Chapter Seventeen
“Free?” Iris’s pleads from the other end of the line.
“I swear I didn’t know he was married, Iris. No one in the office did. He lied to me.”
Thoughts swirl around my head like a word-cloud. The meeting tonight. What will they all think when they learn I worked for a company that victimized the kinds of communities I claim I want to serve? And Mom, Oh God, Mom. I can’t even imagine what she’s going to think when she reads it.
A wave of nausea hits me as the ache in my head sharpens. I slide the laptop onto the floor and lie back on the couch.
“Free? You still there?”
“I thought I’d left all of that behind me,” I say, the tears at the back of my throat muffling my words. “My past just won’t leave me alone.”
There’s a pause on the line, then Iris says, “I’m supposed t
