It was about 4PM in the evening Victoria walked into the living room, where Robert was sitting on the couch, watching TV. She had been worried about Emma all day, and she knew that she needed to talk to Robert about it."Robert, we need to talk," Victoria said, sitting down next to him.Robert looked at her lazily, not really paying attention. "What's up?" he asked."It's about Emma," Victoria said, her voice serious. "She lost her job today."Robert's reaction didn't change. "Oh, that's too bad," he said.Victoria felt a surge of frustration. Didn't Robert care that their daughter had lost her job? Didn't he realize how hard Emma had been working to support the family?"Robert, this is serious," Victoria said, trying to keep her patience. "Emma has been carrying the burden of this family for too long. She's been working two jobs just to make ends meet, and now she's lost one of them."Robert shrugged. "She'll find another job," he said.Victoria felt like she was going to explode. How

The next day Richard Dawson sat in his big leather chair behind a shiny wooden desk, his fingers tapping nervously on the edge of a stack of papers he hadn’t looked at in hours because his mind was somewhere else entirely. He leaned back, letting out a long, heavy sigh that filled the quiet room, his eyes drifting to the window where the sun poured in like golden syrup, painting the floor with bright patches of light that danced as the curtains swayed in the breeze from the slightly open pane. Richard, a man with graying hair and a face carved with lines from years of tough choices, had been thinking about Victoria all morning, her tired face flashing in his memory like a ghost that wouldn’t leave him alone, and he rubbed his chin slowly, feeling the rough stubble under his fingers as he pictured her hunched over her desk in that crumbling real estate office she’d been fighting to keep alive for years. He’d known her for a long time—too long, maybe—and every time he saw her, she looke