Chapter 15 - The Unfinished Sketch
With Eleanor gone, I returned to my porch, sat at the wooden drafting table, and rolled out a massive sheet of blank blueprint paper.
For years, I had designed corporate towers, shopping complexes, and luxury retreats for wealthy clients who cared only about square footage and resale value. My designs had been clean, functional, but hollow.
Now, my pencil began to move with a fierce, effortless grace.
I sketched a sprawling timber-and-stone community center. A sanctuary with wide-open courtyards, sunlit therapy rooms, communal kitchens, and transitional housing units for young people escaping abusive domestic environments. A place with thick cedar beams that couldn't be easily broken, wide windows where sunlight could flood every dark corner, and heavy oak doors that locked from the inside, giving children who had never known safety a place where no one could hurt them.
I had 4.2 million dollars coming to me in five months.
I didn’t need a luxury penthouse in Charlotte. I didn’t need an $80,000 sports car.
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I was going to build what I never had.
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