Real estate tycoon David Aaron had a son who had fallen on hard times. When Jesse's mother passed away unexpectedly, the boy had taken it hard. He and David's late wife had always been close. Growing up, Gloria Aaron had always been there for her son while David was busy earning the fortune that would sustain them later in life. David did not neglect his children and made sure that they had everything they would need - save for enough of his too-precious time. His older children emerged with few battle scars, but the same could not be said for Jesse. His mother had to be there to pick up the pieces and when she passed away a few days after Jesse's 17th birthday, he was devastated. David and his older children did the best that they could for Jesse, but he fell through the cracks. The once-thriving, promising young student fell in with a bad crowd. By the time the formerly-healthy young man turned 21, he was a full-fledged drug addict with a horrific addiction to heroin. As the scion of a wealthy family, the drug was easy to obtain - too easy. Jesse's siblings did as much as they could and David came home and abandoned his pursuits of wealth for a time. He knew the value of money, although he valued family far, far more. He had already lost the love of his life before she had even reached the age of 40. He was not going to allow his youngest child to be swept away on the wings of addiction.
He took a leave of absence, with the Board of Directors threatening to replace him. David took a firm stance and countered their threat. Should they dare to make such a move, he would pull all of his funding from several large projects. This threat was tantamount to his saying those projects would never reach fruition and he knew he had them in his cross hairs. They backed off and allowed him to institute proxies in his stead until such time as he could return to the businesses he ran so competently.
David got his son into a treatment facility, a very good one. He got daily therapy and Jesse began to respond. It helped enormously for him to have his father in his corner, with the added support of his siblings, their spouses and his nieces and nephews. While it time for heroin's grip of Jesse to loosen, all could see that he was turning things around. The only fear was that once Jesse found himself with too much time on his hands, he would slip back into the deadly pattern of addiction. Jesse's therapist suggested to his family that they find him something to do, some kind of purpose to his life. Unlike his older brother, the strict regimen of military life would not work for Jesse. He did need structure, but a structure of his own making and not one that he would rebel at. Military life for the young man would chafe and he would need something of his own. An accomplishment that would enable the young man in recovery to prove he yet had something to offer the world.
A bit of serendipity happened to fall in Jesse's lap due to one of his father's older business deals. A grouping of apartment / brownstones lost their superintendent. Her family had fallen on difficult times back in North Carolina and Eugenia had to return to them. Most of the other tenants were too new or too young for David to consider offering them the job of taking care of the buildings. However, it would prove to be a golden opportunity for Jesse. He would have a job that wasn't complicated, it would afford him some spare time in which he could return to school at nights and also, an apartment of his own to live in, albeit one in which his family could check in on him from afar. All that remained was for the family to convince Jesse to accept the opportunity placed in front of him.
It actually took very little convincing on their part. Before he had fallen prey to the lure of drugs and addiction, Jesse had been a highly-motivated young man. He had always wanted to make his mother proud of him, his father too, to a lesser extent. He saw this as an opportunity to rebuild and eagerly accepted the second chance he was afforded.
The first thing that Jesse did to ensure that he stayed clean was eliminate any and all of the old friends that had led him down that path. In his meetings, many of the others spoke of relapses. Jesse was determined that he himself would not have such a story. He wanted to ground himself in the real world. If a problem came up, he would address it in the right way and not by turning to drugs.
He spoke with his father and let David know that he didn't want any of his money. Jesse had a sizable trust fund that had been left to him by his mother. Jesse told David to invest the money and to appoint a trustee. He would work and earn his own salary by taking care of the building. He and his father agreed upon a reasonable salary for his efforts. It would be one that would allow him to maintain a nice living, but not the hedonistic, free-wheeling, drug-addled life he had led before.
He also knew that he would need to keep busy. By taking care of the building, he'd be able to do just that. So began the young man's road to redemption.
It did not take David Aaron a long time to see that he would soon have something to be very proud of in his newly-focused youngest son. Jesse devoted himself to the building and to the 30-odd tenants that occupied it. If he did reach out to his father, it was rarely for money. It was usually a request for assistance with something he was not qualified to handle himself, like plumbing or electrical work.
Chicago winters can be very brutal, so Jesse made sure that he was out there after each and every snowfall, making sure the walks were clear and that the parking lot was plowed promptly by the contractor he had hired to do so. If the contractor ran late, Jesse started shoveling the walks by himself. Several of the tenants were seniors and he didn't want any of them having accidents. Once David heard of this, he made sure that his son had a snow blower to make things easier on himself.
When spring rolled around, Jesse began puttering around the property. They had someone to cut the grass and do the major landscaping, but the young man liked working in the flower beds. David saw that his youngest son had inherited the Green Thumb possessed by his late mother. He was so proud of his son and how well he was doing. He praised the lad to his siblings and increased Jesse's salary, although not overtly. As it was still early in his son's recovery, he placed another few hundred in trust for Jesse every month. He had every confidence in the young man that he was on the true path to recovery, but he did have enough common sense not to dangle the temptation of extra money in front of Jesse's nose as this stage of the game.
Jesse was too focused on his responsibilities to think about his past addictive behavior. The closest he came to any form of relapse was an occasional beer and alcohol had never been his drug of choice. He'd always been able to have one or two beers and stop there. That pattern had not changed. Jesse believed that he had conquered his demons and they had not conquered him.
He was well liked by the tenants, the old and younger ones alike. A few of the seniors liked him and treated him almost as a grandson. If Jesse didn't feel like cooking a meal, he usually had at least 5 standing invitations to dinner. Many of the young married couples offered him meals as well. There were also a few young and attractive female tenants living in the complex. Some weren't exactly subtle in their hints to the young, strong, dark-haired superintendent that dinner might not be the only thing on the menu. Jesse didn't mind flirting with the single lady tenants, that was fun. He was sensible enough not to allow himself to indulge in any hanky-panky. It was far too early for him to consider a relationship; he needed more time to gain control of his own life. It wasn't the easiest decision for Jesse to make. Some of the young women were quite attractive, overly flirtatious and Jesse had been without female companionship for over a year.
One of his neighbors continued to insist on trying to fix him up with her granddaughter. "Val would love you to bits and she's such a sweet girl," Mrs. Norris continued to insist. "She's bright, articulate and funny and a wonderful cook - why won't you let me set it up between you two?"
Mrs. Norris was Jesse's favorite tenant. She was almost 80, but looked years younger. She and her family ran both a restaurant and a bakery and she still worked several days a week. She was always kind and thoughtful; she usually brought him a pastry of some sort every day. Had Jesse not worked so tirelessly, he might well have weighed 300 pounds. He was constantly running errands for the kind widow, feeding her cats when she was working and making sure her flower beds were watered. In fact, Mrs. Norris felt a great deal to Jesse like she was a part of his family. If he didn't see her for a day or two, he felt as if something was missing.
So when he didn't see her for a few days, he went looking. Mrs. Winston, one of the younger wives in the complex, had sad news for him. "She took a fall in the restaurant a couple of days ago," Leslie told the handsome super. "She'll be in the hospital for about a week, they just want to check to ensure that there is no neurological damage." Leslie was a nurse in the same hospital, so he relied on the nice, good natured blonde for updates on his favorite tenant. He realized that no one was feeding Pookie, Mrs. Norris' cat. A cat could go a few days without being fed, but it had been nearly 3 since his friend had been in the hospital. He took it upon himself to feed Pookie, change the litter box and to water the plants. Jesse knew that Mrs. Norris would not mind the intrusion as he had been in her apartment on several occasions. It was usually to make some small repairs and to share a cup of tea and a Danish or two - or three.
The last time Jesse went to check on Mrs. Norris' apartment, he got quite the surprise. He heard someone rumbling around in there and he knew that Mrs. Norris had no close friends who lived nearby or relatives. She had a few things that were worth some money, so Jesse prepared to find a burglar raiding the old lady's apartment. Steeling himself and holding a baseball bat, he entered the apartment and there was the surprise - albeit a rather
pleasant
