The Empty Seat and the Long-Hidden Secret
Should I just turn around and go back?
“Have a wonderful Monday morning.”
“Between you and me, that kind of talk should be illegal.”
While the usual morning greetings bounced around our surprisingly harmonious little pack of office zombies, I glanced over.
“Greg didn’t come in today? Running late?”
“Beats me.”
I stole a look at Manager Rachel’s desk, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
As far as I could tell, no one in the office had asked about her morning sickness that day. There hadn’t been any of the usual congratulations either. She’d always been a tough boss, so unless she announced it herself, it wasn’t a topic anyone would casually bring up.
Still, she seemed to have grown closer to Maria, the office’s light and salt.
…Well, whatever.
I booted up my computer. Work still had to get done.
Before long the office filled with nothing but the click of mice, the clatter of keyboards, and the ring of phones. By the time I looked up, it was lunch. Greg’s seat was still empty.
“What the hell? You don’t think something happened to him, do you?”
Austin, who sat next to Greg, seemed just as worried as I was and made a point of saying it loud enough for everyone to hear.
Greg wasn’t answering any of my calls either. I was starting to get genuinely concerned when—
“Greg took sick leave today.”
Manager Rachel’s cool voice cut through the room at last.
“Ah…”
“Aigoo, poor guy. Catching a cold on such a nice day.”
People accepted it easily enough and wandered off to lunch without another thought. I was the only one who knew something was actually wrong.
Sick leave? He’d sounded fine on the phone yesterday, and the day before that he’d been flying high. At least the fact that the company had processed the leave meant he hadn’t completely gone dark…
I finally got a short reply from him that afternoon.
…
What else could I do? I let it go. But Greg took sick leave the next day too.
I glanced at Manager Rachel, half-wondering if he’d caused some new disaster. Her expression looked troubled as well.
Greg finally showed up at the office on Wednesday.
With his head shaved completely bald.
When I ran into him in the break room, cap pulled low, he looked rough enough that anyone would have believed he’d been sick for two straight days.
“Dude… what happened to you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”
He avoided my eyes and ducked his head even lower. I grabbed his shoulders, spun him around, and yanked the cap off.
“Hey, no way…”
His face had grown gaunt in just two days. Looking closer, there was a faint bruise around one eye that looked like it was just starting to fade.
“Dude… what is this? What happened? Are you okay?”
I barely swallowed the question about whether he’d gotten jumped by thugs on the way home.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
Clearly mortified, Greg jammed the cap back on.
…
Once the first shock of his appearance wore off, I started to get a rough idea of the situation. Still, between Greg’s pride as a grown man and the seriousness of the matter, I couldn’t exactly blurt out, Is there domestic violence going on at your place?
But I needed to know what had happened so I could help—or call the cops, or do something.
“What the hell happened over those two days?”
“Ah… I, uh, I moved.”
Now what was this about? Had it been a fight with his roommates instead of his family?
“In two days? Where? Why? With what money all of a sudden?”
“My brother-in-law had a rental that happened to be empty…”
“…Don’t tell me your brother-in-law beat you up.”
“No! My brother-in-law’s a good guy! He even cut the rent a little to cheer me up…”
…
“…This bruise is from Mom. Or rather, from the smartphone she threw. I just happened to catch it with my face.”
…
“…It’s true.”
His arms had been pinched black and blue and his back thoroughly thrashed, but she’d sworn she never hit his face or head.
“…Right.”
I answered, but for a moment I had nothing else to say. I just stood there, quietly piecing together Greg’s background.
I never usually thought about it, but “Greg” was short for “Gregorio.” He was Italian-American.
Maybe it was just a stereotype, but people always said Italians had fiery temperaments… and that they stuck closer as families than most other ethnic groups in America.
…So this was the whole family rushing in to clean up after a son and younger brother who’d screwed up?
The tension drained out of me all at once.
To clear the air a little I let go of Greg, filled my mug with coffee, pulled one for him too while he stood there dazed, and sat down.
Something about the whole thing felt both hollow and hilarious; a laugh threatened to slip out. For the sake of my battered friend I stripped every trace of amusement from my voice before I spoke.
“So… the second you told your mom your girlfriend was pregnant, you got the living daylights beaten out of you and ended up moving out?”
Greg let out a long, suffering groan, clutched his head, and collapsed into the plastic chair.
“…My life is over. Well, not over exactly, but…”
I smiled silently over the top of my friend’s bowed head while he groaned and fretted.
You lucky bastard.
Sure, shaving a grown son’s head was a bit much, but honestly, he’d gotten off cheap. His son was about to get married, so they’d scrambled to set him up with a place—and even if he wasn’t saying so, they’d probably filled it with furniture too.
They were charging him rent, sure, but his brother-in-law wasn’t going to kick him out if he fell a little behind.
…
I was honestly a little jealous. Even living that carelessly, his family covered everything for him.
But the feeling I had for my friend outweighed the envy, so I kept my tone as casual as usual.
“Still, you’ve got a good family. What’s the place like?”
Greg buried his face in both arms and answered in a muffled voice.
“Yeah… it’s nice… a little old, but clean… there’s a garage and a small yard too…”
What the hell, that actually sounded amazing.
“But if it’s that nice… how much is the rent? Even if your brother-in-law cut it, the base price has to be steep, right?”
“I told him my take-home is eighteen hundred after taxes, so he set it at eighteen hundred…”
Insane.
A single-family house around here would easily go for twice that. And this guy had six hundred dollars in debt—yet he’d moved in with no deposit at all.
No matter how you looked at it, he was drowning in blessings.
…But even at that bargain rate, if his entire paycheck was going to rent…
“What about living expenses?”
“…I have to work weekends at my sister’s shop. And she’s going to live with me for a while… to teach me how to take care of kids…”
“Ah… yeah…”
I fell quiet for a moment, thinking that might get awkward. But learning how to care for a baby was only natural, so even that was genuinely a good thing.
I gave him the honest truth.
“Dude, seriously, count your blessings. Your family went this far for you and you’re sitting there looking like you want to die?”
They were charging rent, but they’d still handed him a proper house and thrown in a job on top of it.
Maybe I was imagining it, but the “nice guy” brother-in-law had probably been so thrilled that his wife and kids would be living with his brother-in-law for a while that he’d cut the rent that much.
…Had Cassandra somehow known this would happen when she told him to call his mom?
Anyway. After all the worrying I’d done over Greg’s problems, everything suddenly looked solved.
Which meant he finally had something solid to say to Rachel…
…Or maybe not.
He hadn’t exactly done it himself, after all. Still, that was fine. Plenty of people lived well thanks to family support. There was no law that said you had to be self-made.
…Everything would have been perfect if Greg hadn’t shrunk so small.
He was still a lucky bastard, but right now he looked so pitiful I asked carefully,
“Hey, never thought I’d be the one asking this, but what about the busking? The gigs you said you were doing at that pub? I already bought a guitar.”
Buying the guitar hadn’t really been about Greg’s schedule. It had actually turned out pretty nice.
The way Luca’s eyes had gone perfectly round when I first played it—he’d looked so adorable. Playing was a good way for me to unwind, and when Luca got older I could teach him. Having an instrument or two around the house just felt right.
I was thinking those easy thoughts when Greg lifted his head. I set the mug I’d been raising to my lips right back down.
“Dude, you…”
Was he crying?
Was he actually crying?
A twenty-five-year-old man, crying?
I was still speechless with shock when, at the worst possible moment, Manager Rachel pushed open the break-room door with her usual cool expression. And then—
“…Oh my god! Greg! What happened to your face!”
The second her eyes met Greg’s, Rachel’s expression crumpled into pure distress.
Wow. I never saw that coming.
I made myself into pure air, slipped out of the break room without a word, and closed the door behind me.
Wow. Those two really did like each other.
Wow.
Wow.
Greg’s family had done “exactly what family should do.” They had saved his life and, at the same time, casually tossed aside every dreamy resolution he’d been floating on.
Just like the longish hair that had covered his neck—long for a guy—had been shaved clean overnight, it felt like Greg’s spirit had been shaved right off with it.
Fortunately, after running into Rachel that morning, he seemed to regain his composure.
He handled the morning’s work without trouble, and by lunch he was speaking with a somewhat recovered expression.
“I know. I was way too immature. I’m really grateful to my family… for making me into a proper adult, even if it’s late…”
Still, watching him force a smile while he ate his sandwich didn’t sit well with me.
…If they had that much room to maneuver, couldn’t they at least let the kid go sing on the weekends?
…
I thought it, then shook my own head.
No, that wasn’t right. Any sensible person would focus every spare hour on earning more money and getting financially stable. Maybe Greg had already driven the adults crazy talking about music when he was twenty, or maybe they just considered singing a fundamentally useless pursuit.
That was pretty standard, after all…
“Rachel seemed a little happier when I told her about the house. Her place is just a studio, you know.”
“Ah…”
“…Yeah. She must’ve been worried. From now on I really have to do better.”
Greg put on a face that said he’d made up his mind for real. He finished the afternoon without a single mistake, said goodbye, and left first.
I watched his back, still uneasy.
But what was I supposed to say? Telling him to take just one day off would have been ridiculous. Even if it was hard now, I just had to hope he’d adjust soon.
Still… what if he snapped and ran off one day…?
I fretted alone while packing up. When I stood, Manager Rachel came over.
It was the first time she’d ever come to me instead of calling me to her desk. Whatever she wanted to say, it wasn’t work.
“Jun, you’re Greg’s closest friend, right?”
“…Outside of here I wouldn’t know, but in the office? Yeah, probably.”
Rachel asked with a carefulness I’d never seen from her before.
“Then… would it be all right if I asked you for a favor…?”
“Dada… vroomie…!”
Luca babbled at full volume as he watched the unfamiliar scenery rolling past the window.
“Look, I was planning to invite you and Luca over someday anyway… but does it have to be tonight?”
After Rachel’s request I had caught Greg on his way out and was now riding with him to his new place.
Rachel had asked me to check whether Greg was really okay. He kept saying he was fine, but she couldn’t believe it.
I’d wanted to do the same thing myself; I just hadn’t had a good excuse. Her request gave my visit real weight.
I answered with complete naturalness.
“Yeah. They’re doing some inspection at my place and the power’s going to be out for a bit.”
“Right…”
It was a flimsy lie, but Greg didn’t have the energy left to challenge it.
After about thirty minutes we pulled into an ordinary middle-class neighborhood.
It had that classic look of a place where families lived: streetlights flicking on one by one, kids shouting as they tried to squeeze every last minute of play out of the evening before dinner, SUVs turning into driveways, warm light spilling from every big living-room window.
“Dude, this neighborhood’s really nice.”
“Right? I’m glad. Just hearing the name of the place made Rachel happy too.”
“Mm…”
Greg parked in front of one of the houses. Only then did I ask the obvious question.
“Oh—so is your sister home?”
It occurred to me this might be rude. An unexpected work colleague barging in.
“Yeah, don’t worry. Everyone’ll be glad to see you. They’ve always been nice to my friends.”
Everyone?
Someone besides his sister? The kids, maybe?
Greg opened the front gate and called out something in Italian. From the tone it was roughly “I’m home.”
And one by one, the family members who had been waiting to welcome Greg home after work appeared.
In other words…
Greg’s grandmother, his mother, two women who were probably aunts, two older sisters, and a cluster of young children who were almost certainly theirs—every single pair of eyes locked onto me at once.