Chapter 8: What Luca Approved
After Elena returned to the adjoining room, Luca kept looking at the calendar.
“Attendance follow-up,” he said. “That supports the date. Nothing more.”
“Correct,” Ms. Reed said. She had placed the calendar beside the ledger, careful to keep the preserved pages untouched. “It doesn’t say who attended, what was discussed, or when the ledger entry was written.”
Luca glanced again at the May 6 notation. Formal warning issued.
Two dates. Two records. Neither settled the question between them.
He pulled the old attendance guideline toward him. His signature sat near the bottom, the ink faded but unmistakable. He had approved the page years ago, when a short document had seemed like a sensible way to make expectations clear. Now he read it as if someone else had written it.
Employees were to report absences promptly to a supervisor. Repeated absences might be reviewed.
That was all.
“What counted as repeated?” he asked.
“It doesn’t say.”
“Who decides whether an absence is approved?”
“It doesn’t say that either.”
“Who gives a warning? How is it recorded? How does the employee know?”
Ms. Reed rested her hands on the table. “There’s no answer on this page.”
Luca ran his thumb along the paper’s edge. He had spent years noticing what was missing from other people’s numbers. He had approved this guideline without noticing how much it left unsaid.
He had not told Harland to threaten anyone. He had not told him to tie a room to a job. But he had signed a rule that left authority blurry, then trusted the man managing it to fill in the gaps.
The distinction mattered. It did not excuse the gap.
“Bring Harland back,” Luca said. “And bring Elena the written interim steps we drafted. She should have a copy.”
Ms. Reed gathered the calendar and records, leaving the guideline on the desk.
“I’ll ask Harland to come in,” she said. “The interim steps are still temporary. We shouldn’t call them a final policy.”
“I’m not asking her to rely on a promise.”
Ms. Reed nodded and went to the door.
A moment later, Elena appeared there. Nora was still in the adjoining sitting room with her rabbit. Elena had wrapped a cardigan around herself, though the room was warm.
“I’m sorry,” Luca said. “We should have put the temporary steps in writing sooner.”
Elena’s gaze went to the guideline on the desk. She had seen it before, but the sight of his signature seemed to hold her attention.
“Is that the page you signed?”
“Yes.”
“And it still doesn’t say who decides whether someone’s allowed to stay home when they’re sick.”
“No.”
“Or what happens before a person is told she might lose her job.”
“No.”
He could have explained what he had meant when he signed it. He could have said he never intended for illness to become a test of loyalty. Neither would change the words on the page.
Ms. Reed returned with two copies of a single sheet. She handed one to Elena and kept the other.
“This records the temporary safeguards we discussed,” she said. “It doesn’t decide anything about the past. It’s for use while the review continues.”
Elena read the page slowly. Absences could be reported to Ms. Reed or the supervisor on duty. Attendance concerns had to be documented with the date, the employee’s account, and the next step. Before any warning or employment decision, the employee had to receive the concern and time to respond.
She read the page a second time.
“Does this apply to everyone?”
“Yes,” Luca said. “Not just you.”
“Will people know why it changed?”
“We’ll tell staff that the process is being clarified. We won’t discuss your illness or make your situation an announcement.”
Elena folded the copy once and held it in her hand.
“An apology means very little if the next person gets the same uncertainty.”
“I agree.”
She studied him, as if waiting for him to soften that answer into a promise he could not keep.
“We’ll review whether the temporary steps are being followed,” Luca said. “And the final procedure will need to be written clearly enough that no one has to guess.”
“Who checks?”
“Ms. Reed will keep the records. I’ll review them with her.”
“That means you’ll be checking your own rules.”
The words were quiet. They still landed.
“Yes,” Luca said. “I should have checked the first one before now.”
Elena looked down at the page again. “I want time to read this properly. I’m still sick, and I don’t want anyone treating my answer today as agreement to anything else.”
“You don’t have to decide anything about your job today.”
“Or the room?”
“Or the room.”
She held the paper against her cardigan, not as if it were a promise, but as something she could take away and examine on her own terms.
Ms. Reed opened the office door. Harland came in a few moments later. He had no papers in his hands. He stopped when he saw Elena.
“I didn’t know she’d be here,” he said.
“She’s free to stay or leave,” Luca replied. “We’re not asking her to take part in your response.”
Elena remained standing.
Harland looked from her to the guideline on Luca’s desk. His expression tightened, then settled into something more guarded.
“You wanted to talk about the records,” he said.
“And the guideline I signed,” Luca replied. “You’ve said you believed attendance conversations were your responsibility. I want to understand what you believed that allowed you to do.”
Harland glanced at Ms. Reed, then back at Luca.
“I believed you expected me to keep the household staffed and make sure attendance standards were maintained.”
“Did I ever define what those standards were?”
“Not in a way that spelled out every situation.”
“Did I define what counted as a formal warning?”
“No.”
“Did I tell you how much notice an employee had to receive before a warning was entered?”
“No.”
Harland shifted his weight. “But I was the person employees reported to. Someone had to deal with the absences.”
“I understand that you were handling them,” Luca said. “That’s not the same as having clear authority over someone’s job.”
“I didn’t consider myself free to dismiss anyone. I was trying to explain that repeated absences had consequences.”
“Did you tell Elena her position could be at risk if the absences continued?”
Harland paused. “I remember warning her that they were becoming a problem. I can’t give you the exact words.”
“Did you discuss it in a shared work area?”
“I don’t remember the location with certainty. I intended to speak to her privately.”
“The calendar has an attendance follow-up near May 8.”
“That confirms there was a follow-up on the calendar,” Harland said. “It doesn’t tell you where I spoke to her or what I said.”
“No,” Luca said. “It doesn’t.”
The answer seemed to surprise Harland. For a moment, the room held still around the admission: the calendar helped, but it did not decide the matter.
Luca turned the guideline so Harland could read it. “This is what I approved. Prompt reporting. Repeated absences may be reviewed. No definition of repeated, no named decision-maker, no required notice, no process for a response.”
“I saw the page.”
“And I left you to work inside it without making those limits clear.”
“You trusted me to manage the house.”
“I did.” Luca met his eyes. “Trusting you wasn’t the same as supervising the process.”
Harland’s jaw worked once. “I wasn’t trying to make an employee afraid to report an illness.”
“I’m not saying you were.”
“Then you can’t assume the worst because someone remembers a conversation differently.”
“I haven’t made a finding.”
“Good.”
The word sounded less like agreement than a warning.
Ms. Reed spoke before Luca could answer. “You’ll receive the relevant redacted records before a formal meeting. You’ll have time to review them and respond. We won’t include private information about other employees that isn’t needed for your response.”
Harland’s shoulders eased only slightly. “I asked for that because I don’t want to answer a summary that leaves out the context.”
“That’s fair,” Luca said.
“Then don’t change the procedure before I’ve had the chance to respond. If the process you’re reviewing is being changed in the middle of the review, I want to know whether you’ve already decided the outcome.”
Luca looked at the temporary safeguards in Elena’s hand, then at the old guideline bearing his signature.
“The interim steps are meant to prevent anyone from facing a warning or job decision without notice and a chance to respond,” he said. “They aren’t a finding about what happened here.”
“That may be how you describe them,” Harland said. “But they affect the work I’ve been expected to do.”
Elena’s fingers tightened around her copy. Luca saw it, but she did not speak.
May you like
Harland looked directly at him.
“Before you change any employment procedure,” he said, “I want a formal meeting—with the relevant records, enough time to review them, and a chance to answer before you decide what happens next.”
