The smell of chamomile filled the air as I poured steaming water into Anne's favorite porcelain cup—the one with the pale gold rim and ivy leaves etched into its side. Her breakfast always had to be perfect. Organic eggs—scrambled, never fried. Gluten-free toast—golden brown, no darker. And chamomile tea—steeped for exactly five minutes, no more, no less.
I whisked the eggs with a rhythm I didn't need to think about anymore, my mind elsewhere. Somewhere much colder. Quieter. Lonelier.
When I landed in America, I didn't speak much English. Sure, I had studied some in school. "Hello," "Goodbye," "How are you?"—that sort of thing. But nothing prepared me for the way people actually spoke. Slang, sarcasm, rushed words, clipped tones. I couldn't keep up. I didn't know how to ask for help. Or even how to explain that I didn't know how to explain.
The foster care home I lived was in a worn-down neighborhood in Illinois. Peeling paint, cracked sidewalks, and the kind of silence that felt like tension, not peace. My foster parents were a couple in their fifties, the Harpers. On paper, they were "doing a great thing," giving a "stray foreign girl" a place to stay. But in reality?
They barely tolerated me.
"Another mouth to feed," Mr. Harper would mutter when he saw me at the dinner table.
"She just sits around all day like some princess," Mrs. Harper snapped once when I struggled to fold laundry fast enough.
I wanted to tell them I wasn't lazy. I wanted to say that I would do anything to earn my place. I just didn't have the words. And even if I did, I don't think they would've listened.
Their biological son, Bryan, was my age—seventeen, loud, and always smirking. He once cornered me in the hallway, pretending to whisper sweet things I couldn't understand, only to laugh in my face and say, "Stupid doll doesn't get it, huh?"
I slept with a chair pushed against my bedroom door after that.
I stopped eating much. Stopped looking people in the eye. And every day, I missed General Choi more. I would close my eyes and try to hear his voice in the silence. "You are not where you are from. You are what you become." But what was I becoming? A ghost? A girl with no tongue? A burden?
Then I met Prisca.
It was raining that morning. I remember because the leak above my bed had started dripping again. I'd taken my damp pillow out to the front porch to let it dry when I saw her.
She was working next door, pushing a cart filled with cleaning supplies and humming a tune I didn't recognize. She looked about my age, maybe a little older. Her skin was a deep brown, her smile wide and bright even in the gloom.
She saw me sitting there, clutching my wet pillow like it was a lifeline, and she paused.
"Hey," she called out, friendly and confident.
I didn't respond. I didn't know how to.
She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes a little, and tried again, slower. "You… okay?"
I stood up, nodded too quickly, and almost ran inside. But she smiled like she understood something deeper than I had the words for.
The next day, she came back. And the day after that. She started leaving little things on the porch for me. An apple. A granola bar. A smiley face drawn on a paper napkin.
Then one evening, she knocked.
I opened the door, heart racing.
"You hungry?" she asked, lifting a plastic container of what I'd later learn was lasagna.
She sat with me on the porch. She talked. I listened. Slowly, she introduced me to words, expressions, context. She taught me that "wanna" meant "want to," and that "what's up" didn't require me to look at the ceiling.
She taught me how to use a washing machine properly. How to understand American humor. She explained memes, slang, bus schedules, and how to dodge creeps.
She became my lifeline.
When I finally told her about the Harpers—with my broken sentences, my hand gestures, my eyes filling with tears—she didn't tell me to be strong. She didn't feed me empty hope. She said, "Okay. We're getting you out."
She found me a part-time job with her cleaning agency. She talked to someone she knew in social services. Within two weeks, I'd packed my things and moved into a shared apartment with her and two other girls.
That's how I started working as a housekeeper.
***
The eggs were almost done now. I turned the burner off and began plating—eggs on the right, toast on the left, and a slice of avocado in the middle. Just as Anne liked it.
I poured the tea into her porcelain cup, gently set the saucer underneath, and placed it on the serving tray with practiced precision. My fingers moved on autopilot, but my mind kept replaying those early days. Those nights I cried quietly into my pillow. The moments I thought I'd never find a way to speak, to be heard, to matter.
And then I thought of Prisca again. My friend. My first anchor. My first real reason to stay.
Just as I set the tray down on the dining room table, I heard the front door open.
Anne had arrived.
I straightened up, smoothed my apron, and turned toward her. She swept in with her usual confidence, sunglasses perched on her head, heels clicking against the marble floor.
"Morning," she said, dropping her purse on the nearest chair.
I nodded politely, my heartbeat thudding louder than it should have.
Her eyes passed over me like always. No flinch. No sign of knowing what had happened with Jim. Not a twitch of suspicion.
"Breakfast smells divine," she said, slipping off her coat.
I breathed out slowly and forced a calm smile. "It's ready."
Lucky me.
She didn't know.
Or maybe she did.
But she wasn't going to say a word.
And neither was I.