“Lily.”
She took my elbow like I was made of glass and guided me to a bench outside the store. Then she ran to the water fountain and came back with a paper cup, holding it steady while I pretended to drink. As she leaned close, I caught the embroidered school patch on her uniform.
“Where’s your mother now, Lily?”
“At work. She cleans offices at night. Sometimes during the day too, if they let her.”
I let her sit with me a while longer.
“And your father?”
“It’s just us.”
I let her sit with me a while longer. Then I told her I had somewhere to be, and I watched, from a careful distance, as she walked home to a small apartment above a laundromat near the bus depot.
That night, I told my lawyer to draw up new papers.
“Name?” he asked.
He called me back the next morning.
“Lily,” I said. “Twelve years old. Lives with her mother above the laundromat near the bus depot. Her school uniform had a crest from the academy near the store. Run the background. I want everything clean.”
He called me back the next morning.
“Sir, there’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The mother. She works as a night cleaner at your corporate headquarters. And Derek has been building a file against her.”
I closed my eyes. Derek. Of course it was Derek.
I sat up straighter in my chair. “What file?”
“Pilfering. Expired snacks she took home for her daughter. Items that were already marked for disposal. He’s documented six incidents in two months. He’s preparing to terminate her for cause.”
I closed my eyes. Derek. Of course it was Derek.
“He doesn’t know I know her,” I said.
“He doesn’t know she exists to you, sir. That’s the only reason she still has a job.”
I walked into my own corporate headquarters as the homeless man.
I thanked him and hung up. Then I put the disguise back on.
I walked into my own corporate headquarters as the homeless man. The receptionist froze. Two security guards moved before I even reached the elevator.
“Sir, you can’t be in here.”
“I’d like to speak with Derek,” I rasped. “Tell him it concerns the night cleaning staff.”
Derek appeared at the top of the stairs a minute later.
The receptionist hesitated, then picked up the phone. I watched her face as she relayed the message, the small flicker when whoever was on the other end asked her to repeat it. A homeless man asking for Derek by name was apparently strange enough to warrant a page upstairs.
Derek appeared at the top of the stairs a minute later, smelling the situation before he saw it. He didn’t recognize me. He only saw the cane, the coat, the dirt.
“Get him out,” Derek said flatly. “And check the cameras. I want to know who let him in and who told him my name.”
Her family records stared up at me from the page.
They took my arms gently, because I was old. Derek didn’t even watch me leave.
That evening, my lawyer brought a thick folder to the mansion. Personnel files. I asked for Lily’s mother’s.
I opened it slowly.
Her family records stared up at me from the page.
I knew that line. It belonged to Anna’s younger sister, the one Anna had grieved for in whispers late at night, the sister who cut her off and vanished with a baby girl Anna was never allowed to hold.
And tomorrow, I would walk into my boardroom one last time, no longer in costume.
I sat very still.
The one stranger who had stopped for me in that store was the only blood Anna had left in the world.
And tomorrow, I would walk into my boardroom one last time, no longer in costume.
I walked into my own corporate headquarters in a tailored charcoal suit, silver hair combed back, cane traded for a steady stride.
The boardroom doors opened on Derek mid-sentence, pointing at a slide titled “Succession Proposal.”
I sat down at the head of the table.
I slid a folder across the polished wood.
