You're fired. The words bounced off the cheap acoustic tiles of the breakroom. Chased by the suppressed snickers of junior executives who spent more on lunch than he did on a week's worth of groceries. They saw a tired man with scuffed boots, a pathetic single father clinging to a dead-end job. They laughed as he packed his sad little cardboard box.
But the laughter died the very next morning when the billionaire CEO's private motorcade barricaded his crumbling driveway. Jack Thornton woke up before the sun. He always did. The radiator in his apartment hissed, a metallic rhythmic spit that sounded like a dying lung. He lay staring at the water stain on the ceiling for exactly 30 seconds, gathering the energy to exist.
At 34, Jack felt 50. His bones achd from sleeping on a mattress that had long surrendered its springs, but it was the only way he could afford the orthopedic bed for Khloe in the other room. He swung his legs over the side, his bare feet hitting the freezing lenolium. He walked into the kitchen. The lenolium was peeling near the sink.
He opened the fridge, half a carton of milk, a block of generic cheddar, and a row of insulin vials. Khloe's pancreas had quit on her when she was four. Jack's wife had quit on them a year later. She couldn't handle the alarms, the hospital visits, the endless, grinding anxiety of keeping a fragile child alive. Jack didn't blame her.
Some people were built for the trenches. Some weren't. He poured the milk into a bowl of stale cereal, reserving the freshest portion for his daughter. "Dad," Khloe stood in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. She wore an oversized t-shirt that hung past her knees.
Her blonde hair was a bird's nest of tangles. "Morning bug," Jack said. His voice was grally, unused. "Blood sugar time." He went through the routine mechanically but gently.
The prick of the finger, the beep of the meter, the quick math in his head, the injection. Chloe didn't even flinch anymore. That broke his heart more than anything. "A 7-year-old shouldn't be used to needles. "Can we get pizza tonight?"
She asked, swinging her legs at the wobbly kitchen table. Jack looked at his phone. His banking app sat ominously on the home screen. He knew the balance. $42.18.
Payday was Friday. Today was Tuesday. Well see, kiddo. Might be a spaghetti night. You love my spaghetti.
It's just ketchup and noodles, Dad. It's a secret Italian recipe, he dead panned. She giggled. It was a small sound, but it fueled him for the commute. Jack dropped Khloe at her subsidized before school program, kissing her forehead before pulling his 12-year-old Honda Civic out into the brutal morning traffic.
He worked at Omni Corp Solutions, a mid-level data logistics firm that liked to pretend it was a Silicon Valley Titan. It was housed in a mirrored glass monolith downtown. Jack didn't work on the glass floors. He worked in the basement. He was officially a senior maintenance technician.