You Show Up to Fire Your Janitor, Then One Faded Photograph Blows Up the Billion-Dollar Lie Your Family Built

In the icy light of your office, he is always neat, quiet, almost invisible, a man who moves with the discipline of someone trained never to take up space. Here, framed by a splintered blue door with a crying baby balanced on one arm and a little boy wrapped around his leg, he looks wrecked. His T-shirt is wrinkled, his jaw is shadowed with two days of beard, and there is a tiredness in his eyes so deep it seems older than he is.

The baby is wheezing.