Waiting for a call that rarely came.
He didn’t wait for an answer.
He simply walked past me, swinging his briefcase.
I stood there for a long moment.
Mr. Whitaker had once promised me that I would always be taken care of.
At the time, I thought he was only trying to comfort an old housekeeper.
I didn’t realize he’d already made a decision that would change my life..
He didn’t wait for an answer.
Then I straightened my apron and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
I walked toward the study.
When I stepped inside, Julian Whitaker stood behind his father’s desk.
He was tapping a white envelope against his palm.
He did not offer me a chair.
“Marta, I’ll keep this brief. We won’t be needing your services anymore.”
He was tapping a white envelope against his palm.
I clasped my hands in front of my apron.
“Sir, I don’t understand. Your father said I’d always have a job here.”
“My father is dead.”
The words landed like a slap.
Julian slid the envelope across the desk toward me, his expression unreadable.
“There’s four hundred dollars in there. One week’s severance. More than most in your position would receive.”
“Your father said I’d always have a job here.”
“My position,” I repeated softly.
“You’re a housekeeper, Marta. Not family. I’d like you off the property by sundown.”
I stared at the envelope.
Eighteen years of Monday mornings and late-night soups and quiet Christmases folded into four hundred dollars.
“May I take the little radio I kept in the pantry?”
“I’d like you off the property by sundown.”
“Take whatever is yours. Nothing that belongs to the estate.”
I turned toward the door, then stopped.
On the wall by the study window hung a small framed photograph.
It was a picture of the mansion at sunset.
Mr. Whitaker had said I should have it one spring afternoon.
“He gave me that photograph. May I take it?”
A small framed photograph.
Julian barely glanced at the frame.
He waved a hand as if brushing away a fly.
“That cheap thing? Take it. Take it and go.”
I lifted it carefully off the wall and pressed it against my chest.
Neither of us had any way of knowing how important that photograph was.
***
Upstairs in the small servant’s room I had used for eighteen years, I folded my apron into a neat square.
Neither of us had any way of knowing how important that photograph was.
My hands would not stop trembling.
I placed the radio in a paper bag, then the photograph on top, wrapped in a dish towel.
The gardener, Miguel, was raking leaves when I stepped out the side door.
He straightened up and stared at the bag in my arms.
“Marta, where are you going?”
“My daughter’s house, Miguel. He let me go.”
