’Kenzie would get up before anyone else, use the tiny bathroom assigned to her room and get dressed for work. She would head downstairs and take her place at the table. Mrs. Wu would solemnly serve green tea and, incongruously, a bowl of porridge laden with brown sugar and cinnamon, a jug of milk on the side. She wasn’t certain if that’s what Mrs. Wu and her family ate for breakfast, or if it was just the older woman’s idea of what non-Chinese-Americans ate for breakfast. The language barrier precluded any real discussion, and it really didn’t matter. McKenzie found the cereal filling and didn’t need to eat as much at lunch. She had to pinch pennies and there were no benefits for people paid under the table. Eventually she would need to see a doctor or a dentist, and while there were some free clinics, medications were never free. Not that she would ever complain. She had a job, a safe place to live and enough money to get by on if she wasn’t extravagant. He had seen to it that medical and vision care was taken care of, so McKenzie figured she was okay for at least a year on that front if illness didn’t hit.
