Tomorrow will mark a year since I had my stroke. It's an occasion that, according to my daughter, Ginny, I should view as important. But I've spent enough time staring at death; I don't want to think ... [+]
The ginger stung. Real root, grated and raw, not the syrupy imitation that hides in most cocktails. Nina gulped, mascara streaking her face in crooked lines, the bartender pretended not to see. We sat in a downtown speakeasy, where suspenders and pocket watches pass for authenticity, where every bottle is made to look smuggled across an ocean. Nina knew such places, but her face betrayed her.
Her grief had a salary attached. A smaller one than his. A male colleague, with an equal title and less sacrifice, earned more. She raged for an hour: nights lost, vacations surrendered to Zoom, her sacrifices matched by his triumph. The bartender, balanced between pity and desire, leaned in with words he'd never give his own boss.
"Quit," he said.
Nina brightened, anger sharpening into possibility. Confront. Sue. Quit. Shame. She weighed her options. I told her I'd support her, though my loyalties were written long ago in my parents' cautionary ink: don't stir the pot, life isn't fair, a paycheck is fragile, we are dispensable. Be grateful. Survive through silence.
That silence had history. My parents carried it across continents. As Nepali immigrants in a small upstate town, they swallowed insults whole. They could have filled a book with what they did not say: when people feigned confusion at their accents, when rules bent against them, when Trump's name dangled like bait.
One morning, my father was on his knees in the front yard, pulling weeds. A woman slowed her car, rolled down the window, and called out with casual entitlement: "When you're done here, can you give me an estimate for my place?"
"Okay", he said, polite as habit.
Later, when I told him he handled it wrong, he said only, "It's a reflection on her." He would not risk his earnings by wasting anger on strangers.
Their endurance set the measure I was meant to exceed. At work, I told myself, I had to be braver. I chased after those who steal from the invisible. Companies fattened on the wages of those who could not risk complaint. One of them, Summit, was hoarding a million dollars in unpaid wages, even as it won city contracts. Wages disappeared while men dangled from ropes, painting walls that would never be theirs.
For a year, we hunted Summit: forty-two boxes of search warrant documents, ledgers dense with columns of data. We flipped page after page until the second set of books emerged. The numbers betrayed themselves, proof that money confesses when people cannot.
Our team roared, jittery and sugar-high, calling workers with our magic words: You are owed more than you ever dreamed. Back rent, new shoes, money wired home. All you must do is testify.
But the lines went dead. Doors shut. "He doesn't live here." "Get lost." Suspicion at every knock. Each promised dollar looked like a trap.
"They have a steady job," my father said. "That's why."
We argued about the dignity of labor, about what theft meant, about the American Dream. My parents insisted it meant warmth in winter, trash collected on time, and lights that did not flicker.
Still, I wanted fire. I wanted workers to rise like waves, shout down Summit, and make employers tremble. I wanted to march among them, an unlikely champion. Summit's grip was more substantial than my hope. Of the twenty cheated, only five stood with us.
Checks arrived for them. One man paid his back rent. Another wired money home. Small victories.
While I counted partial wins, Nina chose fire. She quit.
When I saw her again, bangles jangled as she gulped ginger margaritas and recounted her showdown. Her boss had defended the man, said something vile, and she walked out. She posted her story online, and strangers poured love into her phone. She was buzzed on affirmation, as if likes could replace wages. Pings became applause. I bought a round while she obsessed over her stat count. A ping passed for justice.
Meanwhile, in a Harlem basement, recent migrants sat on metal folding chairs. The radiator hissed. Coats steamed. Children whined under the low ceiling. A woman fanned her baby with a paper plate. A man with stocky hands listed jobs done without pay: debris cleared, apartments stripped of mold, building painted white. Gloves bought, bleach bought, wages vanished.
Then the questions: "Does New York really have a minimum wage?" "My boss hasn't paid me in three weeks. Should I keep working?" Their voices were heavy with hunger.
I slid my card into his palm. A flimsy promise. He looked down as if it might betray him.
Nina disappeared. Our plans collapsed. Months later, she showed up at my apartment. I uncorked a bottle of red. She drained her glass, teeth stained. I told her about the migrants.
"That's crazy. I don't get it," she said, then softened. "Or maybe I do. Kind of."
By then, she cobbled work from scraps, each gig smaller than her rent. The math of groceries and Wi-Fi outweighed the math of outrage.
When I told my parents, they clucked their tongues. Nina should have kept her job, they said. Don't be a troublemaker. We look different here. Always gratitude.
My parents carried gratitude across oceans. Nina shed it. The migrants clung to it. I remain in the middle, unsure if gratitude is wisdom or surrender.
Gratitude topples nothing. Rocking the boat risks drowning. I still want to try.
But who counts as a victim? Nina, educated and degreed, who dared and fell. The migrants, hands cracked from thinner, pay withheld, who dared not speak at all. Her silence came later. Theirs came first.
She found another job. Summit repaid a fraction: twenty stolen paychecks, five reclaimed. In Harlem, I learned how fragile even the offer of justice could be. My father kneels in the grass, pulling weeds. Nina left, chasing something else. The man with stocky hands never called.