Chapter 4 - The Night Classes
The next day, I had Daniel do a deep dive into Annie’s background.
What he found painted a picture of staggering resilience. She had lost her leg below the knee at age twelve in a car accident—the same accident that had taken her only living parent. She had bounced through a broken foster care system that provided her with the absolute bare minimum medical care. The prosthetic she was wearing was designed for a fourteen-year-old. She had literally outgrown it, manually altering the socket with foam and duct tape just to make it fit.
Despite all this, her grades at the night school were flawless. She was studying mechanical and software engineering. Her professors noted that she often built working prototypes out of salvaged trash.
I spent the second day of my early return observing the hierarchy of my home.
I watched Evelyn Vance, the HR Director, walk through the kitchens like a dictator. Evelyn was a woman in her late forties who equated cruelty with efficiency. I watched her reprimand Annie for taking two minutes too long on a bathroom break.
Annie didn't argue. She just nodded, her jaw tight, and went back to polishing the silver. She couldn't afford to be fired. She was six months away from qualifying for the medical fund.
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I realized then that wealth doesn't just isolate you from the world; it builds a fortress of middle management around you, designed to filter out human suffering so you only ever see spreadsheets.
It was time to tear the fortress down.
