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Part 2: The Pen in the Hospice
Harold walked me away from the party, to a quiet bench at the end of his garden. Mia sat on my lap, sucking her thumb.
He was quiet for a long time. Then he told me.
He said in Mike’s last week at the hospice, Mike asked to see him alone. I was home putting Mia to bed.
Mike asked Harold for a pen. Then he asked Harold to turn his head.
He drew the sun behind Harold’s ear. His hand was shaking so badly, Harold said, it took him three tries.
Then Mike made him promise something.
He said, Look after my girls. Both of them. Don’t let them feel alone.
And don’t ever let them know you’re doing it, Mike said. Jenna’s too proud.
Harold said the ink washed off in two days. The week after the funeral, he went to a tattoo parlor and had it put back. Exactly the way Mike drew it.
M and M, he said. Mike and Mia.
He said he wore his hair long on that side so I wouldn’t see. He didn’t want me to feel like I owed him anything.
When Mia saw it today, he said, I didn’t know what to do. I panicked.
I sat on that bench and cried. Mia patted my cheek with her little hand.
Then she reached up and touched the sun behind Harold’s ear.
Daddy’s sun, she said happily.
Harold had to look away.
The next morning, my phone rang. It was Victor. Harold’s business partner.
He said he wanted to talk about yesterday. He said my daughter caused a scene in front of the company’s biggest clients.
He said, Frankly, Jenna, your situation has been a distraction for months. Harold’s been carrying you.
He said my attendance had been poor this year. He said the partners were reviewing positions for restructuring.
He said, I’d start updating your résumé.
I kept my voice calm.
Victor, I said, I’ve missed eleven days this year. Most of them were before Mike’s funeral, under family medical leave. I have every form.
He said it didn’t matter. He said Harold couldn’t protect me forever.
I hung up and called Harold.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, Victor can’t fire you, Jenna. He doesn’t have the authority alone.
Then he paused.
But there’s something else you should know, he said. Something I promised Mike I’d never tell you.
The daycare benefit the company has been paying for Mia. It isn’t a company benefit.
It’s me.
Part 3: The Shoebox
I didn’t sleep that night. I sat at the kitchen table with the shoebox of Mike’s napkins in front of me. And I let myself count.
Eighteen months of Mike’s cancer.
Fifty-two rounds of chemotherapy. I drove him to every one. I took notes at every appointment in a spiral notebook.
Medical bills that insurance didn’t cover. Forty-one thousand dollars. I’m still paying them off.
I missed eleven days of work this year. The day of the funeral. The days Mia had a fever. The anniversary of his diagnosis, when I couldn’t get out of bed.
Then I counted what Harold had done. I hadn’t let myself add it up before.
Fifty-two Saturday visits with groceries. One every week since the funeral.
The faucet. The gutters. The flat tire on my car in February.
And the daycare. Eleven hundred dollars a month for eleven months.
When HR told me about the new childcare benefit last year, I cried with relief. I thanked them in an email. I never once asked why I was the only one who seemed to get it.
Twelve thousand one hundred dollars.
I felt grateful. And I felt something else too. Something like shame.
Mike knew me. He knew I would never accept charity. So he asked his best friend to give it to me in secret.
I opened the shoebox and took out the napkins. Hundreds of them. Every one with a little crooked sun.
Some days, Mike drew the sun wearing sunglasses. Some days, it had a mustache. The last one, from the week before he went to the hospice, just had the sun and two words.
Love you.
I put the lid back on the box.
On Monday morning, I went to work early. I sat down at my desk.
At nine o’clock, Victor walked up. He was holding a thin folder.
Behind him was a woman from Human Resources.
Part 4: Victor’s Folder
Victor set the folder on my desk.
He said the company was restructuring. He said my position was being eliminated. He said HR would walk me through my severance.
The woman from HR looked uncomfortable. She didn’t say anything.
Then Victor lowered his voice.
He said, It’s nothing personal, Jenna. You’ve been through a lot. Maybe it’s time for a fresh start somewhere else.
He said Harold was too soft. He said the clients had noticed the scene at the party.
He said, Your kid pointing at the boss and yelling about her dead father. You understand how that looks.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because for one second, I was ashamed. Of Mia. Of myself. Of how messy grief looked in a room full of white tablecloths.
Then I thought about Mia’s little hand touching the sun behind Harold’s ear.
I took a slow breath.
Victor, I said quietly, I understand exactly how it looks.
It looks like a four-year-old girl saw the drawing her father made for her every single day of her life, and thought she found him again.
The woman from HR looked down at her shoes.
I kept going, gently.
I’ve done my job well this year. My numbers are up. My reviews are good. The days I missed were protected leave.
If you’d like to eliminate my position, I’d like that in writing. With the reasons. And I’ll be asking an employment attorney to look at it.
Victor’s face tightened. He said I was being difficult.
I’m being clear, I said.
Then I heard footsteps behind him.
Harold was standing in the doorway of my cubicle. He had his hair cut short now. The little sun behind his ear was plain for anyone to see.
He looked at the folder on my desk. Then at Victor.
Victor, he said quietly, my office. Now.
Victor followed him down the hall. The door closed.
The woman from HR picked up the folder. She said, I’m so sorry. Then she walked away.
Twenty minutes later, Harold’s office door opened. Victor walked out. His face was red. He didn’t look at me.
Harold came to my desk. He sat down in the chair beside it.
Then he said, Jenna, there’s something Mike asked me to give you. When you were ready.
He reached into his jacket pocket.
He took out a folded paper napkin.
Part 5: Mia’s Sun
It was one of Mike’s napkins.
The crooked sun was there, with its one long ray. But under it, in shaky handwriting, were more words than Mike ever wrote on a lunch napkin.
Jenna. If Harold is giving you this, you found out. Don’t be mad at him. I made him do it.
Let people help you. You spent eighteen months helping me. It’s your turn.
Tell Mia the sun is always there, even on cloudy days.
Love you.
I held that napkin against my chest and cried at my desk, in front of the whole office. Nobody said a word. A few people came over and put their hands on my shoulders.
Victor left the company two months later. Harold bought out his share of the partnership. HR investigated the restructuring attempt and found it had no basis.
My job was never eliminated. In the spring, Harold promoted me to manager of my department.
I told him I wanted to pay him back for the daycare. Twelve thousand one hundred dollars.
He shook his head. He said, I made a promise. You don’t pay back a promise.
So we made a deal instead.
No more secrets. If he wants to help, he asks first. If I need help, I ask first.
It turned out to be the best deal I ever made.
Harold comes to dinner every Sunday now. He doesn’t hide the tattoo anymore. Mia checks on it every single time, as soon as he walks in the door.
She climbs into his lap, pushes his hair aside, and touches the little sun.
Hi, Daddy’s sun, she says.
Then Harold lets her draw a new sun on the back of his hand with a washable marker. Every week. Some weeks, it has sunglasses. Some weeks, it has a mustache.
He never washes it off until Monday.
On the anniversary of Mike’s passing, the three of us drove to the cemetery together.
Mia brought a paper napkin and a crayon. She sat on the grass in front of her father’s headstone and drew her very first sun.
It had three crooked rays. One was longer than the others.
She held it up proudly.
Look, Mommy, she said. I drew it like Daddy.
Harold knelt down beside her. He looked at the drawing for a long time.
Then he said quietly, That’s exactly right, sweetheart.
Mia tucked the napkin into the flowers on her father’s grave.
On the drive home, she fell asleep in her car seat, holding her crayon.
Harold drove. I watched the sun go down through the window.
Mike told me in his letter that the sun is always there, even on cloudy days.
I didn’t understand what he meant until a four-year-old pointed at a man’s ear and said, Daddy is there.
She was right.
He was.
