The secret job

Every morning the alarm goes off at 7am and Robert turns it off so that his wife Helen can continue to sleep for a while longer. He takes a quick shower and then dresses in his elegant suit that he had arranged on a chair in their bedroom the night before. He chooses the tie that best matches with the suit and takes a watch from the dresser drawer - he loves watches and has several, even very expensive ones, but one that is his favorite and is the one that his father gave him when he turned his birthday eighteen-. To finish, he puts on his brown-colored shoes and sprayed with his favorite fragrance, looks in the mirror and says to himself: "today will be your day Robert, it will be a great day!" He kisses his wife on the forehead, she answers him with a smile, says "see you later my love" and continues to sleep. Robert leaves the house, gets into his imported car, and heads for Manhattan. His neighbors, relatives and even his wife know that he works on Wall Street, but what they don't know is precisely what Robert specifically does there.

It seemed like a normal day, like any other where the daily routine would be something easy to carry, but this time it was not like that, something happened that made that day his life would change forever.

As I said, Robert was heading to Manhattan in his imported car but just that morning there was less traffic than usual so he relaxed while driving, he took a call from his cell phone but ran out of battery so he looked in the glove compartment of the car for the charger but he not managed to reach it from his seat with the belt on so, as he saw that not many cars were coming nearby, he decided to take it off for a moment in order to open the glove compartment and remove the charger, it would only take a few seconds but those seconds were more than necessary to that a truck ran into him and his car crashed into him. Immediately, the people who were at the scene and saw the accident, called an ambulance, and took him immediately to the nearest hospital. Upon arriving there, the nurse searched among his belongings for identification and his cell phone with a contact number to call a relative to report what happened, but the cell phone was turned off due to a lack of battery so they could not communicate with anyone immediately.

When the evening came, Helen saw that the hours passed and she did not receive any message from her husband who always surprised her with some detail or romantic call during his lunch moments, but that day none of that had happened. The hours passed and she felt more and more worried because Robert did not return or communicate, so she decided to call the number that her husband had given her one day, the ones that you call in-case-something-happens and when she did, a somewhat strange voice answered the call: "hello?" And she said, “hi! I am Robert's wife, are you the receptionist for Wall Street, the Stock Exchange? " To which the man on the other side of the line, somewhat surprised and at the same time, thinking that it was a joke, replied: “Wall Street, yes! But the Stock Exchange? " Look Mrs. I think you are confused! Helen, who was desperate for not hearing from Robert, bursts into tears and explains to the man what is happening and who her husband is and the work he does there. The man, moved to see that the woman was not joking, and it was something serious, explains that no Robert works there, that the only person he knows with that name on that street is the man who sells him coffee every morning in the corner post. Helen could not help but the nerves and she decides to go to the place to find out what is going on.

When she arrived, the man who had answered her phone very kindly opened the door for her and ushered her into the entrance hall. She takes a photo of Robert from her wallet and shows it to the man who confirms that he is the person he mentioned in the telephone communication, that is, the man who sells his coffee every morning. Helen couldn't understand what happened! How could it be him, if her husband had a high executive position there, he earned good money that he brought every month and he indulged in certain tastes like buying an expensive watch when he felt like it? In that moment, rings her cell phone inside her  and bag and when answering the call they notify her that they had tried to communicate before but that her husband's cell phone was without battery and that when charging it they saw all their posts and missed calls of her so they notified her that he was admitted to the hospital, out of seriousness because he had had an accident with his car that morning.

Helen thanked the man at the reception for the information she had given her, and she immediately went to the hospital to see what had happened and, if he was all right, ask him about his “mysterious work”.

It seemed that all the traffic lights agreed to delay her arrival at the hospital and also collaborated so that more and more questions came to her head. “How come he didn't tell me? Was he ashamed of it? How did he pay for our vacations to Cancun last summer? And the car? And the mortgage on the house? How has he done so far if he works as a coffee grower? Finally, she got to the hospital, she asked at the reception which was her husband's room, and they indicated the number of room. Upon entering, she saw Robert asleep surrounded by cables and bandages and all bruised from the blows caused by the accident and she was sorry to wake him up and much less, she did not dare to ask him anything, she simply approached, took his warm hand with care because he had injuries and kiss his forehead. Robert woke up from her, looked into her eyes and said very weakly: "Hello dear, today I couldn't call you, I was here" Helen nodded with her eyes, caressed her cheek, and just smiled at him.

After a few days he was discharged and returned home. According to him, he had called the office and his boss, upon finding out what had happened, had offered him to take a few days off because surely the accident had occurred due to the stress he had due to work. Helen still did not say anything, she wanted to think that he would tell her. A week passed and Robert was recovering well, and he ask to her to have a “recovery dinner” and thanks for being alive and having returned home safe and sound. She accepted, but on one condition: that he tell her what his job was specifically about, what his position really was in the company and where he exactly worked. To which Robert accepted.

That night, they ordered a delicious meal, opened a delicious bottle of wine and at the moment of toasting, Helen reminded him of what she had asked him before. Then Robert began to talk about how he was the head of the area of ​​the stockbrokers, who had several people under his command, that many times the money that investors earned was due to his astuteness in managing the Stock Market and its finances and etc., etc. Helen, already bored and also fed up with so much talk and, knowing that it was something false, decided to reprimand her husband and told him that when she called his work, the number that he had given her some time ago, there nobody knew him, they only knew one Robert in the area and that was the person who had a coffee stand on the corner of Wall Street and sold to them every morning! Robert was speechless, turned pale, took a sip of wine, put his glass on the table, under his gaze and muttered under his breath: “Yes, it's true! Sorry honey!" Helen was surprised, she did not think that he was just admitting it like that, she thought that he would keep the lie at any cost, so she lowered the decibels and, more affectionately, asked him to tell her the whole story from the beginning, that he knew that with her she would not there was a problem and she would surely understand. So, Robert began by asking her: "Do you remember our vacation in Cancun?" And she, even more surprised and confused at what that question was coming from, agreed that yes, she remembered them perfectly since they had been incredible and that they would be unforgettable for both of them. Then he tells her: "Well, I paid for those vacations with all our savings because the day before I was fired from the company for an accusation of fraud - which I did not commit - and I had already made the flight and hotel reservations for our stay. You looked so happy and excited about the idea of ​​doing them that I didn't have the courage to tell you about it. There, we enjoyed those days as if they were the last of our lives, but inside, I felt I was dying, I was so ashamed that you knew what happened that I decided to hide it from you and keep up appearances ... and so I would have continued everything if I had not been distracted driving , the accident would not have happened and you and I now would not be having this conversation that much I am ashamed ”. Helen reached out her hand and with a loving people he took her chin and raised his head and asked him to look into her eyes. As he did so, he had them full of tears, it was difficult for him to look at her, he felt a disaster like his life, which he was. And then he confessed that the idea of ​​the coffee stand had been given to him precisely by the boy who sold him coffee every morning when he got to work, who had told him that his mother was very ill and had to move to his hometown to take care of her but he did not know how he was going to do with the coffee stand since he had to have someone to take care of it but in that city - and less in that area of ​​the Big Apple - he did not know anyone to trust. After the holidays, Robert remembered what the coffee boy had told him and decided to go see him and tell him about his current situation. The boy, who had known him for some time, could not believe what Robert told him and that he was interested in his coffee stand! "And that's how I ended up working there, my dear," he ends up telling her between sobs and guilt. Helen gets up from her chair, turns around the table towards her husband who looked like a helpless and fearful child with his head buried in his arms, and embraces him with a lot of love and whispers in his ear: “for me you are a hero! Because you not only managed to get ahead, but you also did good to a boy who needed help for a just cause, and you gave it to him and for that, I LOVE YOU! " Robert lifted his head from her and looked at her smiling and hugged her even tighter.

The following Monday, Robert would wake up like every morning at 7am, he would turn it off so that his wife could continue sleeping a while longer, he would take a shower, but this time, he would no longer choose an elegant suit to pretend his position, no, he would dress more simply. He would not wear an expensive watch either, this time he would take the ferry to Manhattan and, for the first time in a long time, with great PRIDE, open his coffee stand and greet his exes no longer shamefully, but with his head held high. Maybe making a nice comment to Stock exchange ex colleagues as they pass by.

Robert felt that this accident had definitely left behind that self-centered man who bragged about working on Wall Street and wore expensive suits no longer, he was a new Robert, a more authentic one that his wife, his friends, former colleagues and neighbors, adored and , which when looking in the mirror every morning now says: "You have a new day ahead, you have another chance and a reason to be grateful that you are alive!"