Chapter 5 - The Threshold of Freedom
“Margaret, wait!” Daniel reached out, grabbing my sleeve as I turned to walk away from the table.
For a second, the fabric of my navy dress pulled taut between us. I looked down at his fingers clutching my arm—the same hands I used to wipe clean when he was a messy toddler, the same hands I held through freezing rain when we had nothing in the world except each other.
Slowly, deliberately, Daniel let go of my sleeve, his fingers curling into his palm as if the very touch of me had burned him.
“Where are you going?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, lost amid the murmurs of the elite dining room watching our every move.
“Home, Daniel,” I said. “To my apartment. Where the floors are clean, the water is warm, and no one has to remind me of my place.”
Julian stepped forward immediately, offering his arm with old-fashioned courtesy. “Allow me to escort you out, Margaret. The private car is waiting downstairs.”
“Thank you, Julian.”
As I turned my back on the glittering crystal chandeliers, the imported wine, and the expensive lobster dinners, I didn't look back once. Arthur Vance walked slightly behind us, holding the heavy glass doors open as we stepped out of the restaurant and into the cool, crisp night air of the city.
The snow was beginning to fall softly over the Grandview district, dusting the historic brick sidewalks and the towering office complexes built on the foundation of my father’s sweat and my mother’s sacrifices.
Julian opened the door of a sleek black sedan idling by the curb, and I slid into the comfortable leather backseat, placing the strawberry cake gently on the seat beside me.
“Where to, Margaret?” Julian asked gently from the front seat, closing the door behind me.
“Take me to the diner on Fourth Street,” I said, looking out the frost-edged window at the glowing neon signs of the downtown skyline. “I want a cup of real coffee and a piece of pie.”
Arthur smiled faintly as he leaned against the car door before Julian got in. “Right away, Margaret. And as for the corporate audit tomorrow morning?”
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“Let them sweat until noon, Arthur,” I said, rolling up the window just enough to shut out the cold wind. “People who forget where they came from need a little extra time to remember.”
The car pulled away smoothly from the curb, gliding down the empty street as the distance between my old life and my new beginning stretched out before us. But as we turned the corner toward Fourth Street, my phone—which I had left silenced in my purse—suddenly began to vibrate against the seat cushion, flashing a frantic, endless stream of incoming calls from Daniel.
