The evidence of my situation sat waiting for me every morning on the kitchen table.
An overdue electric bill. Another notice threatening late fees. A coffee stain spreading across the envelope. Beside them, a crayon drawing my daughter Lily had made of our little family standing proudly in front of a house we didn’t own.
When you’re a single father with three children and rent keeps rising faster than your paycheck, pride becomes something you can’t afford.
That was how I, Stan, thirty-five years old and constantly exhausted, ended up working for Mrs. Whitmore.
She was a wealthy widow in her seventies who lived behind iron gates and in a mansion larger than any building I’d ever called home.
I expected her to be distant.
Instead, she surprised me.
On my first day, she descended the marble staircase slowly, pearls resting elegantly against her neck. When she reached me, she extended her hand with genuine warmth.
