Chapter 4

Bess called me a dozen times.

I didn't pick up once.

Then she sent voice messages.

"Mom, they just want to settle the fees, that's all."

"Come sign tomorrow, and this whole thing is over."

"Nobody's going to check. Why are you making this so hard for me?"

Something in me went cold, one degree at a time.

She'd made money off my labor.

Now that it had all come apart, she wanted me to sign for the debt too.

I could cover for how poor we were, once.

I could not spend the rest of my life covering for her lies.

The next day I packed a whole year of bus tickets, grocery records, and bank statements into a bag and went to the shared apartment.

The living room was full of people.

The three roommates sat on one side.

Grayson sat right next to Bess.

A fee statement lay on the table.

Bess saw me and didn't call me Mom.

"Miss Lambert, you're here."

Jemima pushed the statement toward me.

"This month's money, we've already paid it."

"You skipped a day, and then you walked out yesterday without warning. Some of it has to be refunded."

Julia spoke up next.

"You ruined one of my shirts in the wash."

"And the bathroom wasn't cleaned properly every time either."

Delia pointed at the last line.

"There's also a year of grocery money."

"Bess said every month it wasn't enough and had us chip in extra."

"We suspect you padded the grocery money too."

I glanced at it.

They'd counted every missed meal, every spot they said wasn't clean, every shirt they claimed I'd ruined.

Altogether they wanted three thousand back.

"Who did you transfer the money to every month?"

Jemima pointed at Bess.

"To her. Then she gave it to you."

"How did she give it to me?"

"Cash."

The one who answered wasn't Jemima.

It was Bess.

She took another sheet of paper from her bag and set it in front of me.

My name was already written on it.

I, Joy Lambert, confirm receipt of $18,000 in housekeeping service fees paid on my behalf by Bess Fox.

Below it was a space for a signature and a fingerprint.

She'd even brought an ink pad.

Bess lowered her voice.

"Miss Lambert, just check it over, and if it's fine, sign."

I looked at her.

"You gave me eighteen thousand?"

She looked away.

"I gave it to you every month."

Grayson rapped the table, impatient.

"Ma'am, Bess is trying to save you some face. Don't play dumb."

"Her family took care of you all these years. You can't turn around and cheat a bunch of students just because you think the pay's too low."

I stared at him.

"How exactly did her family take care of me?"

Grayson said it like he'd heard the story a hundred times.

"Your husband died early. You had nowhere to go."

"Bess's mother felt sorry for you and let you work at the family's diner."

"All these years she fed you, gave you a place to stay, even gave you things on the holidays."

I held that piece of paper, my fingers tightening.

My husband did die early.

But I was never without somewhere to go.

I held on to a tiny shop, barely a few hundred square feet, and cooked one pan of food after another, and I raised Bess on it.

In my daughter's mouth I had become some pitiful woman her family had taken in.

She'd taken my life apart and rebuilt it into her own respectability.

Jemima's face was cold too.

"Bess always said her mother was soft-hearted."

"Anyone else would've fired you long ago."

"Eighteen hundred a month isn't little, and groceries were separate on top of that. You still weren't satisfied?"

I asked Bess,

"Did you say all of this?"

She bit her lip.

"Miss Lambert, right now we're talking about the fees."

"Sign first. Don't drag other things into it."

I set the paper back on the table.

"I never took any money. I won't sign for it."

Bess's eyes went red at once.

"I know you feel wronged."

"But everyone's here. Do you really have to humiliate me?"

She leaned in close and said it in a voice only the two of us could hear,

"Mom, just sign it. I'll pay you back later."

"If you won't own it today and this blows up, think how humiliating that is for me."

"That's your problem. You're an adult. You answer for yourself."

Her face changed, and her voice climbed.

"How can you be so selfish?"

"You'd offend every single person here over a little money?"

Grayson stood up.

"It's not about the money. It's about character."

"You take the money, you do the job right."

"Being poor isn't an excuse to take advantage."

The three roommates piled on.

"Our parents don't earn their money easily either."

"You can't treat us like easy marks just because we're young."

"If she won't sign today, get Bess's mother down here."

Bess's face changed and she jumped in.

"My mom's out of town. There's no need to bother her with something this small."

Jemima wouldn't have it.

"Isn't Miss Lambert someone your family's used for years?"

"If she won't own the debt, then your mother has to come explain it."

Bess panicked.

"I told you, she's busy!"

I opened the bag I'd brought.

I took out the bank statements.

"This whole year, Bess Fox has not transferred me a single cent."

Next came a thick stack of payment records.

"Every week, the meat, the vegetables, the fruit, I bought all of it."

"When she was sick, when she went out to eat, when she had a birthday, I paid extra for that too."

Bess rushed over to grab them.

I laid the last thing on the table, the household register.

I turned to her page.

The living room went dead silent.

I looked at the three roommates.

"Weren't you looking for Bess Fox's mother?"

I pointed at the line for the mother-daughter relationship in the register.

"No need to look."

"That's me."

Jemima's head snapped around toward Bess.

I went on,

"The eighteen thousand you paid wasn't her passing wages to a maid."

"It was money she earned for herself by handing over her own mother, free of charge, to cook and wash and clean for you."