Chapter 15: Four Bare Walls

“Heat’s included,” Sal said.

He kicked the cast-iron radiator beneath the front window with the steel toe of his work boot. “City steam. It runs hot as hell in January, so crack a sash if you bake. Electric and internet are on you.”

“What’s the total to move in?” David asked.

“Eleven-fifty a month,” Sal said, checking a stained clipboard. “First, last, and one month security deposit up front. That’s thirty-four fifty at signing. If you want a designated spot in the alley gravel, that’s fifty bucks extra.”

David looked around the empty room.

The apartment measured roughly six hundred square feet. It had a rectangular living room, a narrow galley kitchen with yellow laminate counters, a cramped bathroom with cracked subway tile, and a bedroom facing the brick alley. The radiator gave a sharp, metallic clank. Through the subfloor, a daytime talk show murmured from the first-floor unit. Fresh paint covered the walls, but it couldn’t fully mask the old smell of damp plaster and boiled cabbage.

It was small.

For twenty years, David had put sixty hours a week into a four-bedroom house with a two-car garage, mature oaks, and a fenced yard. Now his entire life fit inside a second-floor walkup off Route 9.

He took a slow breath.

Nobody stood on the other side of the hallway door waiting to trade his trust for tuition or social cover. The floorboards didn’t echo with quiet compromises.

“I’ll take the apartment,” David said. “Include the parking spot.”

Sal pulled a manila folder from under his arm. “Check or cashier’s check?”

“Personal checks,” David replied, pulling his new blue checkbook from his jacket. “The account is four days old, but the funds cleared this morning.”

Sal grunted. “Let me run the credit pull. If you’re over seven hundred, the keys are yours right now.”

“My score is seven-eighty.”

David wrote out three separate checks on the counter. His pen strokes were firm and deliberate.

Sal ran the check on a battered tablet, nodded once, and dropped two brass keys into David’s open palm.

“Trash goes in the blue dumpster behind the garage,” Sal said, heading toward the landing. “Quiet hours start at ten. Welcome to Northwood, David.”

“Thanks, Sal.”

The move took ninety minutes.

David backed his F-150 into the narrow alley, flipped on the hazard lights, and worked alone under a gray sky.

He carried up his navy canvas duffel, two plastic totes of heavy work clothes, and a single cardboard box containing his tax returns, deed copies, and contractor licenses. He hauled his father’s white-oak tool chest up the narrow stairwell with both hands. The heavy chest strained his lower back, but the weight felt familiar, solid, and completely real.