Chapter 11 - What Rosa Risked
I asked Rosa to meet Maya instead of giving me the document. It was the first useful thing I'd done in two days.
Maya read the severance offer and advised Rosa to obtain her own employment attorney. We could help identify affordable counsel, but Rosa needed someone protecting her interests rather than mine.
“I'm not asking you to fight Nathan for free,” I told her.
“Then don't ask me to turn a workplace incident into your private war,” she answered.
She was right. I'd started treating the people around me like pieces of evidence, forgetting they had rent, families, and consequences waiting at home.
Rosa explained that the showroom system had preserved the footage under an ordinary workplace-incident category. She had not copied it to her phone or sent it to anyone. An investigating officer had already contacted her. She was willing to provide a truthful statement and direct authorized investigators to the recordings.
“That is all I can promise,” she said.
“It's enough.”
Across the city, Nathan's attorneys agreed that the full footage would be retained while access issues were resolved. His public account of the confrontation grew less confident. He no longer claimed I had struck Celeste first. Now he said the matter was “personal and regrettable.”
The police investigation continued, but nobody offered me a dramatic instant resolution. My medical photographs, contemporaneous statement, and witnesses mattered because somebody would have to examine them carefully.
At the workshop, Theo and the employees met without management. They asked for information about the company's actual cash position. Their holiday orders supported nearly forty households, and my leaked email had made their future feel even less certain.
I went to the meeting. No one cheered when I walked in.
A young engraver named Alicia raised her hand. “If the sale's canceled, can we still pay the bills?”
“I don't know,” I said.
It was the first time I'd admitted that in public.
Then I apologized for the email, especially for exposing Celeste's private information. Theo nodded once; Celeste, who had come to speak for herself, wouldn't meet my eyes.
“We need a plan,” Alicia said. “Not another person promising to save us.”
May you like
That evening I received an unexpected request from Esther. She wanted to meet somewhere away from the office, and she had something from my mother's personal safe.
“It's a letter addressed to you,” she said. “I should have given it to you years ago.”
