The heavy lock on the bakery door

Dear Delyara, The ovens have been cold since Tuesday because the flour distributor won't drop off another sack until the past-due balance is settled in cash. I’m sitting on an overturned wooden crate in the dark kitchen, smelling the faint, agonizing ghost of baked yeast and burnt sugar that usually fills this street by four in the morning. My three bakers have been with me since we opened twelve years ago; they have children in school, old parents needing medicine, and tomorrow morning they will walk through that door expecting their weekly pay envelopes. I have sixty-two pesos in my apron pocket and a stack of final notices hidden under the cake tins. The sheer terror of turning them away at the door is making my stomach knot so hard I can barely stand up straight.