Hannah gathered her daughter into her arms, feeling the burning heat of the fever through the baby’s thin clothes.
She carried Sophie back to their tiny rented room in a run-down Brooklyn apartment building.
The room was barely ten square meters. The walls were stained with damp patches, and the cracked window had been taped shut. The heater had stopped working two weeks earlier.
Hannah laid Sophie on the bed and searched the medicine cabinet.
Empty.
The last bottle of fever medicine had been used the week before. She hadn’t had the money to buy more.
Tears rolled down her face as she watched her daughter struggle with fever.
Her phone vibrated again. This time it was her cleaning company.
Her manager’s voice was sharp and furious.
Where was she? Why had she abandoned her shift?
Hannah tried explaining about Sophie’s fever and begged for a day off.
The manager cut her off immediately.
There was a special assignment that day—a wealthy client in a mansion on the Upper West Side. If Hannah didn’t show up, she would lose her job.
Hannah wanted to scream.
But if she lost the job, there would be no rent money, no milk for Sophie, no medicine.