They’d been there since before I came in. They stayed there for the ten minutes I stood watching. They did not once get up to help.
When the rush finally thinned, Maya turned toward the espresso machine. I stepped up to the counter.
“Dad! I didn’t see you come in.”
“When’s your break?” I asked.
She hesitated. “I… don’t really take breaks, Dad. It’s too busy. It’s okay, though.”
“Maya, when are they paying you?”
Her smile faltered. “End of the month.”
“That’s this Friday.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Have you asked them about it?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to seem rude. They’ve been so generous letting me work here.”
That line—I don’t want them to think I only care about the money—was a knife straight to my past.
“You’re not greedy for expecting to be paid what you were promised,” I said. “That’s basic fairness.”
She nodded slowly, but her eyes darted to the back table where my mother and Jennifer still sat.
“I’ll talk to them,” I said.
I walked across the room, each step landing heavier than the last.
“Mom. Jennifer. We need to talk.”
My mother looked up, annoyed. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”
I glanced at the coffee cups and empty plates. “Very.”
“What do you want?” Jennifer asked.
“It’s about Maya’s payment.”
Her laughter was immediate and loud. “Oh, that.”
“Yes,” my mother said, waving her hand. “Friday is the end of the month. She’s worked about one hundred eighty hours. Roughly.”
I did the mental math. Six weeks. Weekdays after school. Full Saturdays. “So, at fourteen dollars an hour, that’s two thousand five hundred and twenty dollars.”
She said it like it was an absurd number. “Sounds about right. You’ll pay her on Friday, then.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then Jennifer smiled, slow and satisfied. “Actually, we’re not paying her.”
For a moment, the words didn’t register.
“I’m sorry?”
“She’s family,” my mother said simply. “Family doesn’t charge family. This was a learning experience. You should be grateful we gave her such an opportunity.”
“You promised her wages,” I said, my voice low.
“We never promised anything,” Jennifer cut in. “We said she could help out. She’s been helping. Learning. Getting experience. That’s worth more than money.”
“You told her fourteen an hour. I was standing right there.”
Jennifer snorted. “I was joking. Obviously. She’s thirteen. Why would we pay a thirteen-year-old real money?”
The part of me that had been thirteen once—that had hauled boxes and scrubbed floors and stood at this very counter—cracked.
“So you’ve been using her for six weeks. Free labor.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jennifer said. “She’s been learning skills. That’s payment enough. You should be thanking us.”
“And honestly,” my mother added, “her work isn’t even that good. She’s slow. She complains. If she wasn’t family, we’d have fired her.”
Behind me, I heard a soft, strangled sound.
I turned. Maya stood a few feet away, frozen. Her eyes were wide and shiny. A tear wobbled at the edge of her lashes.
“But… Grandma,” she said, her voice so small I barely recognized it. “You said I’d get paid. You told me. You said I was doing a good job.”
Leave a Comment