt like an industrial icebox.
“Do you feel that? The temperature is already dropping,” he said, gesturing at the silent iron pipes.
Marianne did not flinch. She simply pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her neck.
She didn’t show a hint of alarm at the failing plumbing.
The fact that she wasn’t panicking terrified him more than the cold itself.
He had billions sitting in liquid assets right now, and his pregnant wife was going to shiver in her own living room.
He had actually let her stay in a decrepit building with failing heating for two entire weeks just to prove he respected her boundaries.
“You have to be joking. The radiator just gave out completely, so this entire place is unfit for human habitation,” he said.
“The main heating unit just gets overworked in this weather,” she replied, her voice steady. “It isn’t a catastrophe, so just focus on the instructions.”
He couldn’t stomach the absurdity of her statement for another second.
She was romanticizing poverty. She was actively choosing to suffer in a freezing tenement rather than accept a fraction of his help.
He stepped away from the broken crib, crossing the room to stand directly in front of her.
He refused to sit back and watch her endure this.
A real father secured a solid roof and functioning heat.
“It’s a total catastrophe, Marianne. You’re six months pregnant, and I refuse to let you sleep in a freezer with busted plumbing.”
Marianne barely reacted to the outburst. She grabbed a knit beanie resting on the edge of the kitchen counter. The dry crackle of static electricity broke the dead air as she pulled it over her head. She adjusted her coat over her pregnant belly, bracing herself against the chill.
“You are already shivering,” Tristan said, taking a slow step toward her. “You shouldn’t have to bundle up like you’re standing outside just to exist inside your own home.”
Marianne smoothed her hair down, keeping her eyes fixed on the countertop. “It’s a coastal winter, Tristan. Drafts happen.”
“This isn’t a draft. The plumbing just gave out.” He gestured toward the silent radiator under the window. “We are standing in an icebox, and you are acting like it is a minor inconvenience.”
She didn’t show a hint of panic. He watched her accept the squalor as if it were perfectly normal, bringing his failure into sharp focus. He commanded billions in corporate capital, yet he was standing here with nothing to offer while his wife froze.
“You cannot depend on a landlord for your basic survival,” he insisted. “Let me dispatch a private HVAC crew to replace the heating unit today.”
Marianne lifted her chin, her face hardening. She doesn’t want my money. She doesn’t want my protection.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “Elias owns this property, and he manages the maintenance himself. I’ll ask him to check the unit in the basement.”
Hearing her speak the tattooed stranger’s name with such trust infuriated him. He clenched his fists against his thighs. He was offering her immediate, premium salvation, and she was choosing a local mechanic over him. The emasculation stung worse than the freezing air in the room.
“He is mismanaging it if the heat dies in December,” Tristan shot back, his tone biting. “Just let me write a check to a professional contractor so you don’t freeze tonight.”
Marianne didn’t entertain the argument. She marched past him toward the entryway and pulled open the door, letting a harsh gust of stairwell air rush into the apartment.
“I said no,” she told him, pausing at the threshold. “I am leaving for my shift, so pull the door shut when you leave.”
She stepped out into the hall without looking back. The door snapped shut. Tristan stared at the closed door. A sudden quiet settled over the icy living room.
Tristan stood in the quiet of the living room, listening to the winter wind whistle against the thin windowpanes.
He dropped to his knees, returning to the half-assembled crib.
He gripped a wooden peg, forcing it toward a misaligned joint on the bottom rail.
The drop in temperature made his fingers clumsy and slow.
He pushed harder, desperate to salvage the cheap structure.
“Just line up the joint,” he whispered to the crooked peg.
The smooth tip of the dowel skidded off the edge. His hand slipped forward, driving his already raw knuckles into the unfinished wood frame.
Tristan hissed, pulling his hand back. Fresh blood beaded along the gouge in his skin. He stared at the red mark. He drove his boot into the side rail of the crib. The cheap material buckled inward with a jagged snap, breaking a vertical slat in two.
He pushed himself up from the floorboards, leaving the ruined structure behind. He paced the length of the living room, wiping the blood from his hand onto the denim of his thigh. He kicked a piece of splintered debris out of his path. His breath plumed into a white mist with every exhale.
“Capital is the only variable that matters, Tristan. Never let people beneath your net worth dictate your physical comfort.”
His father’s voice echoed in his head.
“I know, Dad. We buy the environment.”
Tristan stopped pacing. He stared down at the particle-board.
His father was a tyrant, but the financial logic was undeniable.
A real father secured a solid roof, functioning heat, and a crib that didn’t snap under a single kick.
Sitting back and watching his wife and unborn child freeze in blue-collar squalor just to prove a point was negligent.
He was done suffering to prove a point. He wiped another bead of blood from his knuckle. Marianne would likely be furious today, but she would thank him the minute she walked into a heated room.
“This is absolute insanity,” he muttered to the empty apartment. “I refuse to let my family freeze in this tenement for one more second.”
Looking down at the debris, he was ready to buy his way out of the cold.
He pulled his replacement smartphone out into the freezing air of the living room. His hesitation vanished the second his thumb hit the power button. The screen illuminated his face, casting a pale glow over the ruined particle-board at his feet.
He was done playing the humbled carpenter. He was the former CEO of Hawthorne Holdings, and capital solved any deficit.
He swiped clumsily at the cheap glass screen, his fingers stiff and numb from the bitter draft rolling beneath the front door. He scrolled through the contact list, missing the intended name on his first try.
“Pick up the line,” he muttered to the glowing device.
He gripped the phone tighter, jabbing his thumb against the screen to make the call.
The line rang twice before a polished voice answered, and Tristan’s posture instantly snapped back to the sharp authority of a CEO.
He paced a short line across the living room, stepping over a discarded instruction manual.
“Vincent,” Tristan said, ignoring any greeting. “Locate a high-end, fully furnished residential property right here in Maplewood. Skip the standard background delays and wire a cash overpayment to secure the lease this exact second.”
“That zip code is almost entirely working-class, Mr. Hawthorne,” the luxury broker replied over the line. “Though a developer just finished a top-floor waterfront unit near the docks. I can lock down the paperwork and hold the keys in under three hours.”
A heated, top-floor unit. The image of Marianne sleeping in a climate-controlled room instead of this drafty tenement erased any lingering hesitation about going behind her back.
It was a massive upgrade, a secure environment fitting for his growing family.
She would stop fighting the logic the second she stepped onto heated floors.
“Sign the paperwork immediately,” Tristan ordered, his voice sharp against the bare walls. “Keep the keys at the front desk, because I am sending my personal logistics crew down there to extract my wife’s belongings before sundown.”
He ended the call. His thumb flew across the glass, pulling up the number for George, the estate logistics manager.
The move needed to happen fast, before Marianne wiped down the final pastry case and headed back to this icebox.
He would pack her life into boxes and transport her to the waterfront before she could argue.
He paced the living room, convinced that buying her a new life was his only real job as a father.