You see him before he sees you noticing him.
He stands near the back corridor with a dented metal bucket in one hand and a rag thrown over one shoulder, his gray coveralls stained at the knees and one sleeve rolled higher than the other as if he dressed in a hurry or simply stopped caring who noticed. If anyone else in the mansion pays attention to him, they hide it well. In houses this large, men carrying buckets become part of the wallpaper. They are useful, invisible, and rarely considered important enough to remember.
But you notice people for a living.
The cook with the pinched mouth. The footman who smirks when he thinks no one sees. The butler whose silence feels less cold than careful. The two little girls whose laughter floats down from the second-floor landing and then stops all at once, as though joy in this house must frequently ask permission before continuing. And now this handyman, standing slightly apart from the rhythm of the staff, watching the room with the alertness of someone pretending not to.
You set your old canvas bag beside the laundry room door and smooth the front of your worn uniform with both hands. The cloth is freshly pressed because that matters to you even when the seams have begun to thin. Poverty may take options first, but dignity only goes if you hand it over.
