Real Life
She came home early today. With twenty five dollars in her shaking hands she told us that she had been let go. That her boss decided to stay at his other house and decided he didnt need a cleaning woman anymore. That twenty five dollars a week was what kept her family going. What paid the electricity bills, put food on the table, helped pay for her daughters prenatal exams. Now that twenty five dollars wont be coming anymore.
She was let go without even a real explanation. Hombre Gordo-the fat man she worked for didnt even tell her to her face. He made another one of his help tell her and after years of service, there wasnt even a tip to help tide her over until she could find another job, cleaning, washing. Not even an Im sorry, I hope this isnt too abrupt, too unexpected. Thanks for the all the years of dedicated service. But he doesnt care. People dont care about people who dont really exist. And thats just what she did in his house for all those years. To him, she was the silent ghost that came in every weekend, while he was away and painstakingly pressed his boxer shorts into neat little bleached white squares and scrubbed his floors till her hands were raw and her 65yr old back ached with pain. All he ever saw were the results of her labors, not her face, not her life, not her pain. Not the daughter she is trying to help through an unwanted pregnany, not the way she opens her house to all the people with problems, not the way she volunteers all her time and energy at her parish, not the way she let me into her life so openly and lovingly. He didnt see any of that, but I have and I did. Shes a beautiful, wonderful person, and he will never know that. But he doesn{t deserve to know that.