Slipperless Series (Book #4)(29)

I hadn’t been eating. Or sleeping.

It’s one thing to mentally prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario, but it’s something else entirely to have to deal with it in real life.

But, that’s exactly what I faced now…

A life full of lonely days and a financial burden I’d never be able to overcome without a miracle.

As for Gabe, he hadn’t contacted me since the day he fired me. And as much as I needed it, somewhere inside of me resisted the urge to pick up the phone and try to reason with him. It’s not as if I could, even if I wanted to do so. Gabe could be far from reasonable at times. Based on the way we left things between us, I had little doubt that my pleas would fall on deaf ears.

I sat at the kitchen table thinking as I ate the meal my grandmother and I enjoyed the most, pot roast.

Everything tasted different now. The same meal that would have warmed me, nourished me, and delighted my taste buds now seemed bland and borderline repulsive.

I suppose that’s what grief does to a person, but I’d never experienced it to this level, even after the loss of my family when I was a child. And now, suddenly, I’d lost the two most important people in my life in the span of a few days.

One of them, of course, I would never get back.

When it came to Gabe, however, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to any longer.

We’d shared some wonderful times together, and he’d helped me grow in ways I never had the belief I could. But when he fired me without cause and with such extreme callousness, I was left with no alternative but to close off my heart to him. Not doing so would have put me in a place where I wouldn’t have been able to function whatsoever.

I exhaled and leaned over my plate. Forcing another forkful of the salted, gravy-coated meat into my mouth, I chewed and swallowed it down absentmindedly.

After I finished my bite, I reached for my napkin, but as I did, the email notification on my phone chimed. I reached for it, flipping it over and swiping it on as I drew it towards my face.

Over the next minute or so, I read an email from Mrs. Jameson.

She’d been instructed to reinstate me in my position at twice the salary I had before. Apparently, there had been a disagreement amongst the Board of Directors, and Gabe had voluntarily offered to bring me back.

Yet, as excited as that should have made me, I had a sense of uneasiness as I read the email.

As I continued on, I confirmed my suspicions.

It seems Gabe felt the need to attach a stipulation to my reinstatement. In order to receive the ‘generous’ offer, I would have to sign a statement indicating I had no intention of filing charges for wrongful termination.

Of course, I’d considered it in the days since Gabe had done what he did, but short of having several hundred thousand dollars to hire a competent attorney, there was very little chance I’d see a single dime from such a lawsuit. But just the fact that Gabe felt the need to include that as a condition of my return indicated to me that he at least thought I might have a case.

Pursing my lips I stared at the small screen until it went dim and the words faded to blackness. With all of the money at stake in such a lawsuit, I realized it might be far simpler to find a lawyer to take on such a case.

It would certainly humiliate Gabe.

On the other hand, the wheels of justice turned slowly, and it could be months, more likely years, before I saw a single dime from the case. In the meantime, I would lose everything without a job and a steady source of income.

Clutching the phone in my hand, I stood from the kitchen table. After wiping my mouth with my napkin, I dropped it without thought on top of my dinner plate and turned to walk down the hall towards my grandmother’s bedroom.

As I entered, I allowed my eyes to take in the surroundings with as little emotion as possible. I’d cried and sobbed for countless hours in this room since she’d died. Now, with this decision at hand, what I needed more than anything were not tears, but clarity.

I walked over to her bed and reached for an old family photo from her nightstand. I’d looked at it hundreds of times over the years, but never with the focus I had in that moment.

Reaching down towards the picture, which was taken not long before my family’s death, I touched the clear plastic that coated it with the tip of my fingernail. I traced the ghostly figures of my past and wondered what they had to tell me about my future.

What would my parents say to me if they were still alive today?

Would they be proud of what I’d become and what I’d done to succeed? Or would they think less of me, thinking that perhaps I’d sold myself to Gabe to get ahead?

I sighed as I placed the photo back down on the nightstand once again.

The truth was that it didn’t matter anymore. They were all gone and I was left here.