"Why would Patricia tell you that?"
Sophia didn't answer.
I crouched beside her.
"Baby, look at me."
She slowly lifted her eyes.
"You're not in trouble."
Her lower lip began trembling.
I felt something cold move through my chest.
"Why would you think you were?"
Sophia looked toward the hallway again.
"Because I wasn't supposed to tell."
I put down my briefcase.
The sound of it touching the floor made her flinch.
I stopped moving.
"Tell me what?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"That I have to do the laundry."
I looked at the basket. There were adult shirts, towels, bedsheets, and several pieces of clothing that clearly belonged to my wife. Near the bottom lay a pair of dark trousers I recognized from Patricia's work wardrobe.
"All of this?"
Sophia nodded.
"Every day?"
She hesitated.
"Not every day."
I waited.
"Just when Patricia says."
I looked down at her hands.
They were red and slightly swollen, with dry patches around her fingers. She had been rubbing fabric in water for so long that the skin looked irritated.
"How long have you been doing this today?"
She glanced at the clock.
"I don't know."
"Did you eat lunch?"
Her expression changed.
That was answer enough.
I felt my stomach tighten.
"Sophia."
She looked down.
"Patricia said I could eat when I finished."
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
I was standing in the laundry room of a home I'd worked for nearly twenty years to provide, staring at my hungry daughter while she washed my wife's clothing by hand.
And the worst part was that Sophia seemed more afraid of being discovered than of the punishment she'd already endured.
I reached toward the wet shirt in her hands.
"Give me that, sweetheart."
She pulled it closer.
"No, Daddy."
I stopped.
Her voice cracked.
"I have to finish."
"Not right now."
She shook her head desperately.
"Please. Patricia will be mad."
I looked directly into her eyes.
"You're not finishing another piece of laundry today."
She began crying.
Not loudly.
There was no tantrum, no argument, no dramatic attempt to escape.
She simply cried as though I'd told her something terrible was about to happen.
I had no idea how much of my daughter's life I'd been missing.
But I was about to find out.
Three years earlier, I believed marrying Patricia was the beginning of a better chapter for our family.
I'd been raising Sophia alone after losing her mother to a sudden illness, and I was exhausted in ways I never admitted to anyone. My first wife had been the center of our home, the person who remembered every school event, knew which