The name meant nothing.
“I worked in your kitchen.”
Calvin and I exchanged a glance.
“When?”
“Until two months ago.”
I had never met her.
That fact hit harder than it should have. Hundreds of people had passed through my companies, but this was my home. A woman had worked within my walls, around my children, and I had not known her face.
“Why were you fired?”
Rosa’s mouth tightened.
“Because I asked why the girls were hungry.”
The world seemed to narrow around that sentence.
She told us she had worked evening prep in the estate kitchen for six months. At first, she assumed the children ate separately because they were young. Then she noticed entire deliveries of fresh food leaving through the service entrance before dinner.
Boxes of seafood. Fruit. Imported cheese. Specialty formula.
Hilda said they were returns or surplus being sent to another Alvarez property.
There was no other property receiving them.
Rosa began keeping count.
Then Rosalyn came into the kitchen one night and asked whether a banana cost too much.
I had to sit down on a stone border near the path.
Rosa continued.
“She said Miss Hilda told her good girls don’t ask for food after dinner.”
My hands became numb.
“What did you do?”
“I gave her a banana.”
“And?”
“The next week Hilda told me my work was no longer needed.”
“You tried to contact me?”
“Three times.”
“How?”
“Messages through the household office. A letter at the gate. I called the main number.”
Calvin looked sick.
