She looked back at the kitchen table, at his lanyard, and then at the closed door of Melissa's bedroom. Don't go to work on Monday, Abalardo. Abalardo panicked. "Look, I didn't know who you were. I wasn't trying to You're not fired," Chia said, her voice softening.
"Just expect a call from HR. I need people at the top who know what it's like to walk in the rain. " She opened the door and stepped out. Before she closed it, she looked back one last time. Tell Melissa I said goodbye. The door clicked shut.
Abalardo stood in the quiet apartment. The smell of cheap coffee filling the air and slowly walked over to the kitchen table. He picked up his lanyard, looking at the faded orange stripe. Then he looked at the empty couch. He had a feeling he wouldn't be rooting pallets much longer.
Saturday slipped away in a mundane blur that made the morning feel like a hallucination. Abalardo spent two hours under the bathroom sink, wrestling with a rusted PVC pipe while Melissa sat on the edge of the tub, feeding pieces of dry cereal to her stuffed rabbit. He wrapped the joint in cheap plumbers tape, prayed it would hold, and then dragged their laundry three blocks down to the laundromat. Every time he heard a car door slam on the street outside, his neck snapped up. Every time his phone vibrated with a spam email, his stomach twisted.
By Sunday evening, the adrenaline had completely burned off, leaving behind a cold, heavy ash of doubt. He sat at the small kitchen table, staring at his Kinsley Bates lanyard. The orange stripe looked faded. He opened his banking app on his cracked phone screen. $42.18. Rent was due in 4 days.
Don't go to work on Monday, Avalardo. It was a billionaire's whim. That's what he told himself as he washed the dinner plates in lukewarm water. People like Chia Kinsley lived in a different atmosphere. They made grand sweeping statements because their words never had immediate consequences for their own survival.
To her, telling a guy to skip work was a dramatic exit line. To Abalardo, it meant losing the overtime pay he needed to keep the lights on. If HR didn't call, if this was all some stressinduced fever dream she'd already forgotten, he would be fired for a no call, no show. Daddy Melissa tugged on the hem of his shirt. She was already in her pajamas, holding a frayed copy of a library book.
Can we read the bear story? Abalardo dried his hands on a dish towel. He looked down at his daughter. Her shoes were getting tight again. Her winter coat was a handme-down that barely zipped past her collar bone.
Yeah, Bug, Abalardo said, his voice softer than he felt. Let's read the bear story. He didn't sleep that night. He lay on his mattress on the floor, listening to the city breathe, the sirens wailing down 7th Avenue, the low rumble of a garbage truck, the erratic clanking of the radiator. Monday morning arrived with a pale anemic sunlight piercing the blinds.
Abalardo got up. He dressed in his usual warehouse clothes, jeans, steeltoed boots, thermal shirt. He packed Melissa's lunch. He walked her down the hall to Mrs. Higgins apartment.