Sarah walked blindly into Dorothy’s office, unknowing and unconcerned. Nothing out of the ordinary; she’d been in and out at least a dozen times, adding her signature to a birthday card, signing off on tweaks to the schedule.
Dorothy sat woodenly behind her desk, not a hint of a smile, which also wasn’t unusual. But when she barked, “Shut the door,” a demand she had never made before, Sarah felt a strong urge to leave it open.
Dorothy’s eyes glared. “I’ve asked you here today to tell you that your services will no longer be required. By law, we are obligated . . .”
Sarah heard individual words—contract, rights, notice—but she couldn’t put them in sentences that made sense. She sat on her hands, which had started to tremble. Was she being fired? Her scrambled thoughts galloped forward. Back-to-school clothes, birthday parties, Christmas. How would she take care of Carter?
“Do you understand?” Dorothy finished.
“No.” Her cheeks burned. “I don’t. Why?”
Dorothy cleared her throat, a phlegmy, rotting sound. “There have been issues. We’re choosing to terminate your contract.”
“Issues? What kind of issues?” Her heart thumped ferociously.
“For one, you brought your son to work, left him unattended. You showed extremely poor judgment. While bending the rules, I might add.”
That was weeks ago. Sarah knew she had crossed the line and had apologized profusely, her indiscretion well behind her. “And I am so sorry,” she said now. “It will never happen again.”
Dorothy crossed her arms and leaned back. “I could let one slip-up go, Sarah, but there are other concerns.”
“What concerns?”
Dorothy clapped her bicep with the palm of her hand. “You are too chummy with the residents. Your socializing gets in the way of your work.”
Sarah sucked in her cheeks and bit down. “I always get my work done. And I’m the same as I’ve always been.” Being kind was not just cause for termination. The woman was grasping at dust. “What is this about, Dorothy?”
Dorothy worked her jaw and stared. Sarah studied her back, waiting. They faced off for some time, until Dorothy spat the words, “You know exactly what this is about.”
She didn’t. She could not lose this job.
Dorothy narrowed her eyes. “You were rifling through Ruth’s purse this morning. I saw you myself. And you can’t deny it. It’s clear as day on the security footage.”
Sarah rewound her busy routine, trying to zero in on what Dorothy might be talking about. Ruth? She couldn’t remember talking to Ruth all morning. She sifted back through her steps until she found it. Ruth’s wayward purse left in the dining room. Yes, that was all this was. She could innocently explain. Laundry day, Ruth’s extra bra missing for a second week in a row. When she saw the purse under a chair, she whisked it out and peeked inside. A logical calculation—Ruth stuffed her purse with all sorts of things. No bra. Nothing but a ball of crumpled newspaper, some wool bits, and a few rancid meatballs which she fished out with a Kleenex and dumped in the garbage.
“I can explain, Dorothy.” She was about to when she covered her mouth with her hand, the horror of it sinking in. Her mind wavered between murk and razor-sharp clarity. All that had been stolen from those dear people. Mazie’s pearls. Violet’s doll. Harvey’s watch. Edith’s quilt. Dorothy was accusing her of causing all this pain. Sarah found it difficult even to formulate the words. “You think I was stealing from Ruth?”
Dorothy blinked with a flash of uncertainty before her face went blank.
Sarah’s body jerked with adrenalin, jolting her forward, slamming her fists to the desk. “You honestly think I’m the thief. That I could steal from these people?”
“Ruth’s daughter told me her wallet is missing. So, you explain it then!”
A few of the residents had irrelevant, moneyless wallets. But Ruth? “There was no wallet in her purse.”
Dorothy refused to look at her. “I saw you!”
Sarah seethed inside, a violent rush that reached the pit of her stomach, the lunacy of this talk making her want to laugh hysterically. She splayed her fingers on the desk as if about to pounce, Dorothy unable to look her in the eye. Sarah pitied her. Her failure to lead, her failure to grasp any true sense of what had value.
“You are making a very big mistake here. You won’t get away with this.”
Dorothy reached jerkily for her desk phone. “Are you threatening me?” Her eyes looked frightened.
Sarah stood as tall as she could make herself. “You disgust me. Your incompetence is staggering.”
Dorothy studied the phone in her hand, the wind knocked out of her. “I suggest you go now. You’re done here. And you’ll be hearing from the police. Antonio will see you out.”
Antonio from maintenance was standing sheepish and sorry-eyed outside Dorothy’s door. She had thought him a kindred spirit, always whistling while he changed lightbulbs or pulled socks out of clogged toilets. But he couldn’t look her in the eye either. He solemnly escorted her to the staff room so she could collect her sweater and purse and solemnly escorted her out the front door.
He held on to her arm before letting her go. “Lo siento mucho, señorita.”
There were no other goodbyes. She managed to hold back tears as she walked dazedly to her car, hair whipping across her face in the wind.
She held them back into the next day, keeping upright for Carter’s sake as she see-sawed between damp despair and white-hot anger. This morning, she made his favourite breakfast of pancakes and sausages; didn’t nag when he talked with his mouth full or slopped juice down his shirt; answered each of his questions. He was a different boy since starting at his new daycare. Now he sprang out of bed in the mornings and came back each afternoon equally enthused, babbling about his missions and sword fights and trampoline tricks.
Her whole body felt numb as she drove to Amanda’s house, Carter in the back testing his newly learned expressions. Man oh man, there are a lot of humans out there. He wore runners, not boots, same as the other boys, insisting on his Thor T-shirt for a second day in a row.
When she stopped the car, he raced up Amanda’s sidewalk and disappeared into the sea of boys behind the door. It broke her heart. Carter loved this place, and she did too. And now she had to take it away.
Seven in the morning, the sun trying to break through the early fog, the air oppressive inside the closed car, pressing in on her like the end of the world. She had nowhere to be, so she drove back home without seeing the roads, trudged up the apartment stairs, and locked herself behind her door. She slumped at the table, still littered with the breakfast debris. It was deafeningly quiet—she’d never once been alone here before. She needed a plan, but the part of her that took charge had shut down. Her groceries could be stretched for a few weeks. Her daycare expenses were paid until Friday, then Carter would have to say his goodbyes. She had one month’s rent tops. Even less emotional reserves.
The accusation felt like a knife wound, a deep and oozing cut over her heart. It was the unfairness of it more than anything, that her colleagues could think so little of her. The memory would remain as permanently a part of her as Carter’s first newborn wail.
She looked around the empty apartment, wishing the tenants upstairs would blast their insufferable music. She used to long for the day when she could steal a few minutes and do nothing at all. Now the empty black hours felt like torture.
She needed a plan. She could start with the breakfast dishes, stretch out her scrubbing. But she couldn’t muster the energy to stand. Why hadn’t she just stayed calm and forced Dorothy to understand? She could have turned Dorothy around, made her see how ridiculous she sounded. Instead, she offered no defence. Called the woman names. You disgust me, she’d said. Look what her wounded pride had done. Left her jobless in a town with big ears. She’d have to uproot Carter, again, start over somewhere else, another dingy apartment, another Mrs. Brandon, another godforsaken town.
She drew figure eights with the tip of her finger on Carter’s gooey plate. She’d been penniless and hungry before. Carter was two when she walked out of the meat-packing plant, so affected by the blood-bleach smells and the crowded lines of knives that she felt as if she too was being skinned and chopped into pieces. It took three long months to find another job. Three months of watering down the milk jug and letting Carter run barefoot because his runners squeezed his toes. It took years before she could wash that stink off her.
She was afraid of her muddy thoughts, afraid of Carter’s future. She reached for her phone, hesitating, not wanting to show him this pitiful part of herself, but her need was too strong, and she pressed his name with her sticky finger.
Rivers of salty tears poured out of her when she heard his voice. They ran down her neck and splashed onto Carter’s plate.
The connection was spotty, cutting in and out. “Sarah. Sar . . . What’s wrong? Where are . . .”
“I’m at home.” She could barely manage to form the word, gulping and snivelling, unable to catch a breath.
“Sar . . . I’ll be . . . stay there. . . . I’m coming.”
The line went dead. She held the phone to her heart and kept sobbing.
Nick headed north on Highway 31 to Winsdale for his first inspection, a thermos of coffee and sandwiches by his side, rock ’n’ roll cranked, the last of the fog pooling in tufts along the gullies. He’d just dropped Billy off for his third day of canoeing camp. The kid had taken to it like a duck to water, his eagerness infectious as he showed off his paddle strokes with the broom.
Nick had waved goodbye alongside the other canoe parents, as if he too belonged to their secret club, his deadbeat dad persona dissipating with the fog. He couldn’t remember his life so complicatedly simple. Work, home, Billy, repeat. His son the engine now propelling him forward with meals to plan, and a house needing fixing, and school to think about in the fall. It had become easier for him to fall asleep each night. Easier to breathe.
The highway was empty when he dipped into a valley, not yet eight in the morning. He was surprised to see Sarah’s name flash on his phone, his body reacting with a rush of heat. But something was off. The reception was bad in the valley, and he couldn’t decipher the quick, rising, strangled noises. She cut in and out. His heart bounced as he listened to her choppy gut-wrenching sobs.
He screeched to a stop, burning rubber as he turned the truck around. He had the address she’d given Billy, and he careened past everything that moved to get back to her. He tore up the apartment stairs, pounded down her hallway, and banged on her door. She stood on the other side, small and wrecked. He grabbed her with outstretched arms and examined her from head to toe. She was puffy eyed but intact, and he allowed himself to breathe again as he drew her close and wrapped himself around her. She was not injured. This could be fixed, whatever this was. He felt her heart against his, her chest rising and falling in rabbit breaths, and he held her tight, not knowing what else to do. They stayed like that for a long time.
“Where were you when I called?” she said finally.
A tear spilled down her swollen cheek, and he brushed it away with the tip of his finger.
She’d told him nothing, and he needed to take extra care. “Highway 31. On my way to Winsdale for an inspection.”
“Can I come?” she asked.
“I’d like that,” he said.
She smiled weakly. “I’ll have to be back in time to pick up Carter.”
So Carter was okay, safe at Leo’s mom’s place. “I can have you back whenever you need.”
They walked hand in hand out of the apartment, down the hallway, down the stairs, and into the truck. The morning mist had disappeared, the sun clean and bright, the sky as flawless as Billy’s paintings. She seemed too far away, strapped into her seatbelt, and he cupped his hand behind her neck to assure himself she was real.
It took twenty miles of rolling highway before she started to talk, her voice low and scratchy. He turned the stereo off, straining to hear her words. The story came out haltingly. Dorothy had done this to her. That sack of shit woman had fired her, accused her of stealing.
By the time she was quiet again, his hands fisted over the steering wheel. “Dorothy is batshit crazy,” he said.
Sarah sighed. “I could never steal from those people.”
“Of course you couldn’t. No sane person could think that. You’re the best thing that ever walked into Prairie View.” He was livid. He wanted to drown Dorothy in a flushing toilet.
Sarah stared out her window. “She told me the police would call. The police!”
“We’ll go to them first. Explain your side of the story.” He knew he was too loud, but he couldn’t get control of his voice. “We’ll get this straightened out. Get you your job back.”
She looked at him, her eyes sad and unfocused. “I’m not asking you to fix this, Nick.”
But he did want to fix this; every molecule in his body sizzled and popped.
“Did you hear me, Nick? This isn’t your problem.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened. It’s not right. Or fair. I just want to help.”
He put his hand on her thigh, and she encased it with hers. “You are,” she said. “It helps to be with you.”
They turned off the highway and drove the potholed road into Winsdale, its main street grey and grim. There were no people about. He couldn’t imagine inhabitants, much less renovations.
“Welcome to Winsdale,” he read from the faded sign missing half of the W. “Population four hundred.” All they needed was a tumbleweed rolling past.
He turned onto Third Street, the second story addition easy to spot. The yellow wood sat like a tipped hat capping an old and craggy face. He could tell from the truck that it was a fiasco, the foundation not designed to support that load.
He parked in the shade of an old elm tree. “So this is our first stop.”
She tilted her head, surveying the house. “It doesn’t look right. The top is too big for the bottom. And it’s leaning, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” he sighed, wishing people were less stupid. “I shouldn’t be long. There’s coffee in the thermos and sandwiches in the bucket. The keys are in the ignition if you need music or air.”
“Or if I need to skip town. I am a thief on the lam after all.”
“Yeah, but I’m your getaway driver.” The inspection was going to take a while. “Will you be okay?”
“I’ll knit a sweater while you do your manly stuff.”
He laughed, relieved to have this part of her back. He didn’t want to get out of the truck. Eventually she pushed him away. “Go. Time is money, Nick.”