Mrs. Alvarez looked genuinely shaken.
“I am sorry.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“No.”
She reached into her pocket.
“Take this.”
She handed me an envelope.
I didn’t open it.
“What is it?”
“Your first week’s salary.”
“I worked two hours.”
“Mr. Bennett pays caregivers weekly in advance.”
My hands trembled.
“How much?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
I stared at her.
I thought I had misheard.
“Five thousand?”
“Yes.”
I nearly dropped the envelope.
That was more money than I had earned in three months at my old cleaning job.
“Why?”
“Because no one stays.”
I thought of Brandon.
Medicine.
Food.
Heat.
Rent.
I closed my fingers around the envelope.
“Am I fired?”
Mrs. Alvarez looked upstairs.
“I don’t know.”
I went home.
The first thing I did was take Brandon to an urgent care clinic.
He had pneumonia.
Not severe enough for hospitalization, but close.
The doctor prescribed antibiotics and told me he needed warmth, rest, fluids, and food.
I paid without checking the price.
That alone nearly made me cry.
Then I bought groceries.
Real groceries.
Chicken.
Milk.
Fruit.
Bread.
Eggs.
Cereal Emma liked.
Cookies.
Fresh vegetables.
Medicine.
Two new blankets.
A space heater.
Emma stared at the shopping bags as if I had brought home Christmas.
“Mommy, are we rich?”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
“No, baby.”
I kissed her forehead.
“We just got lucky.”
That night, after they slept, I sat at our tiny kitchen table and pulled an old cardboard box from the closet.
Ryan’s box.
I had carried it through six apartments and two marriages.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
School papers.
A baseball glove.
And one picture that made my heart stop.
Ryan at twenty-one.
Standing beside me outside our grandmother’s house.
Around his neck was the same silver locket.
I turned the photo over.
Summer 2007.
Three years before his death.
My hands began to shake.
Ryan had disappeared in October 2010.
Police said his car had been found near Lake Michigan.
A body had washed ashore eleven days later.
Badly decomposed.
The police told us identification was made through dental records and personal effects.
There had been no viewing.
We cremated what we were told was Ryan’s body.
I had stood at a cemetery holding a small urn while a priest talked about eternal peace.
But what if it hadn’t been Ryan?
