Richard ended the call and examined a new text from Grant Evers asking whether he could certify lawful vacant possession by the proposed closing date. Richard typed that the matter was under control. He attached a photograph of the Riverside building, the windows shining in the afternoon sun, and imagined the place empty.
In the Washington apartment, Eleanor filed the unsigned eviction template beside the other false notices. Her notebook was growing thick enough that the elastic band no longer closed around it. She placed Thomas's childhood photograph beside the folder for a moment, smiled at the boy with his crooked school tie, then returned it to the mantel. Whatever he was now, he had first learned about fairness at their kitchen table.
Thomas Washington arrived the next morning in an unremarkable gray sedan, carrying a canvas bag and looking ten years more tired than he did in the photograph on his mother's mantel. Eleanor had set out coffee and toast. He accepted the coffee, ignored the toast, and embraced her so tightly that she felt the fear he had concealed on the telephone. Then he hugged James, who gripped his shoulder and said they were fine with enough conviction to satisfy neither of them.
Thomas walked through the apartment without touching anything. He paused at the cracked frame, the open research files Eleanor had not yet reorganized, and the wooden doorstop beneath the front door. When he reached the balcony, he looked down at the scarred patch of pavement where the jackhammer had stood. Eleanor explained what each part of the room had looked like before Richard entered.
"Mom," he said quietly, "I know you want me to stay calm. I'm going to do my best. But you should have called me when he locked you out."
"We thought we could handle it."
"You did handle it. You documented more carefully than most lawyers would. But handling something isn't the same as carrying it alone."
James laid the folder on the kitchen table. "Tell us what we should do next, not what we should have done last week."
Thomas almost smiled. "That's the engineer talking."
He introduced them by telephone to Nadia Brooks, an independent housing attorney in her late thirties whose practice focused on tenants, fair housing, and emergency injunctive relief. Nadia had no professional connection to Thomas's court. She came to the apartment that morning with a compact laptop and a legal pad covered in tabs, listened to the couple describe the incidents, and read the lease before examining a single photograph. Her approach reassured Eleanor. Nadia was not impressed by drama when a document could establish an enforceable right.
"The property owner can make repairs," Nadia explained. "He cannot create conditions intended to force you out, fabricate grounds for eviction, or enter your home without a proper basis. We need to separate what is provable now from what requires further investigation. The strongest immediate issues are access, utilities, possible unauthorized entry, and retaliation. The discriminatory statements matter, too, especially when we compare his treatment of other tenants."