The Maid In Neverland || Michael Jackson

Chapter 12

I was 17 when my mother died.

She died on the second month of 1985, three days after my birthday. I remember the look on her face that night as she was holding my hands, tears rolling down her cheeks. Even though cancer had completely claimed her body, a smile never left her pale lips as she looked at me. She knew she was going to die and yet there she was, smiling. The moment her sunken eyes closed and when she let out her final breath, I knew that everything in my life would never be the same.

My father wasn't there when she died. He was out, drinking and spending money like he always does. The man had never been a good father but my mother loved him so much and she wanted us to be a complete family that's why she chose to stay with him even though he kept on hurting her. When that horrible man left us a year after mother's passing, it was when I realized that I had no one to depend on but myself. No one will provide our needs so I had no choice but to stop school and look for a job and before I knew it, I had been working in a convenience store doing double shifts a day, at the tender age of 18.

Life was hard and it hadn't been so good to me and my brother. Yes, we were poor and I was willing to do everything in order to provide my brother's need but there's one thing that I was sure I would never do no matter how hard life becomes.

I would never, ever steal.

"Jane."

I looked up at Miss Joan. I was seated in front of her, my cold hands resting on my lap. After what happened in the main room, we were now in her office. I could still feel the judging stares that everyone threw me the moment Miss Joan said that the necklace was found under my pillow in the maids' quarter. I've never been so humiliated in my whole life.

"I am so disappointed," she said, sighing.

"I didn't do it." My voice almost broke. I didn't know how many times I had uttered that words. "Believe me. I would never steal!"

She shook her head. "But the necklace was found under your pillow, Jane," she said. "How will you explain that?"

"I-I don't know!" I said, trying hard to fight back my tears. "I swear! M-maybe someone. . someone could've plotted that against me!"

I didn't even enter Mr. Jackson's room this day so how could it be me?

"I was with Sarah the entire day. I was working in the kitchen, y-you could ask her, she could testify for me--"

She raised her right hand, signalling me to stop speaking. And I did. She looked at me and it seemed that she wasn't believing every word that I just said.

"Your fellow maids have been working here long before you were even hired and nothing like this had happened." She stared at me, shaking her head. "You just made me regret the decision of ever hiring you. I can't believe I hired a thief."

A tear escaped my eye and I immediately wiped it using my fingers. I didn't speak. My chest hurts so much and I felt like exploding. I just stared at Miss Joan, my hands shaking. The last thing I ever wanted to happen to me was to be accused of something I didn't do. My mother may have been a poor woman but she didn't raise a thief. She molded me to be someone who has dignity and I would never destroy my own dignity for a piece of jewelry.

"Mr. Jackson will not file a report against you if you confess to your crime."

"I have nothing to confess," I firmly said. "Let me talk to the boss. I want to tell him everything. I want to look him in the eyes and tell him that I didn't steal that necklace!"

I couldn't bear the thought that Mr. Jackson now sees me as the ungrateful maid who took the golden necklace. I need to explain myself. He needs to know the truth and I want my name to be cleared.