It was November of 2024. Six months after the board meeting, I moved into my own apartment in the south district.

A one-bedroom in a pre-war building. It had a view of the bridge my grandmother had walked across to reach her first office in 1965.

The rent was more than I’d ever paid, but I could afford it now.

My new salary as director of sustainable development at Ashford Holdings was one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars a year, plus dividends from my shares.

The title was my idea. It was a new division focused on green building practices, sustainable real estate, and environmental impact assessments.

The kind of innovation my grandmother would have championed if she’d lived to see it.