“An incompetent person does not deserve a real job, much less fresh food. She should be grateful I have pity on her and let her stay here.”
It was at that moment that he saw me. Brad turned and our eyes met. For a split second, I saw something pass across his face. Perhaps surprise, perhaps fear, but then that smile returned, even more arrogant.
“Susan,” he said my name as if it were poison. “What an honor! Did you come to see how your daughter is doing in my establishment?”
I did not answer. I could not. All the words that normally would have come out of my mouth got stuck in my throat. I walked toward Emily in silence. She looked at me with red, swollen eyes, full of shame. She tried to say something but just sobbed.
I held her elbow firmly but gently. I felt how thin she was, the bones prominent under her skin. How many pounds had she lost? How long had this been happening?
“Let’s go,” I told her quietly, just for her.
“Oh, you are leaving?” Brad let out a loud laugh. “Great. One less useless mouth to feed. And do not come back, Emily. You are fired. Fired from my life, too. You can go look for another fool to support you.”
He pulled a crumpled envelope from his jacket pocket and threw it on the floor at Emily’s feet. Some bills fell out, a ridiculous amount that would not even cover a week of basic expenses.
“Take your crumbs and get out. I am filing for divorce.”
I guided Emily out of that hellish kitchen. She was trembling so much she could barely walk. We passed down the hallway, past the waitress, who was now watching us with morbid curiosity, and went out to the street. The fresh air had never been so welcome, but it could not erase what I had just witnessed.
I put Emily in the backseat of a taxi. She curled up in the corner, hugging her knees like a child. I sat beside her and for the first time in 20 years, I took out my cell phone and dialed a number I had sworn never to use again. The phone rang once, twice, three times. My hand was shaking. Emily looked at me without understanding, but I could not explain it yet.
Finally, someone answered.
“Hello.” The voice was deep, cautious.
“Michael,” I said, and it was as if 20 years of silence collapsed between us. “It is me, Susan.”
There was a long pause. I heard his heavy breathing on the other end of the line.
“Susan,” he said finally, and there was so much weight in that single word. “After so long, is it the police?”
“No,” I replied, looking at my destroyed daughter beside me. “It is time for you to pay your debt to me.”
I hung up before he could respond. I put the phone away and hugged Emily, who finally collapsed into violent sobs against my shoulder. The taxi continued in silence through the city while I looked out the window, feeling something I had not felt for decades awaken inside me. It was not rage. Rage is hot, explosive, uncontrolled. What I felt was cold, calculated, precise. It was the feeling of someone about to use a sharp knife to make a surgical cut.
Brad had no idea what he had just unleashed.
I took Emily directly to my house in a quiet suburb just outside the city. She did not protest, did not ask questions. She was in a state of shock, moving like a robot. I helped her take off that filthy apron, ran a hot bath, and laid clean clothes on the bed. While she was in the shower, I went to the kitchen and prepared a simple vegetable soup, something nutritious but light that her likely mistreated stomach could digest.
When Emily came out of the bathroom, wearing my old robe and with her hair still wet, she looked 10 years older. She sat at the table without saying anything and began to eat the soup slowly. I sat across from her, watching her in silence.
“Since when?” I asked finally.
Emily stopped with the spoon in the air. Her hands began to tremble again.
“2 months,” she whispered. “At first, he really let me help with the management, but then he started saying I was doing everything wrong, that I was too stupid, too slow. He kept diminishing my responsibilities until I became just another employee. Then, not even that.”
“Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tears filled her eyes again.
“Because I was ashamed. You never liked him. And I wanted so much to prove you were wrong, that he loved me, that we could build something together. I spent all my savings to help open the restaurant. I thought it was our partnership, our future.”
She dropped the spoon and covered her face with her hands.
“He turned me into a joke, Mom. The other employees laugh at me. He makes me wash dishes, scrub toilets, and when I make any mistake, he takes away my food as punishment. Today, I was so hungry.”
My heart broke and hardened at the same time. I stood up, walked around the table, and hugged my daughter. She was so fragile now, so different from the self-assured young woman she had been.
“Listen well,” I said, holding her face between my hands. “This is over. You will never go back to that place. You will never see that man again. And he is going to pay for every humiliation he put you through.”
“Mom, he is powerful. He has contacts, influential friends. We can’t do anything against him.”
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