Chương 3 - TWO CHILDREN THREE HOURS AWAY
At two forty-seven in the morning, June made herself sound like a mother who had everything under control. She told Lila to put Micah's shoes by the door, find the blue folder containing Grandma Alma's medical information, and keep the television on until their neighbor Mrs. Rivera arrived. She repeated each instruction until her daughter's breathing slowed.
Only when the call ended did June let her hands shake.
"My mother's lungs," she told Julian. "She's had episodes before, but Lila's never been alone when the paramedics came. The kids are with a neighbor now. I need to get to Peoria."
Julian reached for his car keys. "I'll drive."
"No." Her refusal came so sharply that he stopped. "I mean... thank you. But I need to decide what happens to my children without feeling indebted to my employer."
He put the keys down. It was an unfamiliar sensation, offering help and discovering that his first version of it was wrong. "All right. What would help?"
"Get me a way there that won't cost a week's groceries. And if Mrs. Baines calls, tell her why I'm absent."
He arranged a car service using his personal card while June packed a small bag. At three thirty, she left through the front entrance rather than the staff door, clutching the folded note with his promise about independent counsel. Julian watched the car vanish beyond the gates and felt the enormity of how little he knew about the people who spent most of their lives maintaining his comfort.
From the back seat, June called Mrs. Rivera. Her mother was stable enough to be admitted for observation, but Micah wouldn't stop asking whether Grandma was going to die. Lila had made them peanut-butter sandwiches and hidden the unpaid electricity bill under a cushion, hoping her mother wouldn't see it. The thought broke June more completely than the hospital news. Her eight-year-old had learned to protect adults from bills.
The freeway was nearly empty. June leaned her forehead against the window and remembered the morning three years earlier when she had hugged both children goodbye at the Peoria bus station. It was supposed to be six months. A temporary job with excellent pay, a live-in arrangement, and the possibility of saving enough for a small apartment in Chicago. She had pictured Lila learning to ride the train, Micah choosing curtains for his room, the three of them eating pancakes on Saturdays. Instead, the wages that arrived were so small she had started skipping meals without admitting it even to her mother.
At the hospital, Lila ran toward her wearing mismatched socks. Micah followed, holding a stuffed dinosaur with one missing eye. June knelt before either child could speak and wrapped her arms around them until their combined weight nearly toppled her.
"I thought you were at work," Lila said.
"I was. Then I heard you needed me."
"Will you have to leave tomorrow?"
June had never hated a question more. "I don't know yet, sweetheart. But we're going to figure it out together."
Alma was awake and furious to see her. "You can't miss shifts for every cough I have."
"You were taken here in an ambulance."
"And look at me. Still complaining." Alma reached for June's hand. Beneath the joke was exhaustion June had begun to mistake for her mother's ordinary voice. Alma looked older than she had at Christmas. Her inhaler sat beside an itemized bill she had turned facedown.
"I have something to tell you," June said. She explained the payroll screen, the unexplained deductions, and the possibility that the job she had defended for three years had actually been stealing from them.
Alma listened without a sound. Then she said, "I told you that you were working too hard for too little."
"I thought the contract included fees."
"You thought working honestly meant the people paying you would behave honestly." Alma pressed her daughter's fingers. "There's no shame in that. But there is danger in staying quiet now."
By noon, June had called Marisol Ortega. She expected the former housekeeper to hang up, yet Marisol answered on the third ring. June told her only that an independent investigator might be able to recover unpaid wages.
"Julian finally looked at the numbers?" Marisol asked, her voice unexpectedly bitter.
"You tried to tell him?"
"I tried to tell everybody. Preston's office sent me a termination agreement. Their lawyer said I owed thirty thousand dollars for damaging antique porcelain. I never signed it, but I lost my job anyway. My mother sold her wedding jewelry to keep us housed."
June walked into the hospital stairwell to shield the conversation from her children. "Would you talk to a lawyer if she wasn't hired by Preston?"
"Not before I see a real paycheck land in a real person's bank account," Marisol said. "Promises are free. Men like them have an unlimited supply."
June almost defended Julian. He had cooked for her, listened, and offered to drive three hours without hesitation. But Marisol was owed more than a story about one kind night. "That's fair," she said.
That afternoon, Julian called. He asked about Alma and the children before mentioning money. Renata had located an independent employment attorney, Amara Ellis, who represented workers rather than corporations. June could contact her directly. Julian had also authorized an emergency wage advance, but it would only be transferred if June wished to accept it, and accepting it would not settle any claim.
"You don't owe me gratitude for money you've already earned," he said.
For the first time, June believed he might understand the difference between charity and a debt. "Then start by looking at everybody else's paycheck, too. Marisol kept her time sheets. She has pictures."
Julian fell quiet. "Will she share them?"
"Maybe. But she says proof is worthless when the wrong people control the story."
June could hear papers moving on his desk. "She's right. And the wrong people have controlled it long enough."
She ended the call as Micah appeared in the stairwell, rubbing his eyes. He asked whether she was coming back to Grandma's apartment for dinner. June lifted him into her arms and gave the only honest answer she had.
May you like
"Tonight," she said, "I'm exactly where I need to be."
Three hours away, Julian opened a new message from Renata. Attached was an image of Marisol's termination agreement. The signature approving the threat was Preston's. Beneath it was a second signature from someone Julian had appointed to protect company employees.
