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“Mr. Ellis, please bring clean towels, a new basket if we have one, and ask the kitchen staff to prepare tea. Also, the marble can wait. Carmen’s hands cannot.”
That sentence nearly breaks you again.
A maid named Lucía steps forward before Mr. Ellis can answer.
“I’ll help her, sir.”
She kneels beside the broken basket, not to clean the floor as Regina ordered, but to gather what can be saved with tenderness. You kneel too, embarrassed by your tears, but Lucía only touches your arm.
“Let me,” she whispers. “Please.”
You look at Alejandro.
He is still in his chair, still surrounded by wealth, still carrying the loneliness you saw by the fountain. But now there is fire in him. Not the kind that destroys blindly. The kind that finally finds oxygen.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
You wipe your face quickly. “You didn’t do it.”
“No,” he says. “But I let people like her decide who was allowed near me.”
You do not know what to say.
Because poverty has taught you many things, but not how to receive an apology from a man whose house could swallow your entire neighborhood.
The staff brings tea.
Lucía brings a soft towel for your hands.
Mr. Ellis returns with a new basket from the kitchen storage, larger and stronger than your old one. He places it near you with a little bow, as if he is presenting something sacred rather than replacing what Regina destroyed.
You almost refuse it.
Then you remember rent.
You remember the 150 cracked steps down the hill.
You remember the landlord’s note under your door.
So you accept.
“Thank you,” you whisper.
Alejandro watches you carefully.
“Carmen,” he says, “how much bread did she destroy?”
You shake your head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“It was only bread.”
“No,” he says. “It was work.”
The word enters you like warmth.
Work.
Not charity. Not street food. Not trash. Work.
You swallow hard.
“About eighty dollars’ worth,” you admit. “Maybe a little more.”
Alejandro looks at Mr. Ellis.
“Pay her five thousand.”
Your eyes widen. “No.”
He turns back to you. “Carmen—”