I grabbed the paper from here, and see it.
The Official letterhead. Corporate language. Sixty days to vacate.
The building had been acquired by Devlin Holdings for redevelopment purposes. Tenants were offered relocation assistance that wouldn’t cover first and last month’s rent anywhere else in the city, just a check box on a form to meet their legal obligation.
“It’s a mistake,” I said, reading it twice to make sure I understood. “It has to be.”
But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t. The paper was too official, the language too precise, and this was real.
My mother’s breathing went shallow and fast. I recognized that sound, panic creeping in at the edges.
“Mamá, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
I didn’t know if that was true.
My father came home from his warehouse shift that evening after loading trucks for twelve hours, his shoulders sagging with exhaustion. I watched him read the notice, watched his face turn into something I’d never seen before. Not angry, not scared,something worse. Something that looked like defeat wearing determination as a mask.
“I’ll talk to the company,” he said, his voice steady in that way he used when he was terrified but trying not to show it. “There has to be something we can do. We’ve been here eight years, we pay rent on time, they can’t just?—”
He didn’t finish because they could. We all knew they could.
Over the next two weeks, I watched my father try everything.
He called the company and got transferred between departments until someone finally hung up on him. He called back, got transferred again, left messages that went unreturned. He spent his lunch breaks on hold, listening to elevator music while his food went cold.
He even took a day off work—something he never did because we couldn’t afford it—and showed up at their corporate offices in Manhattan. He took the train into the city, wore his best shirt, prepared what he was going to say.
Security turned him away before he made it past the lobby. “Sir, you need an appointment.” “Sir, you can’t be here.” “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
He came home that day looking smaller somehow, deflated in a way that hollowed out my chest.
He wrote letters too, formal ones asking for extensions or alternative arrangements or some kind of compromise. He explained that his daughter had just started law school, that his wife had health issues, that they needed time.
Every single one went unanswered.
The deadline didn’t move.
My mother’s panic attacks got worse and she stopped sleeping. I’d wake up at three in the morning and find her in the kitchen, scrubbing counters that were already clean. She stopped eating properly, picking at her food and insisting she wasn’t hungry even though I knew she was.
I’d come home from class and find her pacing the apartment, counting things. The dishes in the cabinet, the books on the shelf, the tiles on the kitchen floor, her lips moving silently as she tallied numbers that didn’t matter.
“Mamá, you need to rest.”
“I can’t,” she said, her hands twisting together. “What if we end up on the street? What if?—”
“We won’t. Dad’s handling it.”
But he wasn’t handling it and nobody could. Devlin Holdings had the law on their side and we had nothing, just two months and a deadline that was coming whether we were ready or not.
I started missing classes, not on purpose at first but I’d just lose track of time while calling apartments, trying to find something affordable. Everything required income verification we couldn’t fake or references that would expose we’d been displaced.
Nobody wanted tenants who were already in trouble, nobody wanted to take a risk on a family that was one paycheck away from falling apart.
My professors sent emails asking where I was and I didn’t respond. What was I supposed to say?Sorry, can’t make it to Property Law because I’m trying to prevent my family from becoming homeless?
My father worked extra shifts, doubles when he could get them, trying to save money we didn’t have time to save. I watched him leave before dawn and come home after dark, exhaustion carved into every line of his face. His shoulders permanently hunched from lifting boxes, his hands developing tremors he tried to hide.
He looked like he’d aged ten years in three weeks.
