5.
~ Dominic and Darcy were not the slightest bit tired after dinner and their parents let them play in the living room as the adults talked in the kitchen.
"My father had borrowed heavily against the company before he died." Arthur said gravely. "Most of it he did on margin. It means he borrowed on credit. On the promise of what the company would do."
"Is that why were having such trouble selling it?" She asked looking worriedly at the kids playing.
"Yes. I didn't know until we went over the books today." He said soberly.
"How bad is it?" She asked feeling her stomach turn.
"Bad." He said.
"Are we going to lose the house?" She asked. The last thing in the world she wanted was to lose their home. Arthur had asked her to marry her in this apartment. This was their home. Their children's home.
"No." Arthur said reassuringly. "I bought this apartment a year before my father died. A few months before he took out all the bad loans. It's safe."
"My necklace." She said worriedly. That glittering birthday present that Arthur kept locked in the safe. Waiting for Darcy's wedding day. Her thoughts going to how they would pay for the kid's education. About the little one she was carrying now.
"No. Ariadne, were not going to lose anything. Everything well be just like it was, I promise. Only, with the way things are, I have only two options. I can sell, and the company will be dismantled and all the workers will be out of a job. Or, I can keep it going and hope it will turn around. Make that profit it hasn't made in five years."
"I don't want to see all those people lose their jobs." She told him.
"I know, I don't either. But if we try to keep the company afloat, we will have to move to New York. On a more permanent basis." He told her gravely.
"Arthur." She whispered. "We live here in Paris. Our lives are here. Cobb and Sarah are here. Eames and Sadie are here. Your work in dream extraction is here."
"I know." He whispered worriedly. "But those are our options."
"There has to be another way. Teleconferencing. It will be like your in the same room with these people." She told him.
"I already have Edwina going back and forth between here and New York almost every week to deliver signed documents. There are things that I can not do from here." He explained sadly.
"Oh, Arthur." She wanted to cry. This was worse then she could have imagined. "All in the hopes that the company would turn a profit soon."
"I have a capable business manager. He has already worked wonders since I hired him last year. If we move, it would only be for a year or two." He told her taking her hand. "Edwina would come with us and Cobb and Eames could visit."
"Sounds like you already made up your mind." She said bitterly.
"Ariadne, I've walked the floors of my father's company. Those people are scared of losing their jobs. Some of them have been there 30 years. They can't get another job easily. Their people with families just like ours. I know I can do this. I'm asking you to please... please do this for me."
18 years ago...
~ "Custody will go to the state in the interest of the minor child." The judge said. Ariadne jumped as the gavel banged harshly and the parties involved stood at the bailiffs command. The family court was packed with people and she didn't even get a chance to see her parents before the social worker pulled her away.
~ The next few days were like limbo. A place with no up or down. A place where she was sent to wait. She got up out of bed and ate the food Miss Annie gave her. Went back to sleep and missed Sammy.
At night Miss Annie was sit in her chair and hum her gospel music. Chasing away specters and Ariadne stopped wetting the bed.
This place was not a home at all, but a big gray building the kids all called the "Docs". You were sent to the "Docs" when your parents couldn't take care of you and no one else wanted you. That was how it was explained to her by the other kids. All of them dirty, neglected lambs who looked unlovable.
Ariadne shrived on the busy playground and wished Sammy was there. Wished she had his little hand in hers. She didn't want to play with the other kids. The other girls with their battered, Barbie dolls and their dirty talk about men. She didn't want to be around anyone. She wanted to be all alone. The other kids were mean in the way all kids are when they were around a weaker child who couldn't fight back.
~ Sundays were different. On Sundays, Miss Annie snapped everyone out of bed and hustled the girls into a bath. Washing their hair and bodies till everyone shone. She dressed them all in tired looking dresses and the boys in, ill fitting, but clean clothes.
They were all under strict instructions to behave as they sat in church and then they had a party at the Docs. People would come. Couple's mostly, to see them. The healthy looking boys were picked by farmers. Older farmers who's own children where grown and who had left home with too much work to be done.
No one wanted the girls. Girls were useless. They cost too much money to keep and not for the poor community.
Ariadne felt Miss Annie pull her close.
"Baby, you go talk to that couple there. Tell them how smart you are and all them books I seen you reading. Tell them about how you get good grades. Tell them how you dress yourself and don't say a word about Sammy. You do what Miss Annie says. Go on." She ordered patting Ariadne on the butt.
Ariadne did as she was told. She always did what Miss Annie said. Her fear of meeting new people tempered by the fact that she would be sleeping on her clean little bed tonight no matter what. That Miss Annie would hum her to sleep no matter what these people decided to do.
They were no farm couple. They looked out of place in the crowd of weary adults who worked too hard and endured too many hardships.
"Hello." Ariadne said to them. The lady, her hair a pretty silver smiled at her. Ariadne was surprised at the sound of her own voice. She hadn't used it in so long, she marveled that it still worked.
"Well, hello." The lady said pleasantly as her husband looked grumpy in his nicely tailored three piece suit. "What's your name?" The lady asked.
"Ariadne." The child said feebly. She didn't know what else to say. The couple seeming to be waiting for her to go on. "I get really good grades and I can dress myself."
The couple laughed at her and asked her about what she liked best about school. It suddenly became so easy to talk to them. They wanted to know about the books she read and what she wanted to be when she grew up.
"An architect?" The older man grumbled. "What kind of job is that? The last one we hired fleeced me good. He designed our sun room and did a poor job of it."
"Hugo." The old lady scolded gently. The old man leaned closer to Ariadne. Beneath his sour expression, his eyes were very kind.
"Think you can draw me a better sun room?" He asked the little girl.
Ariadne nodded and started coloring. She drew the best room for the sun to live in that she knew how.
"Why do you want to be an architect?" The older man asked.
"I like to think about the people who will live there." She told him.
When she was done, her drawing was of a bright and cheery room. Nice furniture and the sun lived there.
The old couple laughed at her drawing and she worried she had made it wrong.
"Little girl, this is the best sun room I've ever seen." He told her. "I'll give you 20 dollars for it." He told her.
Ariadne nodded in shock as the older man produced money with ease and had her sign her work.
The old couple went away that day, but Miss Annie told her she did a good job and they would be back for her. Ariadne nodded and held her money tightly in her fist.