Chapter 4 - The Eviction
The door was pushed open before Hannah could even stand up.
A tall, stout man wearing a dirty leather jacket stepped into the small apartment, holding a clipboard and a heavy ring of keys. It was Mr. Grantly, the building landlord.
Behind him stood two large men in dark work uniforms.
"Grantly?" Hannah asked, her voice trembling as she shielded Maya behind her body. "What... what is this?"
Grantly didn't look at her face. He looked at his clipboard, his tone flat, bureaucratic, and entirely devoid of mercy. "Miss Rodriguez. Your rent is sixty days past due. I gave you until noon today to settle the balance of fourteen hundred dollars."
"Mr. Grantly, please," Hannah begged, her hand clutching her chest as a fit of coughing took hold of her frame. "I told you... my disability check was delayed by the state. It will be here by Friday! Just give me three more days!"
"I've given you three weeks, Hannah," Grantly snapped, waving his hand toward the two men behind him. "The owner wants the unit cleared. We have a new tenant moving in tomorrow morning."
"No!" Maya screamed, running forward and grabbing Grantly’s jacket sleeve. "Leave my mom alone! She’s sick!"
Grantly shoved the six-year-old girl away, not hard enough to knock her down, but enough to make her stumble against the small dining table. "Keep the kid quiet, Hannah. You have thirty minutes to take your personal belongings. Anything left after thirty minutes goes straight into the alley dumpster."
Hannah dropped to her knees on the floor, weeping silently, her body shaking from exhaustion and despair.
Maya looked at her mother lying helpless on the cold floor, then looked at the two men who had already begun grabbing their few pieces of luggage and tossing them near the door.
A terrible, suffocating feeling of helplessness enveloped Maya.
First Leo, trapped in the hands of a cruel stepmother. Now her mother, stripped of their home and left to freeze in the cold Chicago winter.
Money, Maya thought, her small hands clenching into tight fists. Power. That’s why people can hurt us. Because we don't have power.
Maya walked over to her mother, kneeling beside her and wrapping her arms around Hannah's neck.
"Mom," Maya whispered, her voice suddenly dropping into a quiet, steady tone that didn't sound like a six-year-old child at all. "Where are we going?"
Hannah wiped her wet face, looking at her daughter with a heart shattered into a thousand pieces. "I... I don't know, baby. I don't know."
May you like
Maya reached into her lavender coat pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper—a flyer she had picked up off the street weeks ago. On it was a picture of the grand Romano Tower downtown, advertising their annual charity drive for local children.
"We are going to Romano Tower," Maya declared, her dark eyes burning with an intense, unyielding light. "We are going to find Charles Romano."
