It was simply a few extra dollars that might make the end of a difficult shift easier.
Outside, Owen asked if they could return to the restaurant for his birthday.
Nora said they could decide when his birthday arrived, because they had more choices now and did not need to turn every pleasant evening into a promise.
Chapter 11D: The Letter From Curtis
Curtis sent Nora a short letter after the labor mediator scheduled the formal hearing.
He wrote that he had been under pressure from Gerald Mason to control costs and maintain an atmosphere suitable for business customers.
He insisted that he had never intended to hurt Nora or her son.
The letter did not acknowledge the lost shifts or the way he had spoken to her in front of other workers.
Nora read it twice, then handed it to Jasmine instead of answering immediately.
Jasmine asked what Nora wanted from the hearing beyond the money she had lost.
Nora said she wanted the diner to maintain clear policies so another server would not be punished for an act of kindness.
She also wanted Curtis to stop presenting his own decisions as orders from invisible people above him.
Jasmine explained that a mediator could address the employment dispute but could not force a person to become thoughtful or generous.
Nora understood and wrote a reply that limited itself to the documented facts.
She described the twelve dollars she had paid, the shift changes, and the conversation in which Curtis had linked the punishment to serving Henry.
She did not call Curtis cruel or accuse him of wanting her son to go hungry.
She asked him to correct the statement that she had violated a written rule because no such rule appeared in the staff handbook.
Curtis did not respond before the hearing.
At work the following week, he avoided Nora and gave Luis instructions through another employee.
The silence felt strange after months of petty remarks and public warnings.
Nora realized she did not miss his attention, even when it had sometimes been the only acknowledgment that she was doing difficult work.
She returned to her customers and resolved to let the documented facts speak when the time came.
Chapter 11E: A Shift Nobody Wanted
Miriam asked Nora to cover a Saturday breakfast shift because her teenage daughter had a school performance.
Nora had promised Owen they would visit a museum that morning.
The old Nora would have accepted the shift automatically and explained the cancellation as an unavoidable sacrifice.
