I stared at the screen. A second later, my phone rang.
“Hello,” I answered, bracing myself.
“Why are you keeping Maya from working?” my mother’s voice demanded without preamble.
“I’m not keeping her from anything. She asked about helping at the bakery and I said I’d think about it.”
“She wants to work. She wants to help. And you’re standing in her way.” My mother’s tone sharpened. “Like always.”
Like always. There it was—the old, familiar accusation, as automatic as the chime of the bakery door.
“I’m not standing in her way,” I repeated. “But if she works for you, she gets paid. Real wages. None of this ‘family discount’ nonsense. She’s not a volunteer.”
“Of course,” my mother said, her voice suddenly smoothing out like ice over a lake. “We’d never take advantage of our own granddaughter. What do you take us for?”
That right there should have been warning number one. But there’s a strange thing that happens with family—even when you know exactly who you’re dealing with, some part of you keeps hoping that this time will be different.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “She’s thirteen. There are laws about that, Mom. You have to be careful with the hours. She needs breaks. And you have to pay her what you promise.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” she snapped, the sweetness vanishing. “It’s just helping in the family bakery. We’re not sending her to a coal mine. We’ll pay her. Happy?”
“Write it down,” I said. “Agree on a rate. Keep track of her hours.”
“We will,” she said. “Honestly, you always have to make everything so complicated.”
We hung up with my mother in apparent agreement and my stomach in a knot.
Maya started the following week. Her schedule, as my sister Jennifer explained it, was “super chill”—four to eight Monday through Friday after school, plus full days Saturday. “We’ll pay her fourteen an hour, under the table. Cash only. Easier that way,” Jennifer said, flipping her bleached hair over her shoulder.
“Under the table?” I asked.
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Relax. It’s not like the IRS is going to come after a kid’s pocket money. We’re doing you a favor. No taxes, more cash for her.”
Red flag number two, bright and waving. I opened my mouth to argue, to tell them we could do this properly, but Maya was standing beside me, practically vibrating with excitement, and my mother was already acting like the whole thing was settled.
“We’ll keep track of her hours,” Jennifer continued. “I’ve got a notebook. It’s all official.”
I looked down at my daughter. She smelled faintly of shampoo and pencil lead, her sneakers two sizes too big because she’d begged me to buy them “to grow into.” She was looking at the ovens with awe, at the racks of bread cooling on shelves, at the glass display case full of pastries like it was a museum of miracles.
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