The Sweetest Revenge by Jennifer Ransom

for the past several months,” she said without any
preamble. “We are going to have to let you go.”
    Anger boiled up in me. “Are you
kidding me?” I said trying to control my rage. “I’ve been here
for fifteen years! I’ve given my all to this department.”
    “ Still,” the bitch said. “You
are no longer meeting expectations. We are offering you a three-month
compensation package.”
    “ Screw your package,” I said
standing up with a little difficulty. “And screw you.”
    I made my way to Sheila’s door
and walked out of her office. I went straight to my office and began
to pack up my personal belongings. There wasn’t much. I’d never
been one to decorate my office with family photos and works of art
like other people—namely Sheila—did. Sheila stood in my doorway
as I went through my stuff, watching my every move. I put everything
I had into a plastic bag I had in my desk in case of emergencies. I
left the Christmas cactus that had been a gift several years before
from my co-workers. I walked past Sheila, my plastic bag in one hand,
my cane in the other.
    “ This isn’t the end of this,”
I said to Sheila. She didn’t even do me the courtesy of looking me
in the face.
    When I got home, I threw the
plastic bag on the kitchen floor and sat at the table. Only then did
I let my angry tears fall. I wept bitterly. I wept for my marriage,
for the children I would never have, for the friends I had lost, for
my house I had loved, and for my job—the final thing I could call
my own.

Chapter
Ten

    I was so angry at Sheila. The
next day after my firing I called Wesley and told him what happened.
    “ I think you’ve definitely
got a case of wrongful termination,” he said. “You’re dealing
with a state institution and it doesn’t sound like they followed
protocol on this.”
    “ Can you help me?” I asked
him.
    “ Employment law is not my
specialty,” he said. “I specialize in divorce. But I can
recommend someone to you. Let me give her a call and I’ll call you
back, okay?”
    “ Okay,” I said. I sat fuming
on the couch for a long time. Finally, I got up and limped into the
kitchen to make some tea. Midnight, my eternal friend, was in the
kitchen to greet me with her meows. I rubbed her neck and got her a
plate of food.
    Wesley called back at the end of
the day. “I’ve talked to Janice Hobbs and she wants to talk to
you,” he said. “She went to a different university and has no
conflicts about representing you. She’ll call you tomorrow.”
    Janice Hobbs called me the next
morning and I explained everything to her. I had worked for the
development department for fifteen years. I had broken my foot, which
required me to miss some work to go to physical therapy. I had the
sick time, I told her.
    “ So this Sheila person just
fired you without any warnings whatsoever?” Janice asked.
    “ Well, she had been grumbling
about some days I had been late due to my having difficulty getting
around. I tried to explain to her about that. But I worked over every
day I was late and she knew that.”
    “ Sounds like Sheila had it in
for you,” Janice said.
    “ I think so,” I said. “But
I don’t know why. I’ve always been a good employee. I don’t
understand it.”
    “ Sometimes,” Janice said,
“when an employee suffers a calamity, the supervisor begins to look
on the employee as a weakened person. They go after them. That’s
just my opinion, mind you. But I’ve seen it happen over and over in
the years I’ve been dealing with employment law. It’s sad, but I
think it’s true. Has there been anything else that might have made
Sheila see you as a weak person?”
    “ I have gone through a divorce
recently,” I said. “I was married to a prominent lawyer. Jim
Sullivan.”
    Janice drew her breath in. “Yes,
I know him. I went up against him in a contract case last year and
lost.”
    That didn’t make me feel any
better.
    “ I’m thinking,” Janice
said, “that your