Chapter 2 - The Unbroken Silence
“Maya Bennett,” she repeated, her voice barely louder than the hum of the air conditioner.
Adrian looked at her, really looked at her, for what felt like the first time in twenty-four months. Beneath the neat blue tunic of her uniform, her shoulders were perpetually braced, as if expecting a blow from the universe at any second. Her hands, resting nervously on the back of the mahogany dining chair, showed the red, chapped marks of constant labor.
“Two years,” Maya said softly, answering his second question before he could ask it again. “I’ve worked for you for two years, Mr. Mercer.”
“Two years,” Adrian mused, testing the words. His own voice sounded metallic and harsh in his ears, distorted by the tiny electronic processors tucked behind his ears. He hated those devices. He hated how they turned a human voice into a tinny, robotic rasp. But right now, looking at the small girl opening her pink lunchbox and her mother standing frozen in fear, he was glad he had put them back in. “And in two years, I never knew you had a daughter.”
“I try to keep my personal life out of my work,” Maya said defensively, taking a small step back. “Clients don’t like... distractions. Especially clients in buildings like this.”
She gestured vaguely at the floor-to-ceiling windows, at the breathtaking view of Lake Shore Drive and the midnight blue of Lake Michigan stretching into the horizon. The Gold Coast of Chicago was a place for men like Adrian Mercer—men who bought art by the acre and measured their worth in hedge funds and tech patents. It was not a place for single mothers struggling to pay for preschool.
“Hey,” Lucy interrupted, holding up a small, green object. “Do you want my T-Rex?”
Adrian looked down at the tiny dinosaur cracker resting in the palm of her sticky hand. He hadn't touched a dinosaur cracker in thirty years. He hadn't shared a meal with anyone in his apartment since his former fiancée, Victoria, had packed her bags four years ago, declaring that living with him was like living in a soundproof vault.
“You don’t listen, Adrian,” Victoria had shouted at him on her way out the door, her lip reading made easy by her theatrical rage. “And I don’t mean because you’re deaf! You’ve locked yourself inside your own head, and you’re never coming out. You’re going to die in this giant, sterile tomb, and nobody is going to care!”
Those words had echoed in the silence of his penthouse every night since.
Until now.
Slowly, carefully, Adrian reached out and took the T-Rex cracker. “Thank you,” he said. He placed it neatly beside his fifty-dollar cut of prime rib.
Lucy beamed, her dimples deepening as she picked up her peanut butter sandwich. “My mom makes the crusts go away because I don’t like them. Does your mom cut your crusts?”
“My mother died when I was seven,” Adrian said plainly. It was a statement of fact, devoid of emotion. The meningitis that had taken his hearing had taken his mother’s life in the very same isolation ward during the Chicago outbreak of 1998.
Maya gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth. “Mr. Mercer, please, she doesn’t know—”
“It’s fine, Maya,” Adrian said, waving a hand to cut her off. He looked back at Lucy. “So no, nobody cuts my crusts anymore.”
“That’s sad,” Lucy said with the brutal, unvarnished honesty of a four-year-old. “My mom can cut your crusts if you ask nicely.”
Maya looked like she wanted the marble floor to open up and swallow her whole. “Lucy, hush! Mr. Mercer is a very busy man, and we are intruding.” She reached down to pull the child from the chair. “We are leaving now. I’ll finish deep-cleaning the guest bathroom tomorrow morning before you wake up.”
“Stay,” Adrian repeated, his tone shifting from casual to authoritative. It was the voice he used in boardroom meetings at Mercer Tech, the voice that commanded respect from venture capitalists and board members.
Maya paused, paralyzed by the command.
“Pull up a chair, Maya,” Adrian said, gesturing to the fifteen empty seats surrounding the mahogany monster of a table. “The steak is too big for me anyway. And I believe we have an agreement to discuss.”
“An agreement?” Maya asked, her brow furrowing with suspicion.
“You think I’m going to fire you,” Adrian said, watching her lips closely. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re terrified.”
Maya swallowed hard, the muscles in her throat working overtime. She didn't deny it. She couldn't. Lose this job, and the thin thread holding her life together would snap. Rent on her tiny studio apartment in Rogers Park was due in five days. The preschool fees were rising. Her ex-husband hadn't paid a dime of child support in over a year.
“I need this job, Mr. Mercer,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I don’t have a safety net.”
“I know,” Adrian said gently. “So here is my proposition. You keep your job. In fact, I will double your monthly retainer.”
Maya stared at him as if he had suddenly started speaking ancient Greek. “Double? For what?”
Adrian looked at Lucy, who was currently dipping an apple slice into her peanut butter with intense concentration.
“For having dinner with me,” Adrian said. “Every Thursday night. You bring Lucy. You sit at this table. And you eat with me.”
Maya looked from Adrian to her daughter, and then around the vast, echoing empty space of the penthouse. The wealth in this room could buy her a hundred lives, yet the man sitting at the head of the table looked more impoverished than anyone she had ever met in the homeless shelters she used to volunteer at.
“Why?” Maya asked softly.
May you like
Adrian looked out at the Chicago skyline, the sparkling lights reflecting in his dark eyes.
“Because,” Adrian whispered, touching the small plastic device behind his right ear, “the silence in this room is starting to make me deaf to everything that actually matters.”
