Chapter 1: King Day

Melanie opened her car door and sat wearily behind her steering wheel. Reaching with her right hand, she pulled her safety belt across her body and latched it, as she had done thousands of times.

Then she closed her eyes, and sat. And sat. And sat.

It was Monday, January 16, 2023, the Martin Luther King federal holiday, unfortunately not observed by Melanie’s employer. But, since many of her co-workers had decided to take a leave day nonetheless, Melanie had to shoulder a whole lot of additional work.

Mondays are hard enough already; this day was horrible! I’m just ... exhausted. No, I need a stronger word. Semi-conscious? Incapacitated?

Finally, from the back seat, the small voice of Amy, her daughter. “Mama? You OK?”

“Sure, baby, alright, we’re going home now.”

Taking a deep breath to gather herself, Melanie started up her old Honda Civic. Fortunately, from Amy’s daycare back to their apartment complex was only one mile on regular streets. Parking in their assigned space, she extracted Amy from her booster seat and they walked hand-in-hand across the parking lot into the complex’s lobby.

One whole wall of the lobby was taken up by an enormous array of mailboxes. Each apartment’s box was big enough to hold a couple of running shoes, and had a flap-covered gap in the door. Additional small items or documents could be pushed past the flap to the inside of each box.

Melanie opened her apartment’s box and found a surprise with her mail. There were two squares of Ghirardelli milk chocolate, and an elegant white card with a red rose printed on it.

Handwritten, the card read, “A treat for you and your child. — 29 —Thinking of You.”

Cautiously, she inspected the foil wrapping on the two chocolates. Each one was 1-3/4” (45mm) square, and thin enough to fit through the narrow opening of her mailbox’s door. She recognized the brand, from San Francisco. Ghirardelli had a great reputation for quality chocolate, considered to be far better than the common Hershey’s.

Once again, she checked the airtight foil packaging on each square, very carefully. Since the wrappings were intact, she collected them with everything else in her mailbox and they took the elevator (not the stairs) up to their apartment.

I ought to throw this chocolate away. It’s the very definition of “candy from strangers.” There’s absolutely nobody I can think of who would do this. But I am so incredibly exhausted tonight that I can only manage making a can of soup for our dinner.

I’m satisfied the chocolate is safe. I can’t remember the last time my little girl had a chocolate treat like this. Months? Amy will love them.

Melanie had stopped moving again. Like she had earlier in the car. She was standing in her apartment’s kitchen. Her head was down, looking at, but not seeing, her feet.

She is not getting the childhood she deserves. I am not the mother she deserves. Today was so hard at work, but all my effort isn’t bringing us the security we should have.

My baby needs safety and stability. She needs a real family; she needs more than I can provide—”

“Mama?”

Once again on that miserable Monday her daughter had interrupted Melanie being stuck in her depressed and exhausted mood, before her issues overcame her self-control.

“Wash up, baby, we’ll have dinner in a few minutes.”

I am so tired, I can’t even cry properly!

Melanie wiped her tears away with a paper towel, and cranked open a can of condensed soup. While it was warming, she loosened her work clothes and pulled the clip from her hair.

“What happened today at daycare?”

A rhetorical question. I know it was fine there, it’s a good facility for her. Right now, in my current state, better that she is talking, rather than me.

“Mm-hmm. And then what happened?”

Having soup is restoring me now, a little. It’s not healthy that I never have lunch any more. Particularly on a day like today when the work, always bad on Mondays, is piled twice as high or more because of people who took the day off.

At least there is this unexpected surprise. I ought to just toss the chocolates, since I don’t know their source. But I guess it’s like on Halloween, where your kid brings home a bag of candy after trick-or-treating. If you check the wrappers carefully, toss even the slightly suspect treats, and let them have the rest in reasonable amounts, then you have done your due diligence as a parent. Whoever sent those squares, they are safe, I am sure.

“Amy, are you ready for dessert?”

“Mama!”

OK, I earned that sarcastic eye-roll. Of course she’s ready. That foil wrapper lasted only 0.5 seconds in her hands. I need to divide the second square, or she’ll be awake all night. I wish these was more for me. Now for my half. Delicious!

Tuesday, January 17, 2023.

At least Tuesday was a more routine, less exhausting, day at work.

Her employer, Abner, both ancient and tyrannical, was mentally and emotionally stuck in an era where labor was cheap, and the solution to all business requirements. Melanie was one of several “clerks,” as he called them. Their jobs were to collate and aggregate to ledgers paper sales records mailed daily from all over the state.

It was difficult, mind-numbing, repetitive work, obviously long overdue for automation. In fact, long ago the paperwork coming into the office had shifted from hand-written to being computer-printed. But Abner didn’t care to change. He had no stockholders to answer to. He didn’t trust records that he couldn’t hold in his hands.

In the past, the company tried using fax machines instead of the postal system. But Abner, being tightfisted as always, purchased cheap machines that couldn’t handle the load of material, and the project was quickly abandoned.

At another point, he considered using the internet and computer technology. But then he found out what programmers expected for wages and benefits, and he dropped the idea immediately. As far as Abner was concerned, the minimum wage was an abomination, and he required clerks (like Melanie) to be independent contractors, responsible for their own taxes and benefits. He paid only for production, not wages or salaries, so there were no paid holidays for the staff.

Tuesday ended with another white card bearing a rose in her mailbox. Handwritten on the back, “Next time you go marketing, get something special. On the front: — 28 — Thinking of You.”