Thank you, Dad, she told her father silently, knowing that she would treasure his final gift to her for the rest of her life.
4
Greg Matthews tapped his fingers on his desk, nervous about what was about to happen, what he was about to do. He had been in the office since seven thirty that morning, and had been working through this onslaught of frantic energy, debating with himself, making sure he wasn’t going to regret it. It was now ten, time to get this done.
Itwasthe right decision, wasn’t it?
He looked around his tiny cubicle. Even after eight years at Foster, Cummings and Tyler - a top Wall Street brokerage firm in Lower Manhattan - he still had barely enough room to get comfortable. His desk chair needed replacing; this he knew because of the pain that had lodged itself in his lower lumbar region about two years ago, a pain that he paid a masseuse dearly to get rid of, but still felt it return after a few days of being back in the chair.
The office was a grim building on Vesey Street, with grim lighting and this grim cubicle. Greg had always hated it, but enjoyed the money. He liked his clients, but usually got sidetracked into talking to them about a gallery opening or how their kids were doing, rather than trying to sell them the next hot commodity.
He’d started out on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and had worked his way up to the office he was in now. There was no denying that it brought him little joy, just a big bank account.
‘It’s now or never Matthews,’ he said under his breath. ‘Time to make the call.’
He poked his head up over his cubicle walls hesitantly, like a prairie dog hoping to go unnoticed by its prey. Looking straight ahead, he scanned across the sea of cubes, ignoring the noisy activity of his co-workers, into his boss’s office. He could see the stately figure of Dave Foster at his polished mahogany desk, like a king on his throne.
Greg had known this day was coming for a long time. Recent events had brought it home that life was short and there was little time to waste. Now it was nearing Christmas. The end of one year, the beginning of another. He couldn’t face the thought of entering the New Year still sitting in this cube. He cringed at the idea of another ignored holiday season and regretted, for his family’s sake, that he hadn’t done it sooner.
That’s not to say that he didn’t have a good life. He had been happy, blissfully happy, when he wasn’t inside these walls. The problem was that the time he spent outside the walls was limited. And with everything that was going on in his personal life at the moment, that just couldn’t continue.
It wasn’t as if he was bad at his job. Over his eight years as a broker he had amassed plenty of money: money that had bought trips, a nice apartment, expensive dinners, the whole shebang.
But, frankly, he was burned out. His eyes were red at the end of the day from staring at the computer screen, his heartbeat accelerated from tracking all of his investments, for himself and his clients, and his free time was … nonexistent. Depending on his trades he could be up and out at three to five a.m., and not be home till late at night. He knew it would have to be this way for at least another ten years if he were to have a career like his father’s; he had built his own stockbrokerage from scratch. But Greg had already made a tidy sum (and was on every fancy gala list and main event in the city as a result) and he found the job a fruitless, endless effort in the pursuit of money for clients who already had enough.
Greg bit his lip. He just hoped people would understand, his dad especially. Unlike Jeff Matthews, Greg had grown to loathe standing in the pit, and most of his clients hated to hear from him anyway the way the economy was going. No joy on his customer’s faces. More like panic, or disgust.
Smiling gently, he thought of his mother; she would definitely be supportive about it, was always urging him to follow his dreams, and do something he was passionate about.
What’s more, after three years together, he and Karen could finally begin concentrating on what was important. The rest of their lives.
Yes, Greg knew it was time for him to make a choice that he was sure would make him happy when he looked back and recounted his life.
He shuffled some papers around, finally creating a neat pile. His stomach felt as if it was tied in a knot. Maybe he should have spoken to someone about it before today, just to make sure that he was doing the right thing?
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s my life.’ And he thought of his mother once again.
Cristina had been such an inspiration to him for as long as he could remember. And it wasn’t that he was a mama’s boy. Far from it. His mother always said that thirty-six years ago when she found out that she was having a baby she’d been hoping for a boy, because she could raise him to be a man. She had always been intent on teaching him to be strong, honourable and brave. ‘No matter what, never compromise on your morals or ideals,’ she would say. ‘Those things make you who you are.’
He knew that she hadn’t wanted him to return to the firm after 9/11 and it wasn’t just that she was scared of the ‘what if’ that had been on many people’s minds that day. Rather, she had believed – correctly - that life was too short to spend it working in a cube but had respected his choice to play the role of the young corporate maverick. Even when she knew about the hobby he had had since childhood that had turned into a full-blown passion of his.
Photography.
Greg loved New York as much as he loved anything, and had spent countless hours and days exploring this city, photographing everything –from day-to-day life in the boroughs, to the magnificence of the Manhattan buildings that seemed to become one with the sky. He loved it all. Earlier this year he’d even sold an arty shot of the Flatiron Building to a downtown art gallery, something his mother had been intensely proud of, and a piece of his past that he considered a fierce accomplishment. It had given him a renewed sense of faith.
Then the week before, the Ninth Precinct had let him ride with them as they made their rounds in Queens. Greg had put in the request months ago in the hope of capturing drama in the city at night through a lens.
He was thrilled when they finally got back to him, and he had spent the entire night tagging along with the cops as they not only saved lives, but in some cases just put lives back on track.
He had got some great shots of a relieved mother staring gratefully into the eyes of her three year old who had just recovered from an asthma attack. Of a drunk teenager being pulled out of an elevator shaft he had tumbled into, and of an elderly man being pushed in a wheelchair to the local church because there was no heat in his apartment. It was part of a ‘People of the City’ portfolio he was working on. He had just finished a series on the construction downtown, focusing on St Paul’s Church and the work on the Freedom Tower and the other newer buildings at Ground Zero. While he always loved to photograph the cityscape, he felt he had overdosed a bit on the buildings recently, and had been looking forward to getting some faces in front of his lens again.
That morning, walking by Zuccotti Park had made up his mind for good. He’d been wearing his suit and carrying his briefcase, and slowed down as he passed. There were people of all kinds just milling around talking with each other. It looked like a modern-day Rome. The businessman exchanging ideas with the woman with dreadlocks and a baby strapped to her chest. The student with bare feet in an intense debate with the concrete worker on his lunch break. Greg felt frustrated he didn’t have his camera. His fingers itched to adjust the lens and he felt like a junkie without a fix. The suit he was wearing suddenly felt heavy and the briefcase like a shackle, even though his camera equipment was ten times heavier. It was at that moment that he had felt complete clarification. He wanted to run back to his apartment, get into a pair of jeans, grab his photography gear and get back there, quickly, before it all went away.
Sure, this was New York and there were plenty of photographers everywhere, but Greg knew he had talent, and what’s more he had passion. Passion that had led to his decision today. And while his new career might not be anything like as lucrative as being a broker, he was certain that it would pay tenfold in happiness.
Steeling himself, he ran his fingers through his closely cropped dark brown hair.
It was a Monday morning. The markets were long open, and trading was in full swing. He glanced at his friend Mark who sat in the cube across from him. His face was flushed and his eyes bulged as he studied figures on three computer monitors and yelled into the phone, placing an order to the trading floor of the stock exchange.
