This was the first time I met my boyfriend’s parents. They were lovely, and we got along well. I went to the bathroom after lunch, but when I got back, they were acting strangely. My partner quickly stated we should leave. After they got in the car, he said, “You could have at least warned me!” I was astonished to find him looking at me like I had done something wrong.
I looked at him and didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “What did you warn me about?”
He rubbed his head and let out a sigh like I had ruined his whole life. “Your last name.” You didn’t believe that was important?
I said, “Kanaan?” since I didn’t understand. What do you think?
He laughed for a little while, but it was sad. “My dad used to work for a company called Harrow & Brook that made textiles.” The woman who sued them for firing her without a good reason? One of the most talked-about things about the company in the past? Her name was “Ghada Kanaan.”
My stomach dropped.
Ghada Kanaan was my mother.
I hadn’t thought about that lawsuit in a long time. When I was fifteen, it happened. My mom worked as a seamstress at Harrow & Brook for more than ten years. She was sacked for notifying her boss about unsafe working conditions and skimming pay. It took months for her case to end, and it cost our family practically everything. I remembered how my parents whispered behind closed doors, how the moms in the neighborhood stopped calling, and how she got threats in the mail.
I softly said, “I didn’t even know your dad worked there.” My voice broke. “I didn’t put the pieces together.”
He glanced straight forward. “You don’t think that matters?” Your mom almost made my dad lose his pension.
I didn’t know what to say.
We didn’t say anything for the rest of the voyage.
I texted him the next day to talk things over. He didn’t say anything. For two days, nothing happened. Finally, he remarked, “I just don’t think this is going to work.” I have to understand that my parents are uneasy.
No call. No chatting. It’s a text that doesn’t go anywhere.
That should have been the end of it.
But three weeks later, I got an email. From his mother.
Her name was Colette, and she wrote in a very formal fashion. After lunch, she said she felt “unfinished” and asked if we could talk about it. Only the two of us. “Over tea, if that’s okay with you.”
I wanted to ignore it. Who talks to their son’s ex like that?
But I couldn’t help but be interested. And a small, dumb part of me felt that maybe this might make things better. That it might not have been about my mother at all.
We met up at a little café in Newton. When I arrived there, she was already sitting down. Her cardigan was neatly folded over the back of the chair, and she hadn’t touched her cup of tea.
She said, “Thanks for coming,” and her eyes were kind but guarded. “I won’t keep you long.”
I nodded, not sure what to expect.
She got right to it. “I wanted to ask you something private. When your mother sued Harrow & Brook, did she ever talk about a woman named Alma Ricketts?
The name brought back a weak memory, like a song I’d heard before. “Yes, I think so.” Was she another worker? “Older lady?”
Colette nodded. “She was my best friend.” Worked on the same floor as your mom. Alma died a few months after the trial.
She paused. She closed her lips tightly. I could tell she was keeping something from me.
Then she went on, “Alma gave a deposition to help your mom. She stated she saw the mold in the storage rooms and the overtime slips that were gone. And then they let her go too.
I didn’t know how to respond. I just took a peek.
“My spouse never talks about it. Says it’s all done now. But I can’t stop thinking about Alma. What it cost her. What she battled for. And I— Her voice broke.
“I should have been more kind to you at lunch.” I was just astonished. But the truth is, I admire your mother. I think you deserved better than how things ended with my kid.
That last sentence shocked me the most.
I blinked my eyes to get rid of the tears. “Thanks.” That means a lot to you.
Then she did something that shocked me: she pulled out a manila package. “This is going to sound strange.” Alma, on the other hand, wrote in a journal. I found it while searching through her belongings after she passed away. There is a page about your mom in this book. I thought you might like to see it.
I took the envelope. We hugged for a little while, and then she left.
I read that post on the way back.
It was only two pages long. Alma had written about how afraid everyone was to speak up, though. Ghada Kanaan “marched in with nothing but the truth and a folder full of payroll problems,” knowing that others would call her a troublemaker. Alma stated, “She didn’t do it for herself; she did it for all of us who were too scared and tired.” I hope her daughter finds out that her mother was strong.
I cried on the way there.
It took me a few days to get the courage to show my mom the entry.
She smiled softly, stroked the page, and then said, “Alma was the one who told me to go public.” She said, “If no one stands up now, they’ll walk all over the next girl.” I didn’t know she wrote this.
She then carefully folded it and said she would frame it.
That should have been enough to put a halt to things. But it wasn’t.
A month later, my ex, Jovan, sent me a message. He stated he wanted to talk.
We met up at a park. A place where both sides can agree.
He didn’t look the same. Maybe a tad slimmer and pale.
He said, “I’m sorry.” “I messed everything up.”
I nodded, but I didn’t make it easy for them. “What’s different?”
He paused for a bit and then said, “My dad’s old business is in the news again.” There is a lawsuit by a group of people. Things that are bad for you. The mold your mom told you about was only the start.
He swallowed hard.
“My cousin worked there last year.” At the moment, she’s in the hospital. Things that make it hard to breathe. And I just—
He didn’t finish.
He pulled out his phone and showed me an article instead. People have been looking at Harrow & Brook for breaching the law for decades. After my mom sued, OSHA surreptitiously started a case and found reports that had been kept secret.
I read it twice. I informed her, “Your dad said she lied.”
“I know.”
“And you believed him.”
“I did.”
We sat on the seat and let the information hang in the air like fog.
Then he said, “I don’t want anything from you.” I just wanted to say that you and your mom were right.
It didn’t help our relationship. I didn’t want that to happen.
But it did something even better: it made me feel proud again.
I felt taller as I exited the meeting.
This all happened three years ago.
I now live in Montreal and work for a program that helps women talk about violence at work. I wish my mom had a facility like this back then.
We still talk about Alma every now and then. My mom keeps her diary entry in a frame in the hallway. A quiet reminder to be brave. Of how just one voice can echo through time.
What about Jovan?
He sent me an email last year to let me know that his relative was entering the case. She got a deal. Not much, but enough to cover her care.
He said, “Your mom saved more people than she will ever know.”
That could be the point.
We can never be sure how far our good deeds go. Justice may take a long time, going through years and people we may never meet. But it does come. Sometimes in a soft voice. Sometimes in the news.
And sometimes, in a folded page from a woman who used to work next to your mother on a sewing machine.
If you’ve made it this far, here’s what I’ll say:
Don’t presume you know what someone else is going through. Ask. Listen. You never know who they are standing on.
