Chapter 3 - Helen Had Been Hiding Things Too
The next morning I asked Helen to meet me in my office.
Not as employer and employee.
As two adults responsible for a child’s safety.
She sat rigidly across from me.
“I want to resign.”
I had expected anger.
Not that.
“Helen—”
“I should have left months ago.”
“Months?”
Her eyes dropped.
That one word confirmed my worst fear.
She had known something was wrong.
Not the shove.
But enough.
Celeste had started treating June badly nearly a year earlier.
It began when June came to the mansion after school.
Celeste complained that children did not belong “in working spaces.”
Helen reminded her that June stayed only in the staff sitting room or kitchen until her shift ended.
Then Celeste began finding reasons to involve the child anyway.
“June, pick that up.”
“June, carry this to the laundry room.”
“June, stop sitting around while your mother works.”
Helen repeatedly said:
“She isn’t an employee.”
Celeste would smile.
“Then perhaps she shouldn’t be here.”
That was the threat.
Childcare was expensive.
Helen’s husband had died four years earlier.
Her sister usually watched June, but she had been undergoing cancer treatment for several months.
Helen occasionally had no option except bringing June to work.
Celeste knew that.
And used it.
“She kept saying if June became inconvenient, she’d replace me,” Helen said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Helen looked at me with an expression I deserved.
“Because she’s your wife.”
I leaned back.
“That shouldn’t matter.”
“It matters when she lives here and I work here.”
I had no answer.
Helen continued.
“You would correct her when you saw things. Then you’d leave for work. She’d be angry for the rest of the day.”
That hurt.
Every time I thought I had protected June, I may have made the next hours harder because I never investigated what happened afterward.
“What did she do?”
Helen hesitated.
Then reached into her bag.
She placed a small notebook on my desk.
“I started writing things down three months ago.”
Dates.
Comments.
Threats.
Incidents.
Not violence.
Until the mirror.
But the pattern was unmistakable.
Celeste had spent months making a child understand that her mother’s livelihood depended on the child remaining invisible.
May you like
And June had learned the lesson perfectly.
That was why she had begged me not to tell.
