In the evening, after a long day of work, Catherine changed her clothes and set off on her journey home, refusing the offer of several suitors to take her by bicycle and insisting on walking home.
The summer night wind didn't cool her face much, but instead carried the last hint of the day's fire and heat, making her feel irritable.
Catherine was a strong girl who was less likely to show certain shallow emotions, even if something else might be going on inside her.
She made it back to her home before it was completely dark, since moving back to live in her own home she never stayed on the streets after it was dark.
It wasn't safe here, and whenever the night completely covered the sky, evil descended.
The sounds of arguments, fights, and even gunshots were commonplace here at night, which also included cries for help and the constant blaring of sirens.
Just as she closed the door to her room, Kathryn sensed a lesser atmosphere; there seemed to be a bit of heaviness in the house today.
She changed her shoes, hung her bag, which didn't cost more than five dollars, on a coat rack and headed towards the living room.
Her father was sitting somewhat disoriented on the beat-up old couch that he had snatched from the garbage, and her mother had a sad face.
It was as if the men hadn't heard the door opening and closing, their eyes were glued to the television, but it was Catherine's mother, who glanced up at Catherine and then back down again.
"What's wrong?" , Catherine asked, she didn't think the couple was quite the same as usual today.
The man was still watching TV as if he hadn't heard anything, and Catherine's mother had a sad and bitter look on her face, and her voice trembled slightly, "Your father he ... lost his job."
This is a very normal thing, in fact, the second half of last year, people have been psychologically prepared, many factories have begun to stop working, even if the trade unions organized a demonstration of workers, demanding the resumption of work in factories, do not dare to make too much trouble.
They even set the "strike" for the weekend, which has become an international joke, but it also reflects how contradictory and acute the social problems were at that time.
Catherine's father's factory declared bankruptcy today, which is also a sign, they have stopped importing raw materials since last month, in fact, they have long had this premonition, but have not been willing to face it, and do not want to believe that bad luck will fall on them.
Catherine fell silent, her paycheck wasn't much, only two hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, just slightly above the floor required by the minimum hourly wage law.
Her father had gotten anywhere from three hundred to three hundred and fifty dollars a month until today, and the two salaries were still more than enough to support the family.
But if Catherine's salary was the only one, it would be really difficult to support this family of three.
Nowadays, every factory basically didn't recruit people from the outside, even if the city hall asked every factory to add some jobs, they didn't fulfill them.
At a time of lack of profit, each employee was like a weight on the other side of the scale in front of the Grim Reaper, adding one, one was one step closer to death.
A factory of a thousand employees would have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every month just to pay salaries, and if they didn't have enough profit, just one month of just paying salaries could bankrupt them, so no business would choose to expand at this time, even if the city hall required them to do so.
It also meant that Catherine's father would have a hard time finding suitable, and long term, work at the job center, maybe short term work, or even if he couldn't find any work at all.
Catherine's mother, not to mention that she has no work experience and even if she were to learn now, she wouldn't have the opportunity to do so, in other words the burden of supporting the family would be piling up on Catherine's shoulders.
Her monthly salary of two hundred and twenty-five dollars would be the only source of support for the family.
All three fell into silence, Catherine's father had been watching TV, he seemed to have been stimulated by something and had blocked himself off into a small world.
Kathryn's mother, on the other hand, was sad and sighed from time to time, worried about the future.
Catherine, for her part, felt exhausted, the only feeling she had felt in years.
The feeling had been there before, but not so deep, until this moment began, when she felt a deep exhaustion.
She was not a girl without life and social experience, and she knew very well that the problems that had brought her, as well as her family, to their current situation all stemmed from the issues of their family backgrounds, their social classes, and their levels of education.
The latter problem is a bit more obvious; if she had been able to go to college, or had gone into accounting or some other specialized field after high school, she might have a very different job now.
The older young man who pursued her did so because he studied accounting and now not only has a decent job, but a decent salary.
But she could only think about how difficult it was for a child born in an ordinary family to want to continue the path of education after high school.
The evening's dinner was a little less than usual, and Catherine's father suddenly erupted into a fit at the dinner table, breaking the dinner plates in a tantrum and then leaving in anger.
It seemed to the man that because he had lost his job, the women of the house no longer respected him and he felt he had been neglected.
The mother and daughter just took it all in peace and silence and then cleaned up the mess.
Early the next morning Catherine's father left the house, he was going to find some work on the street, after the night he had come to terms with it.
Life had to go on, if he really did nothing lying around the house, in a month or two at the most, they would have to sell the house and go out on the streets.
It had taken him over ten years to have the life he had now, he wasn't willing to lose it all so easily, he had to hang on.
Catherine faced life equally calmly and chose to go to work.
Only, at noon, the young man found her again.
"I heard from my aunt that uncle he is unemployed ..."
Catherine glanced at him and did not give any answer, which made the young man a little embarrassed and his speech became a little stuttered.
"If ... I mean if, if I put uncle...to work in our mall...what do you think?" , he spoke with a hint of excited redness on his face, gnawing at his words.
He had a good relationship with the manager of the mall, and would help with the manager's personal tax returns, which allowed the manager to save a fortune on each tax return, which was what made the accountant so valuable.
In addition to the manager, the management side within the super mall relied on his profession to a greater or lesser extent, and the personal tax returns were required to have the accountant's help, and the help required the payment of a corresponding honorarium.
Young people would also charge, but very little, which made him well liked in management.
Catherine's mother came to see him in the morning, explaining some of the situation and asking if it was possible for Catherine's father to come and work on this side of the mall, even if the pay was lower.
In fact, for the supermarket superstores at this stage of the game, they were doing much better than many people thought, and were even bucking the trend of maintaining a healthy standard of profitability.
But they won't say so, they also have to show the difficult side of their business to gain sympathy, to lower their pay scales as a way of freeing up more profit margins.
The young man talked to the manager, who said that he could get Catherine's father to work in the warehouse, that there was a need for some manual labor there, and that he could pay a base salary as well.
So he came to Catherine to take credit for this, and incidentally he also hoped that this would lead to a leap forward in contacts between the two parties.
Catherine did not nod or refuse, but simply ended the conversation between the two in the same tone as she had used to discuss the matter with her family back home.
But it made the young man feel that there was a chance that this matter would accomplish his goals, and for the first time in a while Catherine didn't outright reject an idea he had proposed, which was a good sign.
The day's boring work passed in a long ordeal or a short wait, and Catherine still refused the request for a ride home, returning home alone.
Her father had returned, the man who always used to carry himself with a certain confidence becoming disheveled at the moment.
Throughout the day, only a few dozen jobs had appeared in the city, but there were thousands of people waiting at the job center!
Catherine's father didn't even have a good resume, there were too many people who could do too much more than him, he didn't even get an interview, which made him realize that he shouldn't expect to find a job anytime soon.
It made him so frustrated that he even questioned his own worth.
Catherine's mother was just as speechless; she had not yet told her husband about her search for the young man, nor had she told Catherine.
She intended to wait until the young man gave her an answer before talking about it.
Both were a little wilted, but Catherine was about to have a fit.
She hung her bag on the clothes rack and looked like she was returning home as usual, but at this point she was a little heavier on her feet.
She went to get a glass of water, then moved a chair and sat on the opposite side of the couch, and reached over to turn off the TV.
The action caused both the couple's eyes to focus on her, and there was no obvious anger on her face, only calm.
She looked at her mother and, in the same calm tone, asked the pointed question, "How much are you going to sell me for?"
A statement that made the man's head snap up and some change in Catherine's mother's face, but Catherine didn't give them much time to react.
"Rom found me at noon, he gave me the hint that he would give father a job if I would stay with him, how much are you going to sell me for?"
It was clear that she was acting very calmly, but it gave the couple a very heavy pressure, especially at this particular time, when the family depended on Catherine's salary, which made her voice just as powerful, if not as high!