A Christmas Eve Encounter
It was 11:47 p.m. on December 24th when I walked back into my company's headquarters, a glass tower on Crescent Avenue in downtown Halden. My name is Damian Locke. I'm forty-three. I run a company with more than six hundred employees, drive an expensive car, and live in a penthouse that looks out over half the city. And that Christmas Eve, I had no one to eat dinner with. My parents were gone. My marriage ended four years ago. And my only sister hadn't spoken to me in eight months, ever since a bitter argument I still didn't like to think about.
I'd spent the evening reading contracts alone in a hotel restaurant, avoiding an apartment where nobody was waiting. I only went back to the office because I'd forgotten some papers. But as I walked down the hallway, I saw a light on behind the glass wall of my office. Then I saw her. A young woman in a blue cleaning uniform was carefully wiping down my desk. Strapped to her back was a baby. The little girl was sound asleep, one cheek resting on her mother's shoulder.
I'd never noticed this woman before. Not once in two years. As she worked, she hummed softly, a lullaby in Spanish. The baby stirred. The woman set down her cloth right away, reached back, and stroked the tiny hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, mija. Mama's here." Something tightened in my throat. She looked exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes. Worn-out shoes. Hands red and raw from cleaning chemicals. But when she looked at her daughter, her whole face lit up.
Then she opened her purse and pulled out a small paper bag. Inside was a pair of pink socks with little stars. She laid them on my desk and smoothed them with a sad smile. "Tomorrow you get to wear these, baby. You're going to look so pretty." Then she took out a small sandwich. She looked at it for a long moment. Then wrapped it back up without taking a single bite, and put it away. I was about to step inside when her elbow bumped the crystal statue on the corner of my desk. It hit the floor and shattered.
She froze. Then she dropped to her knees and started frantically gathering the pieces with her bare hands. "No, please… not this one…" I opened the door. She looked up, saw who I was, and stopped breathing. "Mr. Locke… I can explain…" Her voice was shaking. Before I could answer, her phone buzzed on the desk. A message from her landlord lit up the screen. "I want the keys tomorrow. If you don't pay what you owe, you and your daughter can find somewhere else to live."
She grabbed for the phone. Too late. I'd already read it. And then I heard footsteps behind me. My director of operations, Victor Sandoval, was standing in the hallway. At midnight. On Christmas Eve. Holding a stack of folders against his chest. He looked at the woman on her knees in the broken glass, at the sleeping baby, and his face went cold. "Her personal problems," he said, "are not this company's responsibility." I looked at him. Then at the folders in his arms. And I wondered what my director was doing in an empty building at midnight on Christmas Eve.
I didn't argue with Victor. I simply ordered a review of the cleaning contracts. What I found was a document someone had tried very hard to hide from me. As I sat at my desk, staring at the papers in front of me, I felt a growing sense of unease. And then, just as I was about to uncover the truth, my phone rang, shrill in the silence of the office. I answered, my heart pounding in my chest, and heard a voice that made my blood run cold: "Mr. Locke, we need to talk about the cleaning lady..."
