Chapter 3
I left the Walsh mansion at ten twenty-three.
I knew because I checked the clock on my phone six times while walking to the bus stop.
There were eleven missed calls.
Four from Rosa.
Two from the cleaning agency.
One from the hotel where I worked laundry shifts.
Three from an unknown number.
And one from Victor Hale.
I stared at his name until the screen dimmed.
Then I shoved the phone into my pocket.
The bus came eight minutes later.
I spent the ride telling myself Declan Walsh was wrong.
Harbor Mutual had given me money when I had nowhere else to turn.
Lily had been twenty-four.
Too young to die.
Too young for me to know how to sit beside a hospital bed and listen to doctors use phrases like treatment options and limited response and we need to prepare.
There had been another medication.
Another specialist.
Another chance.
Forty-eight thousand dollars.
I had signed without reading half the pages because Lily was upstairs and I had believed urgency could defeat reality.
It hadn’t.
Three weeks later, my sister died holding my hand.
Two weeks after the funeral, Victor Hale came to our apartment with condolences and a repayment schedule.
I had been paying ever since.
At first it was twelve hundred dollars a month.
Then fees appeared.
Then penalties.
Then “risk adjustments.”
Eventually, three thousand.
Whenever I asked for a full statement, Victor smiled patiently and explained that private medical lending was complicated.
I hated the smile more than the debt.
The bus hissed to a stop outside Rosa’s Diner.
I got off.
I knew I should go home.
Instead, I went inside.
The breakfast rush had ended.
Only three booths were occupied.
Rosa Martinez stood behind the counter pouring coffee for an elderly man who had been coming in every morning since before I started.
When she saw me, she placed the coffee pot down.
“No.”
I blinked.
“Good morning.”
“No.”
“I just wanted to explain.”
“You fainted.”
“I got tired.”
“You fainted in a mansion.”
“Technically, a library.”
“That distinction comforts me enormously.”
Mr. Alvarez raised his mug.
“I once fainted in a bowling alley.”
Rosa pointed at him.
“Do not encourage her.”
He returned to his newspaper.
Rosa came around the counter.
She was barely five feet tall and somehow managed to make me feel sixteen years old.
“Maeve said a doctor examined you.”
“She did.”
“And?”
“I’m tired.”
Rosa stared.
I sighed.
“Exhausted. Dehydrated. Probably underfed.”
“Probably?”
“I eat.”
“Coffee is not food.”
“You sound like Dr. Patel.”
“Then Dr. Patel is brilliant.”
I glanced toward the kitchen.
“I can cover lunch.”
“No.”
“Rosa—”
“I already called Nina.”
“I need the hours.”
Something in my voice changed her expression.
The firmness remained.
The irritation disappeared.
“Clara.”
“I need them.”
“Why?”
I looked away.
Rosa had known Lily.
Everyone at the diner had.
During Lily’s final months, Rosa used to wrap soup in foil and pretend the kitchen had made too much.
After the funeral, she stopped asking questions because I had stopped answering them.
Now she touched my arm.
“Is this about those payments?”
I stared at her.
She knew.
Of course she knew.
Maybe grief had convinced me my secrets were invisible.
“They’re handled.”
“You work here before sunrise, clean offices in the afternoon, and do night shifts wherever that agency sends you.” Rosa’s voice stayed gentle. “Nothing about that looks handled.”
“I’m close.”
“To what?”
“Paying it off.”
“How close?”
I opened my mouth.
No answer came.
Because I didn’t know.
That realization struck harder than I expected.
I had paid Victor every month for nearly two years.
I had never missed once.
And I couldn’t say how much I still owed.
Rosa saw the answer on my face.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“Don’t.”
“All right.”
No pity.
She understood me too well.
She went behind the counter, opened the register, and pulled out an envelope.
My name was written across it.
“Your wages.”
“I’m not supposed to get paid until Friday.”
“Then pretend today is Friday.”
“I won’t take an advance.”
“It isn’t one. You covered Marcy’s shifts last week.”
I had forgotten.
Rosa placed the envelope in my hand.
“Go home.”
“I can’t keep accepting favors.”
“This isn’t a favor.”
“You called Nina.”
“Nina wanted extra hours.”
“You—”
“Clara.”
Rosa waited until I looked at her.
“People helping you is not the same thing as you owing them.”
For a second, I couldn’t speak.
Then Mr. Alvarez lowered his newspaper.
“She’s right.”
Rosa turned.
“You stay out of this.”
“I have been married forty-eight years. I specialize in being told to stay out of things.”
For the first time that morning, I laughed.
May you like
It came out rusty.
But it was real.
