Chapter 3 - The Room Above the Laundromat
Northside was only twenty minutes from the Grand Oak Plaza.
But to Victor, it felt like another country.
The streets were narrower. The buildings were older. Neon signs buzzed above storefronts. Rainwater pooled along cracked sidewalks, reflecting faded advertisements and passing headlights.
Brian drove slowly through the neighborhood, following an address he had found in an old delivery file.
Annie sat in the backseat beside Victor.
She had not let go of his hand.
“Is Mommy going to be happy?” she asked.
Victor looked at her.
“I hope so,” he said.
“Will she be mad?”
He thought about Catherine receiving a letter with his forged signature. He thought about her being forced from their home. He thought about every phone call she had probably made before Maris cut off access.
“She has every right to be mad,” he said.
Annie nodded seriously.
Then she whispered, “She still loves you.”
Victor’s throat tightened.
The address led them to a laundromat with a flickering sign: Rosa’s Wash & Fold.
Above it was a narrow staircase.
Brian stopped the car.
Victor’s heart began pounding before he even opened the door.
The stairs smelled of detergent, damp concrete, and old cigarette smoke. Annie led the way, carrying the tray of sweet bread she had rescued from the hotel trash.
“Mom will like this,” she said softly.
Victor almost stopped breathing.
At the top of the stairs was a faded blue door marked 3C.
Annie knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again.
“Mommy?” she called. “I’m back.”
Still nothing.
Victor’s fear became something physical.
He tried the knob.
The door was unlocked.
Inside was one small room with a mattress, a hot plate, a folding table, and stacks of laundry bags near the wall. A curtain separated the bed from the rest of the room.
“Mommy?” Annie called again.
Victor moved toward the curtain.
Then he heard coughing.
Deep, painful coughing.
He pulled the curtain aside.
Catherine was lying on the mattress beneath a thin blanket.
For one second, Victor did not recognize her.
She had lost weight. Her face was pale. Her hair, once long and bright, was tied back carelessly. A half-empty bottle of medication sat on the floor beside a cup of water.
Her eyes opened slowly.
Then widened.
“Victor?”
His name came out like a question.
Like a memory she was afraid to trust.
He fell to his knees beside the mattress.
“Catherine.”
She stared at him.
Then looked at Annie.
“Annie, why are you here? You were supposed to stay with Mrs. Morales downstairs.”
“I went to Grandma’s party,” Annie said. “I found Daddy.”
Catherine’s eyes moved back to Victor.
The confusion on her face slowly turned into hurt.
“You found us,” she whispered.
Victor’s eyes filled.
“No,” he said. “I should have found you three years ago.”
She tried to sit up, but a wave of coughing shook her body.
Victor reached for her, but she pulled away.
“Don’t,” she said.
He froze.
Catherine looked toward the window.
“I called you,” she said. “For weeks. I called your office. Your phone. Your assistant. I sent emails. I wrote letters.”
“I never got them.”
“Your mother said you didn’t want us.”
“I thought you left me.”
Catherine laughed bitterly.
“You thought I would take our daughter and disappear without letting you say goodbye?”
Victor had no answer.
Catherine reached under the mattress and pulled out a small envelope.
Inside were copies of letters.
Letters written in her handwriting.
Letters with dates from three years earlier.
Victor, please call me. Your mother has locked us out.
Victor, Annie is asking for you.
Victor, I don’t understand why you won’t answer.
The last letter was never sent.
Its paper was stained with tears.
“I stopped writing after that,” Catherine said. “I thought you had chosen her.”
Victor looked at the room.
The leaking ceiling. The tiny refrigerator. The almost-empty medicine bottle.
“What happened to your treatment?” he asked.
Catherine’s face tightened.
“I missed appointments.”
“Why?”
“Because treatment costs money.”
“I sent money.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Not to us.”
Victor looked at Brian, who stood silently near the door.
“Call an ambulance,” Victor said.
Catherine shook her head. “No hospital. We can’t afford—”
“Yes, we can.”
“I don’t want your mother’s money.”
“It isn’t hers,” Victor said. “It was always yours.”
Catherine looked at him for a long time.
Then Annie climbed onto the mattress beside her mother and offered her the wrapped half loaf of bread.
“I brought this for you,” she said.
Catherine’s face crumpled.
Victor looked away, unable to watch.
Sirens arrived minutes later.
As paramedics carried Catherine down the narrow stairs, Victor walked beside her stretcher. Annie held his hand on one side, and Brian followed on the other.
At the hospital, doctors confirmed what Victor feared.
Catherine’s lupus had worsened because she had gone too long without consistent medication and care.
“She needs treatment immediately,” the doctor said. “But she came in at the right time.”
Victor nodded, though he felt no relief.
The right time would have been three years earlier.
Later that night, while Catherine slept, Victor sat beside Annie in the hospital waiting room.
She leaned against him, exhausted.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Are we going home now?”
Victor looked through the glass at Catherine.
Then he looked down at his daughter.
“Yes,” he said. “But not to the old home.”
Annie frowned.
“Where then?”
Victor kissed the top of her head.
“Somewhere your grandmother can never hurt you again.”
At that exact moment, Victor’s phone rang.
It was Daniel, his chief legal officer.
“Victor,” Daniel said, “we found something you need to see.”
“What?”
“Your mother didn’t just take the money.”
Victor’s grip tightened around the phone.
“What else did she do?”
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“She transferred your wife’s inheritance into a company controlled by your cousin.”
Victor looked down the hospital corridor.
“What company?”
“Maris Holdings.”
Victor’s blood turned cold.
Because Maris Holdings was not just a shell company.
It was the company that had financed the construction project Victor was scheduled to announce in two days.
The biggest project of his career.
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And if Daniel was right, Victor’s mother had built it with money stolen from Catherine and Annie.
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