I worked as the chef at my son's restaurant for five years. Up before dawn, home late every night, never a single day off, and never a dime in wages.
Then one day, parched from the rush, I grabbed a bottle of water off the shelf and drank it.
My daughter-in-law saw. And right there, in front of everyone, she handed me a fine.
"Dad, the store has rules. Employees aren't allowed to take merchandise for themselves. You just drank a bottle of water, so that's a ten-thousand-dollar fine. Cash, or transfer?"
I stared at her, not believing it.
"I've worked in this restaurant for five years. Twelve, fourteen hours a day at the stove, and I never asked you for one cent. Now you want ten thousand dollars because I drank a bottle of water?"
She said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.
"One thing has nothing to do with another. I'm grateful you help out here, but you stole from the store, and that's a matter of principle. There has to be a penalty."
Her mother chimed in too, hands planted on her hips.
"That's right. This time you got caught stealing water because my daughter happened to see it. Who knows how much you've been helping yourself to when we weren't looking? Ten thousand's letting you off cheap."
I looked at my son, thinking he'd say something fair.
Instead he gave me this weighty, earnest speech.
"Dad, it's not easy running a restaurant, Daphne and me. Stop trying to squeeze freebies out of us. Just pay the ten thousand, all right?"
I didn't shout. I didn't make a scene. I transferred them the ten thousand right there.
But that ten thousand wasn't their fine.
It was a lesson.
A lesson that would leave them crying so hard they couldn't even find the tune.
1
"Dad, the last thing any store can tolerate is someone stealing. I can't excuse your behavior just because you're my father-in-law. Hurry up and transfer the ten thousand."
Daphne Swanson finished and held out her payment code.
The other employees, hearing Daphne push me over the fine, set down what they were doing and turned as one to look at me.
Under all those eyes I felt sick to my stomach, and my voice came out a little unsteady.
"Daphne, I just drank a bottle of water in my own son's restaurant. How is that stealing?"
For this restaurant of my son's, I'd worked flat out for five whole years. Never took a cent in wages. Up before dawn, back late at night, standing over that stove for twelve, fourteen hours at a stretch.
Worn out so often I couldn't straighten my back, and the burns and cuts on my hands never once healed over before the next ones came.
I truly couldn't understand it. After five whole years of that, didn't I even deserve to drink a one-dollar bottle of water in my own son's shop?
Daphne frowned, cold.
"Dad, if you're going to work here, you follow the store's rules. Stop always thinking you can pull special privileges because of who you are."
Special privileges?
If I really wanted to trade on who I was, I wouldn't be doing the hardest work in the place for nothing!
Something twisted in my chest, and I couldn't help turning to my son at the register.
"Stewart James," I said quietly, "you think I should pay this too?"
He looked at me, hesitated a couple of seconds, then said, like it pained him:
"Dad, Daphne's right. You help out here, and we know it. We're grateful."
"But the store has its rules. A bottle of water isn't worth much, sure, but once you start that, everyone else starts taking things too, and then how do we run the place?"
"It's hard enough for us to keep this restaurant going. Don't try to nickel-and-dime us."
I stood there stunned, staring at my son, unable to grasp how he could think I was the one nickel-and-diming anyone.
These five years, how I'd lived them, had he really not seen any of it?
Five years ago, my son's restaurant had just opened.
I'd just retired then. I'd meant to rest a while. I was getting on, my knees ached badly, and the doctor had told me to stand less and take it easy.
But my son came to me, begging in every way he could think of.
"Dad, the restaurant just opened, I really can't afford to hire a chef. You were head chef at that big hotel for decades, you've got the experience, the skill. Come help me out."
"I promise, once the place gets on its feet, I'll make it worth your while."
Seeing how helpless he looked, my heart went soft.
Right then I told him I wouldn't take wages. I'd help him for free.
Five years. Every day I got up at four in the morning to catch the earliest round at the market and pick out the freshest ingredients.
At the store by five. Washing, chopping, prepping, simmering the stock.
Customers started coming in at eleven, and I'd stand at that stove cooking for four, five hours straight, without even a moment to drink some water.
It wasn't until past two in the afternoon that I got a breath, shoveling down a few mouthfuls of cold leftovers before I had to start prepping ingredients for the dinner rush.
Then the evening brought a whole new round of it, the wok roaring, the smoke turning my eyes red, my arms so sore I couldn't lift them.
By the time the last customer left and I'd finished cleaning the kitchen, it was usually eleven at night.
Five years, and I never took a single day off.
Even at the holidays, when everyone else's family was gathered and laughing, I was there in the store, minding that stove.
Because my son said the holidays were the best business of the year, and we couldn't close.
I always told myself, this is my son's livelihood. The more I put in, the easier it'll be on the young ones.
Later, as business kept getting better, I ran off my feet in that kitchen every day, my shirt so soaked with sweat you could wring it out.
But I never once complained.
Because it was my son's store.
Because I wanted to help him.
And now, over a one-dollar bottle of water, I was branded a thief and fined ten thousand dollars in front of everyone.
And in the end I even got hung with the crime of trying to sponge a freebie.
Seeing that I still hadn't moved, Andrea Lambert, my son's mother-in-law, crossed her arms over her chest and needled me in that sneering singsong of hers.
"Some people look honest on the surface. Who knows what they're really like behind your back."
"This time he got caught stealing water because my daughter happened to see. Who knows how much he's been helping himself to when we weren't watching?"
"If you ask me, ten thousand's a light penalty."
Hearing that, I couldn't stop my hands from curling into fists.
These five years, not only had I refused a cent in wages, I'd often paid out of my own pocket for vegetables and seasonings.
I gave everything for this restaurant, and in the end they treated me like some thief who couldn't stand the light of day?
I was about to speak when my son looked at me and said, cold:
"Dad, for the sake of you being my own father, whatever you did before, I won't dig into it."
"But everyone saw what happened this time. If we don't handle it right, how are we supposed to manage the other staff after this?"
"Stop being stubborn. Pay the fine."
