Chapter 9 - Ghosts in the West Side
A year after the divorce was finalized.
I was driving through the West Side of Chicago on my way to inspect a community financial literacy workshop I had funded using a portion of my settlement proceeds.
Traffic slowed to a crawl near a bus stop on Grand Avenue.
It was a cold, rainy November afternoon. Wind whipped through the concrete corridors, carrying light snow slushing against the pavement.
Standing under the rusting metal overhang of the bus stop was a woman wearing a faded, oversized winter coat held together at the collar by a large safety pin.
Her hair was gray, unkempt, and wet from the rain. She was holding two plastic grocery bags filled with cheap canned goods and white bread.
It was Patricia Hale.
Beside her stood Daniel, wearing a worn polyester suit from a thrift store, carrying a frayed laptop bag. He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped, his face lined with early gray stubble.
Following his termination and suspended license, Daniel had been unable to find employment at any law firm in Illinois. He was working as a night-shift legal clerk for a small traffic law office, earning barely enough to pay rent on a tiny, damp one-bedroom apartment he shared with his mother in the very neighborhood he used to look down upon.
As my sleek, black Audi stopped at the red light directly in front of the bus stop, Patricia looked up.
Our eyes met through the clean, rain-beaded glass of my driver's side window.
Patricia froze. Her hand went to her mouth, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock, shame, and bitter recognition.
Daniel turned his head to see what his mother was looking at.
He saw me.
I didn't roll down the window. I didn't glare at them. I didn't smile with smug satisfaction.
I simply looked at them with calm, indifferent detachment—the way one looks at a ghost that no longer has the power to haunt the living.
Daniel took a step toward the curb, his mouth opening as if he wanted to call out my name, to offer one last apology, or perhaps to ask for help.
But the traffic light turned green.
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I stepped gently on the accelerator. My car glided smoothly forward, splashing a small wave of rainwater against the curb, leaving Daniel and Patricia standing together in the cold, gray drizzle behind me.
They were trapped in the very life they had tried to sentence me to forever.
