Part 1

The Stranger in the Market

I wasn’t supposed to stop. I was Elliot Reeves. To the world, I was the genius behind the tech, the man who reshaped retail with a single app, the guy on the magazine covers. My schedule was tight, my driver was waiting, and my mind was on a board meeting in Manhattan.

But as my car crawled through the traffic in Queens, something caught my eye.

It wasn’t the noise or the chaos of the street market. It was a stillness. A woman, standing behind a modest wooden crate, arranging oranges.

She wasn’t doing it in a rushed, distracted way. She was stacking them with a kind of quiet reverence, as if each fruit mattered. She touched them gently, checking for bruises, placing them just so.

I told the driver to pull over.

“Sir, the meeting,” he warned.

“Wait here,” I said, slamming the door.

The humidity hit me instantly. I was wearing a $5,000 suit, sunglasses tucked into my collar, walking through a crowd of people just trying to survive the week. The smell of roasted nuts and exhaust fumes filled the air.

I walked toward the fruit stand. My heart started hammering against my ribs, a rhythm I hadn’t felt in years.

A strand of hair had slipped loose near her cheek. Her arms were tanned, her hands working rhythmically. And then, she looked up.

The world stopped. The sounds of the market—the haggling, the traffic, the sirens—faded into a dull hum.

It was her.

Naomi.

Six years. It had been six years since I watched her walk away at a train station in Boston. Back then, she was soaking wet, holding a cheap suitcase, telling me she wouldn’t wait for me anymore. I had let her go. I had chosen the meetings, the flights, the equity, the “future.”

And here she was. Not in a concert hall, not dancing on the stages she used to dream about. She was selling fruit in Queens.

“Naomi,” I breathed. My voice felt foreign in my own throat.

She blinked once. There was no shock in her eyes. No smile. Just a pause. It was the look you give a song you haven’t heard in years—you remember the melody, but you also remember exactly where it hurt.

She stood up straight. She didn’t flinch.

“They’re fresh from Red Hook,” she said evenly. Her voice was the same—low, steady, with that slight rasp that used to make me freeze just to listen to her. “No chemicals. Picked two days ago.”

She was treating me like a customer. Like a stranger.

I couldn’t move. I wanted to reach out, to touch her arm, to ask why she was here, but the air between us felt solid. Like she had built a wall of glass that I had no right to break.

She reached for a brown paper bag. It was muscle memory; I hadn’t asked for anything.

“Do you want some?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, but the words died on my tongue. What could I say? I’m sorry? I’m rich now? I missed you? Every option felt like an insult to the woman standing in front of me with dirt under her fingernails and dignity in her spine.

Naomi looked at me for one long second. Her gaze wasn’t angry. It was distant. It was the look of someone who had learned to survive without me and had no intention of needing me again.

She gently set the bag down, turned to lift a heavy crate, and disappeared into the back of the stall without another word.

I stood there for a long time. People bumped past me, annoyed by the suit standing in the middle of the aisle. My assistant called my phone. I let it ring.

I hadn’t come here to find her. I hadn’t even let myself think of her in months—or at least, that’s the lie I told myself. But seeing her today, looking exactly like she did the day I broke her heart, tore something open inside me.

That night, back in my penthouse in Tribeca, the silence was deafening. The marble floors, the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the skyline, the smell of wealth—it all felt cold.

I stood by the sink and took off my watch. I looked in the mirror, but I didn’t see the CEO. I saw the coward who let the love of his life walk into the rain six years ago because he was too busy chasing a check.

I didn’t sleep.

The next morning, I didn’t put on a suit. I put on jeans and a black jacket. No driver. No assistant.

I went back to the market.

She was there. Same spot. Same calm.

She saw me this time. She didn’t flinch. She simply kept arranging the oranges as if I wasn’t there. I stood a block away, watching. I didn’t dare approach. Not yet.

Then, around 3:00 PM, a school bus stopped at the corner.

A little boy ran out. He had a backpack bouncing on his shoulders and messy hair damp with sweat. He sprinted straight for Naomi’s stand, weaving through the crowd like he owned the place.

“Mom!” he shouted, his voice bright and clear.

Naomi’s face transformed. The cold mask she wore for me melted into a smile so warm it made my chest ache. She ruffled his hair and handed him an apple.

I leaned against a lamppost, shielded by the shadows. I watched them.

The boy laughed. He turned his head to wave at a vendor selling honey.

And that’s when the ground fell out from under me.

Because when that boy laughed, he looked like Naomi. But when he narrowed his eyes against the sun…

He had my eyes.

Gray-blue. The same squint I see in the mirror every morning.

I couldn’t breathe. I stared at the boy—Max, I heard her call him—and did the math. Six years.

He was five, maybe six.

I wasn’t just looking at my ex-wife anymore. I was looking at a secret she had kept buried in this market, hidden behind crates of oranges and a life of struggle I knew nothing about.

My hands started to shake. I pulled out my phone, but I didn’t dial the office. I called a private investigator I hadn’t used in a decade.

“I need a DNA test,” I whispered, my eyes glued to the boy who looked exactly like the man I used to be. “And I need it fast.”

Part 2

The Stranger in the Mirror

The email arrived at 11:42 AM on a Tuesday.

I was sitting in a glass-walled conference room on the 40th floor of the Reeves Tower in Manhattan. Around me, six men in Italian suits were arguing about the acquisition of a robotics startup in Silicon Valley. The numbers on the whiteboard meant nothing. The projected Q4 earnings meant nothing. The only thing that existed was the notification blinking silently on my phone screen.

Subject: Genetic Analysis Results – Priority 1.

My hands, usually steady enough to sign billion-dollar contracts without a tremor, were vibrating. I slid the phone under the mahogany table. I unlocked it. I opened the file.

It was a PDF. Five pages of medical jargon, loci markers, and alleles. I scrolled to the bottom, my breath caught in a stranglehold in my throat.

Probability of Paternity: 99.98%.

Conclusion: The alleged father cannot be excluded as the biological father of the child.

The room tilted. The voices of the board members turned into a distant, underwater murmur.

“Elliot? Your thoughts on the equity split?”

I looked up. My CFO, Marcus, was staring at me. He looked concerned. “Elliot?”

I stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the floor. “I have to go.”

“Go? We’re in the middle of the closing arguments. The Japanese investors are—”

“I don’t care,” I said. And for the first time in my life, I meant it. “Reschedule it. Kill the deal. I don’t care.”

I walked out of the room, leaving a stunned silence in my wake. I walked past my assistant, past the security detail, into the elevator, and hit the button for the garage.

He was mine.

Max. The boy with the messy hair and the backpack. The boy who laughed at a honey vendor. The boy living in a cramped apartment behind a fruit stand in Queens.

He was my son.

And I had missed everything. His first step. His first word. The first time he scraped his knee. The first time he saw snow. I had been sitting in rooms just like the one I just left, chasing commas on a bank statement, while my son was learning how to be a person without me.

I drove myself. I didn’t take the Bentley; I took the black SUV we used for transport, something that blended in. I drove across the bridge, the Manhattan skyline shrinking in the rearview mirror. It looked like a fortress I was escaping.

I reached the market just as the sun was beginning to dip, casting long, orange shadows across the pavement. The frantic energy of the day was winding down. Vendors were packing up.

I saw her immediately. Naomi was sweeping the area in front of her stall. Max was sitting on an overturned crate, swinging his legs, reading a book about dinosaurs.

The rage hit me first. Not at her, but at the universe. At the time stolen. But then, it turned toward her. Why? Why hadn’t she told me?

I slammed the car door. Naomi looked up, hearing the heavy thud. When she saw me, she stopped sweeping. She didn’t run. She didn’t hide. She just gripped the broom handle tighter, her knuckles turning white.

I walked straight up to her, ignoring the curious looks from the pretzel vendor next door.

“Is he mine?” I asked. I didn’t have the patience for pleasantries.

Naomi looked at Max, then back at me. “Elliot—”

“Is he mine, Naomi? The truth. Now.”

She let out a breath, a long, shaky exhale that seemed to carry the weight of six years. “Yes.”

The word hung in the air between us, heavier than the humidity.

“Yes,” I repeated, my voice cracking. “And you… you just decided I didn’t need to know? You decided to play God with my life? With his?”

“I didn’t play God,” she whispered fiercely, stepping between me and the boy, lowering her voice so Max wouldn’t hear. “I played the odds. I looked at the man you had become, Elliot. I looked at the husband who spent our anniversary on a conference call. The man who told me that ‘children are a distraction’ during your IPO launch.”

“I said that in passing! I was stressed!”

“You meant it,” she countered, her eyes flashing. “I found out I was pregnant the morning you flew to Tokyo. I was going to tell you. I packed a bag. I came to the office. But you walked right past me in the lobby, talking to your lawyers. You looked right through me. And I realized… if I told you, you would have stayed out of obligation. You would have resented him. You would have resented me. I didn’t want a checkbook for a father, Elliot. I wanted a dad.”

“So you stole him?”

“I saved him,” she said, her voice trembling but resolute. “I saved him from growing up in a penthouse feeling like he was second place to a stock price.”

I looked over her shoulder. Max had looked up from his book. He was watching us. He didn’t look scared; he looked curious.

I felt like I was bleeding out. “I could have changed.”

“Maybe,” she said softly. “But you didn’t come looking, did you? Not for six years.”

That hit me harder than a physical blow. Because she was right. I hadn’t come looking. I had accepted her departure as a casualty of war, a necessary sacrifice for my success.

“I’m here now,” I said.

“Why?” She challenged me. “Because you saw a resemblance? Because you feel guilty? Or because you actually want to be a father?”

“I have rights, Naomi. I have lawyers who can—”

“Stop.” She held up a hand. “Don’t you dare bring your lawyers here. Don’t you dare turn my son into a negotiation. If you do that, if you try to buy him, I will run so far you will never find us. And you know I can do it. I did it before.”

I stopped. The threat wasn’t empty. I looked at her—this woman who used to wear silk and dance Balanchine, now wearing denim and smelling of citrus and sweat—and I realized I was outgunned. My money meant nothing here. My power meant nothing.

I took a step back. I looked at Max one more time.

“I’m not going to sue you,” I said, my voice quiet. “But I’m not leaving either.”

Naomi watched me, her eyes searching my face for the lie. She didn’t find one.

“Go home, Elliot,” she said, turning back to her broom. “You don’t belong here.”

I didn’t go home.

I checked into a hotel in Long Island City, a generic chain hotel with thin walls and a view of a parking lot. It was a far cry from the Four Seasons, but it was ten minutes from the market.

For three days, I didn’t go to the office. I didn’t answer my phone. My inbox was flooding with panic—shareholder concerns, rumors of a breakdown. Let them panic.

I spent those three days watching.

I parked down the street. I watched Naomi walk Max to the public elementary school two blocks away. I saw her tie his shoes. I saw her hand him a brown paper bag lunch. I saw her kiss his forehead.

I saw the gaps, too.

I saw her struggling to carry three crates of melons at once because she couldn’t afford to hire help. I saw her arguing with the landlord of her building, a heavy-set man who waved a piece of paper in her face while she kept her head down, nodding, humiliated. I saw them waiting for the bus in the rain because they didn’t have a car.

I saw the poverty. Not the romanticized kind you see in movies, but the grinding, exhausting reality of it.

On the fourth day, I couldn’t sit in the car anymore.

I waited until Max was at school. I walked up to the fruit stand.

Naomi tensed when she saw me. She was arranging apples into a pyramid.

“I told you to go home,” she said without looking up.

“I want to help,” I said.

She scoffed. “I don’t need your money.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m not offering money.”

I took off my suit jacket. I folded it and set it on a clean crate. I rolled up the sleeves of my white dress shirt.

“What are you doing?” she asked, standing up straight.

“That crate over there,” I pointed to a stack of heavy wooden boxes filled with pumpkins that had just been delivered. “You can’t lift those alone. You’ll hurt your back.”

“I’ve been doing it alone for six years.”

“Well, today you’re not.”

I walked over to the truck. The driver, a burly guy named Sal who I’d learned was the supplier, looked at me like I was an alien.

“Where do you want them?” I asked him.

Sal looked at Naomi. She stared at me, her mouth slightly open. She looked confused, wary, but she didn’t say stop. She gave a small nod.

“Stack ’em in the back, rich boy,” Sal grunted.

I spent the next three hours hauling pumpkins.

I hadn’t done manual labor since… ever. My hands, soft from years of typing and handshakes, started to blister. My lower back ached. Sweat soaked through my shirt, ruining the Egyptian cotton. Dirt got under my nails.

But for the first time in years, my mind was quiet. There were no stock prices. No legal briefs. Just the weight of the pumpkin, the rhythm of the walk, the stack.

Naomi didn’t speak to me. She worked the front, selling fruit to the neighborhood regulars. But every now and then, I felt her eyes on me. Watching. Assessing.

When the truck was empty, I was panting, leaning against the wall of the stall.

Naomi walked over. She held out a bottle of water. It was lukewarm.

“You ruined your shirt,” she said.

I looked down. It was stained with orange dirt and sweat. “I have others.”

She looked at my hands. They were red and raw.

“Why are you doing this, Elliot?”

“Because I can’t buy my way into his life,” I said, taking a sip of the water. “You made that clear. So I have to earn it.”

“You think moving a few pumpkins earns you the right to be a father?”

“No,” I said. “I think it earns me the right to stand here for five minutes without you telling me to leave.”

She almost smiled. It was a ghost of a smile, there and gone in a second, but I saw it.

“He gets out of school at 3:00,” she said. “He likes chocolate milk. The bodega on the corner sells the good kind.”

My heart hammered. “Is that… are you saying I can see him?”

“I’m saying if you’re still here at 3:00, and you happen to have chocolate milk… I won’t stop him from talking to you.”

I was there at 2:45. I had bought two cartons of chocolate milk. I stood by the stand, feeling more nervous than I had before my first IPO.

When the school bus hissed to a stop, the doors opened, and a flood of noise poured out. Kids screaming, laughing, running.

And then, Max.

He ran toward the stand, just like he always did. “Mom!”

He hugged her legs. Then, he pulled back and looked at me. He stopped. He looked at my dirty shirt, my rolled-up sleeves. He looked at the chocolate milk in my hand.

“Who’s that?” he asked Naomi.

Naomi put a hand on his shoulder. She looked at me. This was the moment. She could say “nobody.” She could say “a friend.”

“Max,” she said softly. “This is Elliot. He… he used to know me a long time ago.”

It wasn’t “This is your Dad.” But it wasn’t a rejection. It was a door left ajar.

Max walked up to me. He was small for his age, but sturdy. He looked up at me with those gray-blue eyes—my eyes—and the scrutiny was intense.

“Are you working for my mom?” he asked.

I crouched down so I was eye-level with him. My knees cracked on the pavement.

“Sort of,” I said. “I helped move the pumpkins.”

“They’re heavy,” Max said seriously. “I tried to lift one but Mom said I’d get a hernia. What’s a hernia?”

I laughed. A genuine, surprised laugh. “It’s when your tummy hurts really bad because you lifted something too big.”

“Oh.” He looked at the milk. “Is that for me?”

“Yeah.” I handed it to him.

He took it, popped the straw in with practiced ease, and took a sip. “Thanks, Elliot.”

He said my name. It sounded strange and wonderful coming from him.

“You’re welcome, Max.”

He ran off to sit on his crate, drinking the milk. I stood up, feeling lightheaded.

“Don’t get used to it,” Naomi muttered, arranging the grapes. “He likes anyone who gives him sugar.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

The weeks that followed were a blur of duality.

By day, I was the “Shadow CEO.” I delegated everything. I attended meetings via Zoom with my camera off, muting myself to hide the sounds of Queens traffic in the background. I told the board I was “restructuring my priorities” and “working remotely on a special project.”

By afternoon, I was a laborer at a fruit stand.

I learned the rhythm of the market. I learned that Tuesdays were slow, and Fridays were chaotic. I learned that Mrs. Gorsky at the bakery next door would trade a loaf of stale bread for two bruised apples. I learned that the landlord, Mr. Henderson, was a bully who liked to intimidate single mothers.

One afternoon, Henderson showed up. He was a red-faced man in a cheap suit who always looked like he was sweating grease.

“Rent’s going up, Naomi,” he said, chewing on a toothpick. “Market rates. Gentrification. You know how it is.”

Naomi wiped her hands on her apron. “We have a lease, Mr. Henderson. The rate is locked until December.”

“Lease, schmease,” Henderson spat. “I got a coffee chain looking at this spot. They pay triple what you pay. You got two weeks to come up with the increase or I find a violation to kick you out.”

Naomi looked small. “I can’t afford an increase. You know that.”

“Not my problem, sweetheart.” He turned to leave.

I stepped out from the back, where I had been breaking down cardboard boxes. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but I straightened up to my full height. I blocked his path.

“Mr. Henderson,” I said.

He looked me up and down, sneering. “Who’s the help?”

“I believe the New York State tenant laws regarding commercial leases are quite specific,” I said, my voice dropping into that cold, corporate register I used to dismantle competitors. “specifically, Article 7, Section 230 regarding arbitrary rent hikes during an active lease term. It’s considered harassment.”

Henderson blinked. “Who are you, a lawyer?”

“Let’s just say I know the law,” I said. I took a step closer. “And I know that if you try to evict a single mother with a valid lease, the legal fees you’ll incur fighting the injunction will cost you about three years of that coffee shop’s rent. Not to mention the building inspector coming to look at that wiring I saw sparking yesterday.”

Henderson paled. He looked at Naomi, then back at me. “I… I was just saying. Negotiating.”

“The rent stays,” I said. “Until December. And fix the wiring.”

He grunted something incomprehensible and waddled away fast.

When I turned back, Naomi was staring at me. Her arms were crossed, but her expression had softened.

“You sounded like him,” she said. ” The old Elliot.”

“I used the old Elliot to help,” I said. “Is that okay?”

She sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah. It’s okay. Thank you.”

It was the first time she had thanked me.

That evening, as she was closing up, it started to rain. A slow, steady drizzle. Max was drawing on the pavement with chalk, ignoring the water.

“Elliot?” Naomi asked.

I was locking the metal grate over the stall. “Yeah?”

“I… I have to pick up a prescription for Max’s asthma. The pharmacy is four blocks away. I can’t take him in the rain, his chest is tight.”

She hesitated. Trust was a terrifying thing for her. I could see her calculating the risk.

“Can you… can you watch him? Just for twenty minutes? Here, under the awning?”

I froze. She was leaving me alone with him.

“Yes,” I said immediately. “Of course.”

“Don’t let him run into the street. And don’t let him eat the chalk.”

“I won’t.”

She grabbed her umbrella and ran into the gray drizzle.

I stood there with Max. The rain drummed rhythmically against the canvas awning. It was intimate, quiet.

Max looked up at me. “My dad went to the moon,” he said suddenly.

I blinked. “What?”

“My dad,” Max said, scrubbing a blue chalk mark on the concrete. “Mom said he had to go away on a really big mission. Like an astronaut. That’s why he never comes.”

My chest tightened. She hadn’t told him I was a deadbeat. She had made me a hero. She had protected my image in his mind, even when I didn’t deserve it.

“Is that what you think?” I asked, my voice thick.

“I dunno,” Max shrugged. “Sometimes I think maybe he just got lost. Space is really big.”

He looked up at me, his eyes wide and earnest. “Do you know where space is?”

I sat down on the wet pavement beside him, ruining my jeans.

“Max,” I said. “Sometimes, people don’t go to space. Sometimes… sometimes they just get scared. They get lost right here on Earth because they forget what’s important.”

“Like forgetting your homework?”

“Yeah,” I smiled sadly. “Exactly like that. But way worse.”

“If they get lost,” Max said, handing me a piece of yellow chalk, “someone should go find them.”

“I think someone is trying,” I said.

I took the chalk. “What should I draw?”

“A rocket ship,” he said. “For my dad. So he can come home.”

I drew a rocket ship. It was terrible. It looked more like a lopsided banana. Max laughed at it.

“That won’t fly,” he giggled.

“It will if we believe in it,” I said.

When Naomi came back, soaked and breathless, she stopped at the corner. She saw us sitting on the ground, covered in chalk dust. She saw me laughing at my own terrible drawing. She saw Max leaning against my shoulder, pointing at the sky.

She didn’t say anything. She just stood there in the rain, watching us. And for the first time, she didn’t look like she was preparing for a fight. She looked like she was finally putting down a heavy load.

But the peace didn’t last. It couldn’t.

Two weeks later, the duality of my life collapsed.

I was at the market, helping unload a shipment of peaches. My phone buzzed. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again. Finally, I wiped my hands on a rag and looked.

It was Marcus, my CFO.

Turn on the news. Now.

I walked into the bodega and looked up at the TV mounted in the corner.

BREAKING NEWS: REEVES TECHNOLOGIES CEO MISSING? STOCK PLUMMETS 15% AMIDST RUMORS OF LEADERSHIP CRISIS.

There was my face on the screen. A photo from three years ago, looking sharp, cold, and invincible. The ticker tape at the bottom screamed about shareholder lawsuits and a hostile takeover bid from a rival conglomerate.

“Hey, isn’t that you?” the bodega owner asked, squinting at me, then at the screen.

I pulled my baseball cap lower. “Just a resemblance.”

I ran back to the stall. Naomi was there, holding her phone. She looked at the screen, then at me.

“They’re looking for you,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, though my stomach was churning. “Let them look.”

“Elliot, stock plummeted. That means people are losing money. Employees. Families.”

She was right. Naomi had always been the moral compass I ignored.

“I can fix it,” I said. “I can make a call.”

“You can’t fix this from a fruit stand in Queens,” she said softly. “You have a responsibility. You built that world.”

“I don’t want that world anymore! I want this one!”

“You can’t just throw one away for the other,” she said. “That’s what you did to me, remember? You traded us for the company. Now you want to trade the company for us? It doesn’t work like that. You don’t fix a mistake by making another one.”

“So what do you want me to do? Leave?” The panic rose in my throat. “If I go back there, I get sucked back in. I know how it works. The meetings, the travel, the pressure… it eats you alive.”

“Then show them you’ve changed,” she said. “Go back. Fix it. And then… come back.”

“If I leave,” I stepped closer, desperate. “Will you be here when I get back?”

She looked at me. The walls were gone.

“We’re not going anywhere, Elliot. We’re right here.”

I had to make a choice.

I hugged Max goodbye. I told him I had to go do some “grown-up homework.” I promised I’d be back for his school recital on Friday.

“Pinky promise?” he asked.

I hooked my pinky around his small, sticky finger. “Pinky promise.”

I got in my car and drove back to Manhattan.

The next three days were a war zone. I walked into the boardroom in jeans and work boots, shocking the hell out of the lawyers. I took control. I killed the hostile takeover. I reassured the shareholders. I worked 20-hour days to stabilize the ship I had built.

But every time I looked at the clock, I wasn’t counting profits. I was counting the hours until Friday. Until the recital.

Friday morning, the sky turned bruised and purple.

The forecast had been warning about a tropical storm moving up the coast, but New Yorkers always ignore the weather until the water hits their ankles. This time, they shouldn’t have ignored it.

By noon, the wind was howling through the canyons of Manhattan. Rain lashed against the glass of my office.

I checked my watch. 1:00 PM. The recital was at 4:00 PM. I had plenty of time.

Then my phone rang. It wasn’t the office line. It was Naomi.

“Elliot,” her voice was staticky, cutting in and out. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the office. I’m leaving in an hour. Is everything okay?”

“It’s the market,” she sounded frantic. “The wind… the roof of the main pavilion. It’s old, Elliot. It’s shaking. The storm is worse than they said. They’re talking about a surge.”

“Go home,” I commanded, standing up. “Take Max and go to the apartment.”

“I can’t! Max is at the school for rehearsal. The phones are down over there. And I can’t leave the stall… if the roof goes, everything we have… the inventory… it’s all here. If I lose this, I lose the rent. I lose the apartment.”

“Forget the inventory! I’ll buy you ten fruit stands!”

“It’s not about the money!” she screamed over the wind. “It’s my life! I built this!”

Then the line went dead.

I looked out the window. The city was disappearing into a wall of gray water. The bridges were starting to close.

I grabbed my jacket.

“Sir, you can’t go out there,” my assistant pleaded. “The Mayor just issued a shelter-in-place warning.”

“Get out of my way,” I said.

I ran to the elevator. I didn’t take the company car; traffic would be gridlocked. I ran to the parking garage and jumped on a Ducati motorcycle I kept for “image” but never rode. It was the only way to weave through the stalled cars.

I tore out of the garage into the teeth of the storm.

The wind nearly ripped the helmet off my head. The rain felt like gravel hitting my body. The Queensboro Bridge was a parking lot of terrified commuters. I drove on the shoulder, dodging debris, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

Pinky promise.

I had to get to them.

I reached Queens. The streets were flooding. Water was shin-deep in some places. Trash cans were floating down the avenue.

I skidded the bike to a halt a block from the market. The wind was deafening.

I ran toward the pavilion.

It was chaos. The canvas awnings were being ripped to shreds. Wooden beams were groaning. And there, in the middle of it all, was Naomi.

She was fighting to cover the crates with a heavy tarp, her hair plastered to her face, her body leaning into the gale force wind. She looked tiny against the fury of the storm.

“Naomi!” I screamed.

She didn’t hear me.

A gust of wind tore a sheet of corrugated metal from the roof above her. It flapped wildly, hanging by a single screw.

“Naomi! Move!”

I sprinted. My boots splashed through the mud and water.

The metal groaned. It snapped.

I dove.

I hit her with my shoulder, tackling her to the muddy ground just as the metal sheet came slicing down, embedding itself into the wooden crate where she had been standing a second ago. Oranges exploded everywhere.

We rolled in the mud. I covered her body with mine, shielding her from the hail of debris.

“Elliot?” she gasped, looking up at me, her face streaked with mud and rain. “You came back.”

“I told you,” I yelled over the roar of the wind, wiping water from my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I looked around. The market was falling apart. The roof was sagging dangerously.

“Where’s Max?” I shouted.

“He’s still at the school! The recital… they’re keeping the kids inside!”

“We have to get him. But we can’t leave this here.” I looked at her destroyed stall. “We have to stabilize this roof or the whole structure collapses on your inventory.”

“There’s no time! It’s too heavy!”

“I’m not doing it alone!” I stood up and grabbed a heavy wooden support beam that had been knocked loose. “Grab the other end!”

For the next hour, we didn’t speak. We fought the storm. We were billionaire and fruit seller, ex-husband and ex-wife, united by mud and desperation. We lashed tarps. We nailed boards. We moved crates.

I saw other vendors struggling. I didn’t stop with Naomi’s stall. I ran to help Mrs. Gorsky. I helped Sal secure his truck.

I wasn’t the CEO of Reeves Technologies. I was just a man in the mud, using his back to hold up the world for the people he loved.

By the time the worst of the wind passed, the market was battered, but standing.

We stood under the dripping remains of the awning. We were soaked, shivering, covered in grime. I was bleeding from a cut on my forehead. Naomi had a bruise on her arm.

She looked at me. Really looked at me.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, reaching out to touch my face. Her hand was cold, but her touch burned.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

She started to cry. Not the sobbing kind, but the silent, releasing kind.

“I thought you wouldn’t make it,” she whispered. “I thought you chose the boardroom again.”

“I will never choose that room over you again,” I said. “Never.”

She leaned into me. Her head rested on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight, breathing in the smell of rain and survival.

“We have to go,” she murmured into my soaked shirt. “The recital.”

We ran to the school. We looked like a disaster—muddy, bloody, wet. But when we burst into the auditorium, the lights were still on. The storm hadn’t killed the power here.

The room was full of anxious parents. On stage, a group of six-year-olds in oversized t-shirts were singing “You Are My Sunshine.”

And there, in the back row, was Max.

He looked terrified. He was scanning the audience, his eyes darting back and forth. He was looking for her. He was looking for me.

When he saw us—two muddy figures standing in the doorway—his face broke into a smile that lit up the darkened room.

He waved.

I waved back. I raised my pinky finger in the air.

I kept the promise.

Naomi took my hand. Her fingers interlaced with mine. It was a small gesture, simple and quiet. But it felt louder than the storm outside.

We stood there, hand in hand, watching our son sing, while outside the rain began to slow, washing away the dirt, washing away the years, leaving only the truth of what remained.

I had lost six years. I couldn’t get them back. But looking at the woman beside me and the boy on stage, I knew one thing for certain.

I wasn’t going to miss the next six.

The storm had broken the market, but it had finally, completely, fixed me.

Part 3

The War for the Orange Tree

The storm had passed, but the air in Queens felt heavier than before. The sky was a bruised purple, clearing slowly, but on the ground, the wreckage was absolute. We had saved the structure of the stall, but the inventory was gone. Smashed pumpkins, bruised apples, and mud—so much mud—covered everything.

Naomi didn’t cry over the fruit. She just picked up a shovel.

“We start over,” she said, her voice raspy from the screaming wind. “We always start over.”

I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to. I wanted to tell her I could write a check that would buy this entire block. But before I could speak, a black sedan with tinted windows rolled up to the curb, splashing dirty water onto the sidewalk.

Two men stepped out. I knew them. They weren’t customers. They were legal counsel for Reeves Technologies. And behind them, looking like a vulture who smelled a carcass, was Marcus, my CFO.

They picked their way through the debris in their Italian loafers, faces twisted in disgust.

“Elliot,” Marcus said, stopping five feet away. He didn’t look at Naomi. He didn’t look at Max, who was hiding behind my leg. He looked at me—covered in dried mud, blood on my forehead, shirt torn. “Jesus. Look at you.”

“What are you doing here, Marcus?” I asked. My voice was low, dangerous.

“We’re here to extract you,” the lead lawyer said, holding out a phone. “The Board is convening an emergency session in one hour. They’re invoking the Competency Clause.”

My blood ran cold. The Competency Clause. It was a failsafe we had written into the bylaws years ago to remove a CEO who had lost their mind.

“I’m perfectly competent,” I said.

“You’re playing construction worker in a Queens slum while the stock drops 19%,” Marcus snapped. “Photos of you wrestling a tarp in a hurricane are trending on Twitter. The narrative isn’t ‘Hero.’ It’s ‘Breakdown.’ They think you’ve snapped, Elliot. They’re freezing your assets.”

I felt Naomi stiffen beside me. “Freezing?”

“Everything,” Marcus confirmed. “Bank accounts, cards, equity access. Until you undergo a psychiatric evaluation and return to your duties, you don’t have a dime. You’re not a billionaire right now, Elliot. You’re a liability.”

He looked at Naomi then, a sneer curling his lip. “And frankly, associating with… this… isn’t helping your case for stability.”

I stepped forward. I didn’t think; I just moved. I grabbed Marcus by the lapels of his $3,000 suit and shoved him back against the black sedan.

“Don’t you dare,” I snarled, inches from his face. “Don’t you dare speak about her.”

“Elliot!” Naomi grabbed my arm, pulling me back. “Stop! You’re scaring Max.”

I let go. Marcus straightened his jacket, his face pale but smug.

“That,” Marcus pointed a trembling finger at me, “is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re unhinged. You have 24 hours to report to the medical board, or you’re out. Permanently.”

They got in the car and drove away.

I stood there, panting, the adrenaline crashing into nausea. I turned to Naomi. I expected anger. I expected her to tell me to leave before I dragged her down with me.

Instead, she reached out and wiped a smudge of dirt from my cheek.

“So,” she said, her voice steady. “You’re broke.”

I let out a harsh, dry laugh. “Technically, yes. For now.”

“Good,” she said. She picked up a crate of salvaged oranges. “Then you can finally learn how to haggle.”

But the universe wasn’t done with us yet.

The next morning, the sun came out, bright and mocking. We were clearing the last of the debris when a white city van pulled up. Behind it was a police cruiser.

And stepping out of the van, wearing a hard hat and a triumphant grin, was Henderson, the landlord.

He walked up to the fruit stand and slapped a bright orange sticker on the metal beam I had spent hours securing yesterday.

CONDEMNED.

“What is this?” Naomi demanded, dropping her broom.

“Safety inspection,” Henderson said, feigning concern. “Structural damage from the storm. The foundation is cracked. Roof is unstable. City says it’s a hazard. You gotta vacate. Immediately.”

“You called them,” I said, stepping forward. “You called the inspection.”

“I’m a responsible property owner,” Henderson shrugged. “Can’t have a billionaire getting squashed on my property, can I? Bad for insurance.”

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I told you, Naomi. Coffee shop. They signed the intent to lease this morning. They don’t mind tearing it down and rebuilding.”

“We have a lease!” Naomi cried.

“Lease is void if the building is condemned,” Henderson grinned. “Read the fine print. You have 48 hours to clear out your junk, or the bulldozers do it for you.”

He turned and walked away, the police officer giving us a sympathetic but firm nod. “Sorry, folks. You can’t be in here. It’s unsafe.”

We stood on the sidewalk. Max was holding his toy dinosaur, looking from me to Naomi.

“Are we moving?” he asked.

Naomi fell to her knees. She didn’t scream. She didn’t rage. She just crumpled. This stand wasn’t just a business. It was how she fed him. It was how she paid for his asthma medicine. It was the one thing she had built with her own hands after I left her with nothing.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered, covering her face. “I can’t fight them, Elliot. I don’t have the money for a lawyer. I don’t have the energy.”

I looked at the orange sticker. CONDEMNED.

I looked at the Reeves Tower in the distance, a silver needle pricking the sky.

I had built an empire. I had crushed competitors. I had negotiated deals that changed the economies of small nations. And yet, standing here on a cracked sidewalk in Queens, I had never felt more powerless. My cards were frozen. My lawyers were the enemy.

But as I looked at Max, who was patting his mother’s back with a small, confused hand, I realized something.

I didn’t need my money. I needed my rage.

“Naomi,” I said.

She didn’t look up.

“Naomi, stand up.”

She shook her head.

I crouched down and took her hands. “We are not leaving.”

“Elliot, they have the police. They have the city.”

“And we have the market,” I said. I looked around. The other vendors—Mrs. Gorsky, Sal, the guy who sold spices—were watching us. They looked scared. If Henderson could do this to Naomi, he could do it to them.

“I need you to trust me one last time,” I said. “Not the billionaire. The guy who moved the pumpkins.”

The next 48 hours were a blur of a different kind of work.

I didn’t call the Board. I didn’t go to the doctor.

Instead, I went to the library. I printed out the city zoning codes. I dug into public records on Henderson’s properties. I found what I was looking for—a history of bribes, code violations, and illegal evictions.

Then, I went to the community.

I stood on a crate in the middle of the market. I wasn’t wearing a suit. I was wearing a “Queens Fruit” t-shirt Max had lent me. It was tight, and I looked ridiculous, but I spoke with the voice that had commanded shareholder meetings.

“They want to tear us down!” I shouted. “Not just Naomi. All of us. They want to turn this market into a row of overpriced condos and coffee chains. They think we’re weak because we don’t have their money. But we have something they don’t.”

I pointed at Sal. “Sal, you supply half the restaurants in this borough.”

I pointed at Mrs. Gorsky. “You’ve fed three generations of kids.”

“We are the city,” I said. “And we’re not moving.”

By the morning of the eviction, we were ready.

The bulldozers arrived at 8:00 AM. Henderson was there, smoking a cigar. The police were there, looking uncomfortable.

But they couldn’t get to the stand.

Because standing in front of it, linking arms, were two hundred people. Vendors, customers, parents from Max’s school, the old men who played chess in the park.

And in the front row, holding Max’s hand, was me.

Henderson’s face turned purple. “Get them out of there! Arrest them!”

The police sergeant looked at the crowd. He looked at the cameras.

Oh yes, the cameras.

I had used my last remaining favor. I had called a journalist I knew—one who hated corporate bullies more than she hated billionaires. She was there, live-streaming to millions.

“Mr. Reeves!” she shouted from behind the police line. “Elliot! Is it true you’ve been ousted from your company? Is it true you’re leading a protest?”

I stepped forward. The crowd quieted.

I looked directly into the camera lens.

“My name is Elliot Reeves,” I said. “For twenty years, I thought value was something you measured in stock prices. I thought power was the ability to walk away from anyone who didn’t serve your bottom line.”

I looked down at Max. He was looking up at me, his eyes wide, squeezing my hand.

“But I was wrong,” I continued, my voice breaking the silence of the street. “This market… this woman… this boy… this is value. And the men trying to tear it down? The men sitting in boardrooms freezing assets and condemning buildings? They are the bankrupt ones.”

I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket. It was the injunction I had drafted myself, citing the specific historic preservation codes Henderson had violated.

“This building isn’t condemned,” I announced. “It’s a community landmark. And we have filed for protected status as of 9:00 AM this morning.”

Henderson screamed. He threw his cigar on the ground. “You can’t do that! You’re broke!”

“I’m broke,” I smiled. “But I can still read.”

The crowd erupted. The police sergeant stepped back, signaling the bulldozers to cut their engines. He wasn’t going to arrest a billionaire and two hundred grandmothers on live TV.

But the victory was short-lived.

My phone buzzed. It was Marcus.

Turn on the news.

I didn’t need to. A black limousine pulled up through the parting crowd.

The Chairman of the Board of Reeves Technologies stepped out. He was a man named Arthur Sterling, a man who had been my mentor, a man who had taught me that emotions were overhead costs.

He walked up to the police line. He didn’t look at the crowd. He looked at me.

“Elliot,” he said, his voice smooth as silk. “This theatre is over.”

“I’m resigning, Arthur,” I said. “You don’t have to fire me.”

“Oh, we’re not firing you,” Arthur smiled, a cold, reptile smile. “And you’re not resigning.”

He pulled a document from his jacket.

“We’ve made a deal with Mr. Henderson,” Arthur said. “Reeves Technologies has just purchased this land. All of it. The market. The apartments. Everything.”

The crowd gasped. Naomi gripped my arm.

“You bought it?” I asked, confused. “To save it?”

“To bulldoze it,” Arthur said. “We’re building the new Reeves Data Center here. It’s perfect location. And since we own it, we can evict whoever we want. Today.”

He looked at Naomi. “You have one hour to vacate our property.”

Then he looked at me. “And you, Elliot? You’re coming with us. If you don’t, we will release the full unredacted file on your ex-wife’s ‘abandonment’ of her child six years ago. We’ll paint her as unfit. We’ll take the boy. You know we have the judges to do it.”

It was the ultimate checkmate. Come back, be the CEO, destroy the market, or lose your son to the system.

The silence was absolute. The wind rustled the plastic tarp on the fruit stand.

Naomi looked at me. Her eyes were filled with terror. “Elliot… don’t let them take him.”

I looked at Arthur. I looked at the building that was about to be destroyed. I looked at the life I had left behind.

“You bought the land?” I asked quietly.

“Cash deal. Closed ten minutes ago,” Arthur gloated.

“Did you check the deed?” I asked.

Arthur frowned. “Excuse me?”

“The deed,” I said, stepping closer. “Did you check the ownership history before you wired the money?”

“It belongs to Henderson.”

“It did,” I said. “Until last night.”

I turned to the crowd. “Mrs. Gorsky? Did you bring the papers?”

The elderly baker hobbled forward, pulling a crumpled envelope from her apron.

“I did, Elliot,” she said.

I took the papers and held them up.

“See, Arthur, when my assets were frozen, I couldn’t buy anything. But I have friends who can.”

I walked up to the barricade.

“I traded my vintage Porsche collection—the one stored in the private garage you couldn’t freeze because it’s in a trust—to a collector in Dubai. I did it over the phone yesterday. He wired the money not to me, but to a Limited Liability Company formed by Mrs. Gorsky, Sal, and Naomi.”

Arthur’s face went gray.

“Mr. Henderson sold the building to the ‘Queens Market Co-Op’ last night at midnight. He took the money and ran. He probably forgot to mention that to you before he took your money too. Double dip. Classic Henderson.”

I shoved the papers into Arthur’s chest.

“You don’t own this land, Arthur. Naomi does. Sal does. Mrs. Gorsky does. And you are trespassing on private property.”

The crowd went silent for a heartbeat. Then, a roar went up that shook the windows of the apartment buildings.

Arthur stared at the papers. His hands shook.

“You… you gave away the Porsches? Those were worth four million dollars.”

“Five,” I corrected. “But who’s counting?”

I turned my back on him. I turned to Naomi.

She was crying. She grabbed my face and kissed me—hard, desperate, in front of the cameras, the board, the world.

“You crazy idiot,” she sobbed. “You sold your cars?”

“I never liked driving them anyway,” I whispered against her lips. “No room for a car seat.”

Arthur got back in his limo. The bulldozers reversed. The police left.

The market belonged to the people.

And I belonged to them.

Part 4

The Orange Peel Boat

The transition wasn’t smooth. Real life rarely is.

The next morning, the headlines weren’t about the hero billionaire. They were about the “Fall of Reeves.”

ELLIOT REEVES RESIGNS. STOCKS TUMBLE. FORMER CEO NOW UNEMPLOYED IN QUEENS.

I lost the penthouse. I lost the company credit cards. The Board accepted my resignation with immediate effect and stripped me of my severance package, citing “gross misconduct.”

I moved into Naomi’s apartment.

It was small. My feet hung off the end of the bed. The radiator clanked at 3:00 AM like a dying robot. The shower pressure was non-existent.

And I had never been happier.

For the first month, it was a shock. I had to learn how to live without a safety net. I learned that milk costs $5.29. I learned that doing laundry for three people takes four hours. I learned that Max had nightmares about the storm, and the only way to calm him down was to sit by his bed and tell him stories about a brave astronaut who always came home.

I wasn’t a billionaire. I was just Elliot.

Naomi and I didn’t rush things. We tiptoed around the edges of our new reality. We were co-parents, business partners in the Co-Op, and… something else. Something fragile and growing.

One evening, three months after the “Battle of the Market,” I was sitting at the kitchen table helping Max with his math homework.

“Six plus four is ten,” Max muttered, counting on his fingers. “But why do we need to know this?”

“Because,” I said, “if you sell six apples and Mrs. Gorsky buys four more, you need to know how many you sold.”

“I’d just give them to her,” Max said. “She makes good cookies.”

I laughed. “That’s a terrible business model, buddy. But a great way to live.”

Naomi walked in. she looked tired. The market was thriving—since the news broke, people were coming from all over the city to shop at the “Billionaire’s Fruit Stand”—but it was exhausting work.

She placed a box on the table.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It came to the stand today,” she said. “Addressed to you.”

I looked at the return address. It was from a law firm in Manhattan. My stomach tightened. Was Arthur suing me?

I opened it.

Inside wasn’t a lawsuit. It was a check. And a letter.

Dear Mr. Reeves,

I represent a group of employees at Reeves Technologies. Engineers, janitors, secretaries. We watched what you did. We saw you stand up for the little guy. We’ve never seen a CEO do that.

We pooled our bonuses. It’s not much compared to what you used to make, but we want you to use it to fix the roof properly. Don’t let the rain back in.

Sincerely,

The Staff.

The check was for $12,000.

I stared at it. I had signed bonus checks for millions without blinking. But this? This piece of paper felt heavier than gold.

“They remember,” Naomi said softly, resting her hand on my shoulder.

“I didn’t think anyone noticed the people downstairs,” I choked out.

“They notice when you look them in the eye,” she said.

We used the money to renovate the market’s roof. We installed solar panels. We built a small playground in the back for the vendors’ kids.

Life settled into a rhythm.

Wake up at 5:00 AM. Unload the truck with Sal. Open the stand. Sell fruit. Walk Max to school. Fix the leaking sink. Cook dinner. Sleep.

It was hard work. My back ached constantly. My hands were permanently rough. But the panic attacks stopped. The hollow feeling in my chest vanished.

Six months later.

It was Max’s seventh birthday.

We closed the stand early. We set up a picnic table in the backyard of the apartment building. Mrs. Gorsky baked a cake that was 90% sugar. Sal brought a karaoke machine.

The sun was setting, casting that golden, forgiving light over Queens.

I was sitting on the grass, watching Max chase a balloon. He was laughing, that full-body laugh that made you want to protect the world just to keep it safe for him.

Naomi sat down next to me. She handed me a paper plate with a slice of cake.

“You missed a spot,” she said, pointing to my cheek.

“Frosting hazard,” I said, wiping it off.

She looked at me. Her eyes were the color of warm amber.

“You stayed,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a realization.

“I told you I would.”

“I know,” she said. “I just… I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For you to get bored. For you to miss the jets and the parties.”

“I miss the shower pressure,” I admitted. “But that’s it.”

She laughed. Then she reached into her pocket.

“I found this,” she said. “In your old things. When you moved in.”

She held out her hand. In her palm was the platinum wedding band I had taken off the night I found out about Max, the one I had thrown in a drawer in the penthouse and inadvertently packed in the single box I brought with me.

“I don’t need it,” I said. “That ring belongs to a guy who didn’t know what he had.”

“Good,” she said. She threw the platinum ring into the tall grass. It disappeared.

Then, she reached into her other pocket. She pulled out a ring made of twisted copper wire.

“Max made this,” she said. “From the scrap pile at the construction site next door.”

She held it out.

“It’s not platinum,” she said. “It turns your finger green if you get it wet. It has no value on the stock market.”

I looked at the twisted wire. It was imperfect. It was rough. It was beautiful.

“Put it on me,” I whispered.

She slid the copper ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly.

“Marry me again,” I said. “Not the CEO. Just Elliot. The guy who moves pumpkins.”

Naomi smiled, tears spilling over. “I think I like the pumpkin guy better.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Ask Max,” she said.

I called him over. “Max! Come here a sec.”

He ran over, breathless, a paper crown crooked on his head.

“Mom says I can ask you something,” I said.

“What?”

“Can I marry your mom again? And… can I stay? Like, forever?”

Max looked at me. He looked at the copper ring on my finger. He looked at Naomi.

“Duh,” he said. “You’re my Dad. Dads have to stay.”

He hugged me. And in that hug, amidst the smell of cheap frosting and city exhaust, I felt richer than any man on Earth.

Epilogue: One Year Later

The morning was crisp. The “Queens Market Co-Op” sign was freshly painted.

I was arranging the display of Blood Oranges. They were in season, deep red and sweet.

A tour bus stopped across the street. A guide was pointing at our stand.

“And there,” I heard him say through a megaphone, “is the famous Billionaire’s Fruit Stand. The owner used to run a Fortune 500 company. Now he sells the best peaches in New York.”

Tourists snapped photos. I waved. They waved back.

A sleek black car pulled up. The window rolled down.

It was a young man in a suit. He looked like I used to look—stressed, phone glued to his ear, eyes dead.

He got out and walked over. He looked at the oranges, then at me.

“Are you Elliot Reeves?” he asked.

“I am.”

“I… I read your story,” he said. “I’m the CEO of a startup in Brooklyn. We just hit unicorn status. Billion dollar valuation.”

“Congratulations,” I said, handing him a bag.

“I’m miserable,” he blurted out. “I haven’t slept in two years. My wife hates me. My kids don’t know me. I have everything, and I feel like I’m drowning.”

He looked at me with desperate eyes. “How did you do it? How did you walk away?”

I looked over at the counter. Naomi was laughing at something Mrs. Gorsky said. Max was sitting on a stool, doing his homework, wearing a t-shirt that said “Manager in Training.”

I looked back at the young CEO.

I picked up an orange. I began to peel it, the zest spraying a mist of citrus into the air.

“You have to decide,” I said, handing him a segment of the fruit. “What kind of hunger you’re trying to feed.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“If you’re hungry for power, you’ll never be full. It’s a bottomless pit. But if you’re hungry for a life…” I nodded toward Naomi and Max. “Then you realize you only need enough to fill your hands.”

I pointed to the copper ring on my finger.

“This cost me everything I had,” I said. “And it was the best deal I ever made.”

The young man stared at me. He ate the orange segment slowly. He looked at his waiting car. He looked at his phone, which was buzzing with notifications.

He silenced the phone. He put it in his pocket.

“Can I have a bag of those?” he asked. “For my kids. I… I should go home early today.”

“Take two,” I said. “One for the road.”

He paid me. He walked back to his car. But he didn’t get in the back seat. He opened the front door, told his driver to get out, and got behind the wheel himself.

I watched him drive away.

“Who was that?” Naomi asked, coming up behind me and wrapping her arms around my waist.

“Just a guy looking for directions,” I said, kissing her temple.

“Did you help him?”

“I think so.”

Max ran up. “Dad! Dad! Look!”

He was holding a small boat made out of an orange peel, floating in a bucket of water.

“It floats!” he shouted. “It really floats!”

“Of course it does,” I said, picking him up. “It’s built to survive the storm.”

I looked at my family. I looked at the market. I looked at the sky.

It was going to rain later. I could smell it.

But let it rain. We had umbrellas. We had boots. And most importantly, we had each other.

I wasn’t Elliot Reeves, the billionaire, anymore.

I was Elliot, the father. And that was the only title that mattered.