Chapter 7 - The Collapse
By August, the Bennett name had vanished from the Chicago business directories.
The assets of Bennett Logistics were liquidated under a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing to satisfy the back taxes and penalties levied by the Department of Revenue. The Lakeview house with the blue door was listed as a distressed property by the trust management firm representing Clare’s family estate, its contents auctioned off to clear the outstanding municipal liens.
Patricia had relocated to a small, single-bedroom assisted-living community in Arlington Heights, funded entirely by a modest annuity her late husband had established that Clare’s attorneys chose not to touch out of legal courtesy. Brooke had stopped returning calls from her old social circle, taking a job as an administrative assistant at a car dealership in Naperville to cover her own credit card debts.
Ethan was living in a short-term rental apartment near the industrial canals of Cicero. The expensive charcoal suits had been sold to a high-end consignment shop to pay his criminal defense retainer.
He sat on a plastic balcony chair one evening, watching the smoke from a nearby refinery rise against the summer dusk. His phone lay on the glass table beside a half-empty bottle of cheap beer.
He dialed a number he knew by heart, one he hadn't tried in two months.
The line rang three times before an automated message intercepted it: “The number you are trying to reach has changed or is no longer in service.”
He knew she hadn't changed her number for everyone. She had simply changed it for him.
He opened his laptop and looked at the public social media profile of Julian’s restoration firm. There was a photo posted three days ago from an opening gallery event in Brooklyn.
In the center of the photo was Clare. She was wearing a simple black shift dress, her hair shorter now, framing her face in a sharp, modern bob. She was laughing, holding a glass of sparkling water, talking to a tall man with silver-rimmed glasses who was identified in the caption as an architectural director named David Vance (no relation to her attorney, just another thread in the massive tapestry of her new world).
To the left of the frame, Noah and Lily were sitting on a wide window sill, eating mini-cupcakes, their faces bright and entirely free of the guarded tension that had defined their last year in Chicago.
May you like
Ethan closed the laptop. The silence of the Cicero apartment was absolute, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the distant horn of a freight train. He had his freedom—the federal prosecutors had agreed to a probationary sentence in exchange for his full cooperation regarding the offshore corporate entities—but he had nothing else.
He had built a temple out of glass and vanity, and the woman he had called "emotionally cold" had simply let the sun hit it until it shattered.
