Chapter 9 - What Fear Makes People Do
Ruth wouldn’t let me apologize.
“You didn’t fire me,” she said.
Still, I sat outside her gate the next morning holding a bag of rice Professor Santos had bought.
Ruth’s daughter, Ana, opened the door.
She was sixteen.
Her school uniform hung from a nail behind her.
“Mom’s washing clothes.”
“Can I help?”
Ana looked at the bag.
“Are you the graduation girl?”
I nodded.
“My friends keep sending your video.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
Ruth was scrubbing sheets in a basin.
Her hands looked like my mother’s.
I knelt beside her.
“You don’t have to come forward,” I said.
She stopped scrubbing.
“I already should have.”
“They’re hurting Ana.”
Ruth looked toward the house.
“Yes.
They are.”
We sat without speaking.
Then she told me something she had withheld at the laundry gate.
“My brother drives for Carmina.”
I looked up.
“He knew your mother was collecting records.
I told him because I was scared.
I thought he could help.”
“What did he do?”
“He warned the office.”
The rice bag slipped from my fingers.
Ruth reached toward me, then stopped.
“I didn’t know they would search her locker.
I didn’t know they would dock her wages.”
“You told them.”
“I told him.”
“That’s how they found out.”
She nodded.
I stood.
“Did Mom know?”
“Yes.”
“And she still gave you the photographs?”
Ruth began to cry.
“She said being afraid didn’t make me useless.
She said I could still choose what I did next.”
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
My mother had left me no room for that.
I walked to the gate and stopped.
“Tell Mateo everything.”
“I will.”
“Even what makes you look bad.”
“Especially that.”
On the bus back, a woman recognized me and offered her seat.
I accepted because Liam was asleep and my knees were weak.
For once, I didn’t try to deserve kindness before taking it.
At Professor Santos’s house, a social worker waited.
Her name was Ms. Dela Peña.
She had visited our old room after Mom’s death.
“Someone filed a complaint,” she said.
My mouth went dry.
“What complaint?”
“That Liam is being used to solicit money.
And that you abandoned him during a public event.”
“I was in a meeting.
A teacher watched him.”
“I understand.
I need to document the facts.”
She asked about his feedings, medical visits, and sleeping arrangements.
I showed her everything.
Then she opened the complaint.
An attached statement claimed my mother had intended to place Liam with another family.
At the bottom was a signature.
May you like
Teresa Ramos.
And above it was a date when my mother had been in the hospital.
