“You fuckin’ her?” He asks.
“Jesus, Davis, no!”
He lines up his shot, taking a few practice swings before fully committing. “But you want to.”
“She’s twenty-one,” I tell him.
“At least you’re younger than her dad,” he shrugs.
That catches my attention. “You know her dad?”
“Uh, yeah?” He says, chuckling. “So do you, man, he worked for us.”
Reaching forward, I yank his club from his hand, effectively holding it hostage with my own, and I use the two of them to point at him.
“Talk.”
“Not much to say,” he tells me. “Guy works in the mail room for a few years, his wife kicks it, he never shows up for another shift. I saw him shitfaced a few months later at some dive bar, Al’s, but that’s all I got.”
She lost her mom?
“We didn’t help them at all?”
“Why would we? I mean, it was sad and all, but she didn’t work for us. And policy says let ‘em go if they don’t show up.”
I toss my club back into the bag. “I’m done here,” I say before hoisting the bag over my shoulder. “Finish without me.”
I can’t believe that I’ve gotten so out of touch with my own employees that I didn’t notice that one of them had lost a spouse, even worse that he didn’t show up afterward, and I didn’t even know his fucking name. If we’d reached out, offered help, maybe he wouldn’t have gone so far down the rabbit hole. Maybe Rowan and her sister wouldn’t be trapped in such a shitty situation. Fuck policy, we should have helped.Ishould have helped. What good is all this money if it just sits there when someone else needs it?
This was our fault.
My fault.
Back in my home office, I find myself digging through old employee files and news articles, forcefully dragging painful skeletons from the poor man’s closet.
Heath Caldwell, now forty-four, worked under us for six years as a mail room attendant. Never a single complaint filed against him, never any marks on his employee record to suggest he’d done anything even remotely out of line with the code that our employees are held to. To the contrary, in fact, there are several notes of commendation on his work and what an asset he had become to the team.
Sarah Caldwell, thirty-eight, was killed on impact when she lost control of her car driving through a heavy rainstorm three years ago. She left behind a two year old daughter, Macie, who was present at the time of the accident and later treated for a deep facial laceration, caused by the shattered glass of the car windows. The only thing that kept her from serious injury was a properly-secured car seat. Sarah also left behind her husband, Heath, and her eighteen year old daughter, Rowan.
I flip back to Heath’s employee file to find the date he last clocked in here: four days after the accident. The day after his wife’s funeral. We only gave him three days off.
I close my laptop and slide it away from me, resting an elbow on the desk and scrubbing at my face as I try to choke back the wave of nausea that crawls over me. Heath was only a year older than I am now when his life came to a screeching halt.
THIRTEEN
Rowan
I give myself a little twirl in the mirror, then smooth out the skirt of my dress, trying not to feel completely ridiculous. It’s a cozy long-sleeved dress with a handkerchief cut, navy blue and printed with clouds and planets. Over my black stockings, I throw on a pair of silver mary janes that match the sparkle in the cloud design.
“You ready, Mace?” I shout down the hall.
My precious sister barrels down the hallway, donning her brand new dress; pastel pink tulle that erupts into tiers of ridiculous ruffles at the skirt.
“Ready!” She yells, her face the image of raw, unfiltered excitement.
I snatch the costume astronaut helmet off of my bed and gently shimmy it over her head, completing her look. Patting the top of it, I tell her, “You are one cool-looking astronaut princess, kid.”
I’m so excited for her party. Everything came together exactly how I planned it – I was able to reserve a section of her favorite pizza place, and I even blocked out some time to get it decorated today. On top of that, she got RSVPs from almost everyone she invited, so I expect a really solid turnout.
