Life in Ink and Footsteps

Not my back—no worries. My back is fine. This is a story about drama in the family, which might surprise you since I don’t talk about family here. There are a few reasons for that, but the most important one is their privacy. I’ve worked with children, and I don’t want to share details about them, even if I had permission to—which I don’t. After all, I haven’t told about this little project to anyone I know. Why? I am honestly kinda shy about it. What if they don’t like it? What if they think less of me? Most of these stories are deeply personal and very few people actually know about them – for obvious reasons. No, I am not ready to come out with this. So as I said, I don’t want to share things about the family.  But I want to mention this story because it blew my mind, and I’m curious what other people think.

This is the story of a betrayal by someone we trusted deeply—our cleaning lady. I know, some of you might roll your eyes, but she wasn’t just a cleaning lady—she was like a part of the family. She’d worked for them for 25 years, and even before that, she’d worked for the grandparents. Three days a week, she was there, not just cleaning but eating with us, laughing, doing her laundry if she needed to. She was respected and liked by the kids — almost like the godmother no one expected. She even attended their bar and bat mitzvahs with her own family and always received gifts and tips on holidays and birthdays. I loved her. She was, for a long time, the friendliest face in the house. The parents worked too much, the older children were at university, and the younger children didn’t care much about their nanny, so I spent a lot of time alone.

For years, everything was fine—except for one incident. Almost three years before I arrived, the family had a different au pair—a young boy from a European country. Everything seemed okay until one afternoon when he flipped and attacked the cleaning lady. The oldest son was thankfully home, dragging him off her and saving the situation. I’m unclear on how exactly he hurt her, but I know the family paid for all her medical expenses and was worried about her well-being. She fully recovered and returned to work for the family. As for the boy? He was jailed for a bit until a medical evaluation diagnosed him with schizophrenia. It turned out he believed the cleaning lady was The Devil and needed to be stopped before she harmed anyone. I know—crazy. After this, the organization broke the contract with him, and he was sent back to his home country. End of story.

In my opinion, nobody was really at fault. This whole episode was unfortunate. The poor kid was ill and had no idea what was happening around him. Thankfully, the eldest son was there to protect the cleaning lady, and no lasting physical harm was done. Of course, we can’t know what kind of emotional or mental scars she carried from the ordeal. But I guess everyone assumed it wasn’t too terrible, since she chose to return to work for the family—the boy never came back, obviously.

After that incident, things went back to normal—or so everyone thought. For the next three years, she came and went as usual, smiles and all, and nobody saw what was brewing under the surface. No one thought about it again, and I didn’t hear this story until it became relevant one cold evening in March when the cleaning lady came with her daughter, informing the family that she was going to sue them. Yes, you heard that right. Nobody saw it coming. She finished work on Friday afternoon, as usual, and then—bam—there she was on Sunday night, calmly telling the family that not only was she leaving her job, but there was going to be a lawsuit for the harm that had been done to her.

The mum was devastated. She had known this woman since her youth, and now she was met with this. I was also shocked—not only by the news but by the logistics. Why wait so long? Why now? And so, I had another lesson on the American judicial system. You can sue someone up to three years after an incident. Yes, you guessed right. It would be three years in June. She had worked for as long as she could, earning money and favors, and when the clock was about to run out—she brought this up.

So, what do we think of this? Was she right? Was it a betrayal? How would you act in that situation? For me, the answer is simple, but I might be biased. If anyone should have been sued, it was the organization, but even they couldn’t have known that this boy would have an attack. He had clearance from his personal doctor, as we all au-pairs had to have, and there was no history of mental illness. Of course, who knows what really happened that afternoon? He wasn’t in any condition to give a statement and kind of disappeared off the radar after returning home. The mum blamed herself a lot and paid the cleaning lady even when she wasn’t working, on top of covering all her medical expenses, so she wouldn’t have to worry about anything. And still. I would have been more understanding if this happened right after the incident—if she was upset, hurt, scared, etc., and decided to take action immediately. But waiting as long as possible to get the most out of it? That seems cold to me. Calculated.

That’s the story of how we lost our cleaning lady.

Oh wait, I have a little update. As I mentioned earlier, I went to New York this summer. Not only did I meet with some friends, but I also visited the family. It was emotional, to say the least. But that’s not why I’m telling you this. I asked about the lawsuit, the cleaning lady, and how it all turned out. The lawsuit dragged on for almost six years—full of stress and far too much money spent—but in the end, the family won. They weren’t held responsible for what happened, which was a relief, though the whole ordeal left its scars. Especially on the mum, who struggled to even tell me about it. I could see how much it weighed on her. Honestly, it still feels strange when I think about it — how quickly trust can crumble, and how long it takes to rebuild, if it ever really does.

And what better song to fit the theme of betrayal and lies? Although, nobody in the story loved the lies.
Eminem – Love the way you lie