Chapter 4 #3
“That would be heartbreaking, but it certainly could happen. Will it happen? Probably at some point,” she conceded.
“I cannot bear thinking about it, and that tells me what a dangerous position I’m in because I have no rights here.
Simply put, I am acutely aware that I am just an employee.
An employee who sends reports every once in a while, and, other than that, they don’t really want to know, …
unless there’s a problem. And then, all they really want to know is …
that there’s no problem. And that’s the hardest part. ”
Trent sorted through the paperwork in front of him.
There was a contract, and his eyebrows shot up at the amount of money she was being paid.
But when he considered that it was twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, nonstop, with no holidays, he wasn’t sure it was enough.
At that, he stared at her, and asked, “What about a holiday for you?”
She laughed. “I haven’t dared to ask. I don’t have a clue what they would even do if I were to bring it up.
But I know,” she added, “technically by law, I should have holidays. However, I don’t want to rock the boat too much and be separated from Ricky just because I was looking for a break, you know? ”
“Good Christ,” he muttered.
“There’s a lawyer I can contact if I have any financial issues or big bills that I don’t know how to cover,” she shared, as she pulled out one of the documents.
“That’s his office, so you should be able to contact the attorney in order to get a hold of the family. Apart from that, I don’t know how.”
“And have you ever had to contact him for money?”
“The school fees had gone up, and there was some special testing that Ricky needed that wasn’t covered.
So, I had to call the lawyer to see if the family would okay this, and he didn’t even bother checking with them.
He just put the money into the account and emailed me a receipt for it, basically saying that this money has been given to you.
I insisted that there be a note on it showing what it was for because I didn’t want the parents thinking that I was asking for that money for myself. ”
Trent just snorted at that because this was getting more absurd with every detail she shared.
“That was almost the same reaction I got from the lawyer, basically, Pfft, they don’t care. They have billions, and this is nothing to them. But I explicitly told him that I do care, and I don’t want them coming back on me.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He emailed me another receipt, wrote down the purpose of the money, and I awaited the transfer to Ricky’s account,” she replied. “It was a very formal business transaction, and that was about it.”
“And did he want to see Ricky? Did he even ask about Ricky? Did he want any documentation from the school or anything?”
She replied immediately. “No, no, and … no.”
He blew out a long breath, staring at her in shock. “How many family members are there, besides the parents?”
“Two adult sons, as far as I remember. Maybe I’ve missed one. I’m not sure. It’s not as if I’ve had anything to do with any of them.”
“Have any of the siblings checked in on Ricky?”
She immediately shook her head. “No, and again it’s easy to judge.”
“Yeah, you’re not kidding.” Trent quickly took photos of all the legal paperwork and sent it off to Mason.
She watched him do it and then muttered, “It’s really not cool, is it?”
He shot her a look and shook his head. “No, it’s not cool at all. This is not how we handle our children.”
“And I understand that Ricky’s been sickly, but he’s also doing quite a bit better,” she shared.
“I don’t think he’s ready to go skiing in the Swiss Alps yet, which I think is where they were at one point recently,” she noted, as she pondered that for a moment, then turned and looked around.
“They don’t really give me any idea of where they are. I don’t get updates. I just get—”
He looked at her when she didn’t continue, and he asked her to explain. It could be the most important detail.
She shook her head. “I get ignored, and the only time that anything happens is when I nudge them and say Ricky needs a phone call. Then they call on the special phone, so very cheery and happy, talking to him and explaining where they are, which is almost always clear around the world. They invariably say they’re really busy but happy that he’s doing well, and blah, blah, blah. ”
“Have you ever wondered if they were his real parents?”
She stared at him in shock for a long moment.
“It’s never even occurred to me to question that.
I mean, they pay me on time without fail.
They take care of him—financially. Now that I question it, it’s a horrible thought to think.
Thank you so much for putting that idea in my head.
I mean, who the hell does this, and who is paying if it isn’t his parents?
” She got up to pace around the room, muttering to herself.
“Hey, easy now,” Trent told her. “I don’t know that to be true, but it’s all distant enough that it could be anybody. I mean, if you don’t have contact with any of the family involved, it could literally be anybody who’s in contact with you. It sounds so bizarre and cold in a way.”
“Yes,” she muttered. “It could literally be anybody.” She took a look around, stopped, and then resumed her pacing again. “But I don’t want to—I just don’t want to think about that,” she admitted.
“Neither do I,” he agreed. “So, we’ll just … ignore that.”
“Sure, we’ll ignore it. Great idea.” Then she dropped into the nearest chair and shot him a look. “Do you ever find a way to ignore something, once the seed has been planted?”
“Nope,” he declared, followed by a laugh. “It just cements even harder into your brain.”
She nodded. “That would be my take as well.”
With the paperwork scanned and sent off, he sat back and asked her, “How about that tea?”
“Oh crap,” she muttered as she bounced to her feet. “I put on the teakettle, but I didn’t follow through.”
“And that is okay, you know?”
She glanced at him and shrugged. “It’s so weird to have somebody else here because normally it’s just the two of us.”
“And that’s another thing,” he noted. “Your life is on hold.”
She nodded. “Yes, in a way, my life is on hold, in that I can’t have anybody in the home.
” She sighed. “I can’t, and that was a condition for my being here, that I was not allowed to have any strange men over,” she explained.
“At the time, I didn’t have a partner, and I was more concerned about Ricky.
So I agreed without even thinking about it.
So, of course, having you here right now, I guess, violates my agreement. ”
“Hardly the same thing,” he countered, a smile on his face, trying not to say anything that would sound out of place. “I’m just here to make sure everything is okay with you and Ricky. So far, it’s looking … beyond weird.”
“Beyond weird? That is a nice formal term,” she quipped, with a big grin. She got up and returned a few minutes later with two cups of herbal tea. “I hope peppermint is okay.”
He shrugged because that was a lot more than what he expected. “It’s a hot drink,” he confirmed, “something to help de-stress things a bit.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I would agree with that, and I could surely use a chance to de-stress.”
“That’s part of my concern,” Trent noted, trying not to get under her skin. She was just that kind of a gal. “You don’t have friends. You don’t have a … special friend, at least I’m assuming not, if you’re not allowed to have anybody here. It’s a bit hard for me to imagine that lifestyle.”
She nodded, her gaze sharp on his.
“You’ve taken on the sole care of a little boy who now sees you probably more as a parent than his actual parents.”
“So?”
“That is a concern.”
“I know,” she muttered, “and believe me that I am concerned. But I also don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. I mean, it’s a job, and yet—”
“And yet,” he interjected, looking at her with compassion, “the job part went out the window when you fell in love with that little boy.”
She nodded. “You could be right about that,” she declared in a slow, mild tone, “but I can’t just ignore or desert him, not right now.
If I get fired or something, or the parents get back in the picture and I’m not needed anymore, that’s a whole different thing, but to be here and to make a conscious decision that I’m done, that’s just not something I can do. ”
“But you can’t just stay here in this situation forever either.”
“No,” she agreed, “but I’m not ready to make any kind of change to it either.”
She sure sounded like she had her mind made up. He nodded. “I agree with that, but we need to figure out where the parents are and have a talk with them.”
“That in itself,” she replied, shaking her head, “could be what ends up getting me kicked out of here. So tread lightly, will you?”
“Tread lightly for your sake or for his?”
She glared at him. “I’m sure you are aware that the answer to that question is both.”
He nodded. “Exactly, it absolutely is both because he is there with you every step of the way, and that’s equally wonderful and difficult.”
She sighed. “Yeah, you’re not kidding. So, when you are able to contact the parents, you can let me know where we stand.”
“And you went to the docks to meet them, right?”
“Yes, we were supposed to go sailing, and Ricky hadn’t been sailing in a very long time. His family was all supposed to be there, and he was incredibly excited. Instead of going sailing, when we went to the docks, we were forced onto that other boat and chained up,” she stated.