Single Dad Drove His Intoxicated Boss Home — Her Next Day Words Shocked Him.
The Weight of a Single Father’s Burden
Marcus Chen hadn’t cried in front of his daughter since the funeral. But standing in his kitchen at 2:00 a.m. staring at the overdue notices spread across the counter like accusations, he felt the familiar burn behind his eyes.
Emma’s birthday was in three days. She had asked for so little: just a cake and maybe, if it wasn’t too much trouble, one of those science kits from the store.
He had promised her the world when Sarah was alive. Now he could barely promise her dinner.
The single dad life wasn’t what anyone prepared you for. The parenting books didn’t mention how you would become an expert at stretching a dollar until it screamed.
They didn’t mention how you would learn to braid hair through YouTube videos at midnight. Nor did they mention how every decision would feel like you were choosing between your child’s happiness and basic survival.
Marcus worked as an operations manager at Henderson and Associates, a midsize consulting firm downtown. The pay was decent, but decent didn’t cover medical bills from Sarah’s illness, child care for a 7-year-old, and the cost of simply existing in a world designed for two incomes.
He folded the notices carefully and tucked them into a drawer. Emma would wake up in five hours, and she deserved to see her father smiling, not defeated.
The next evening, Marcus was preparing to leave the office when he noticed the light still on in the corner suite. Catherine Henderson, the firm’s founder and CEO, rarely stayed past six.
She was a formidable woman in her mid-50s, silver-haired and sharp-eyed. She had a reputation for being brilliant in business and ice-cold in personal dealings.
In three years, Marcus had maybe exchanged twenty words with her that weren’t directly work-related. He hesitated, then knocked softly on her doorframe.
Catherine was slumped over her desk, an empty wine bottle beside her laptop. Her perfectly quaffed hair was disheveled, and her eyes, when she looked up, were red-rimmed and unfocused.
“Mr. Chen,” she slurred slightly, “burning the midnight oil?”
“Miss Henderson, are you—is everything all right?”
