“There’s one last option,” Mark added. “A residential cleaner. No childcare background.”
Daniel looked out at the yard, where broken toys lay among dead plants.
“Hire whoever agrees.”
Across the city, in a cramped apartment near the Mission District, Sarah Coleman, twenty-six, tightened her worn sneakers and shoved her psychology textbooks into a backpack. She cleaned houses during the day and studied childhood trauma at night, driven by a past she rarely shared.
At seventeen, she had lost her younger brother in a house fire. Since then, fear no longer startled her. Silence didn’t scare her. Pain felt familiar.
Her phone buzzed.
“Emergency placement. Private residence. Immediate start. Triple pay.”
Sarah glanced at her tuition bill taped to the fridge.
“Send the address.”
The Hawthorne house was beautiful in the way wealth often is—glass, space, perfect views. Inside, it felt hollow.
The guard opened the gate and muttered, “Good luck.”
Daniel greeted her, eyes shadowed with exhaustion.
“It’s only cleaning,” he said quickly. “My daughters are grieving. I can’t promise calm.”
A loud crash echoed upstairs, followed by a sharp, unsettling laugh.
Sarah nodded. “I’m not afraid of grief.”