RING OF POWER

Chapter 6 Moving On

The divorce papers were finalised three days later. Alphonsus received the notification by email from Vivian’s lawyer. It consisted of a single paragraph containing a case number and a statement confirming that the dissolution of their marriage had been processed. No ceremony.

No final conversation. Just paperwork confirming that four years had been reduced to a legal transaction.

He deleted the email and returned to the job listings on his phone.

Vivian came back to his apartment to collect the rest of her belongings without even looking at him.

The photograph from his mum was still on the nightstand, tucked inside the yellow envelope.

He hadn’t looked at it again. Part of him wanted answers, but another part knew that whatever his mum was hiding couldn’t be solved by staring at a picture of a dead man.

Right now, he needed money. The photograph would have to wait.

His phone rang at nine forty-seven in the morning.

“Alphonsus, I need to tell you something, and I need you not to freak out,” Cindy said immediately. It was exactly the sort of preamble that made people freak out.

“What happened?”

“The university sent me a notice. My tuition balance is overdue. They’re going to put a hold on my registration unless I pay by the end of the month.”

Alphonsus sat up on the couch. “How much?”

“Three thousand pounds.”

He closed his eyes. “Cindy, no.”

“Yes. I spoke to financial aid, and they said there was an error on my application for the semester. Something about my FAFSA verification. It’s being resolved, but it’s going to take a few weeks, and the university won’t wait.”

“Did you tell them?”

“I told them everything. They don’t care. They have a policy: no payment, no registration.”

Cindy’s voice was tight.

“I’m thinking about dropping two of my classes and picking up more hours at the bookstore. I could probably work enough to cover—”

“No.”

“Alphonsus…”

“No,” he repeated. “You’re not dropping classes.”

“And what exactly do you think you’re going to do about it?” Cindy’s voice cracked. “You don’t have a job. Mum is in the hospital. We both know how this works, and it always ends with me sacrificing something because you’re trying to carry everything.”

He didn’t respond because she was right. That was exactly how it had always worked.

“I’m not asking you to solve this,” Cindy continued, trying to control her voice. “I assure you, big brother, I’ll get a job. I’m going to pick up the hours, pay the balance, and stay in school. You don’t get to tell me not to do that.”

“Cindy…”

“I have to go. I’m at work, but I’m handling this. You handle your stuff, and I’ll handle mine.”

She hung up.

Alphonsus sat with the phone in his hand, understanding that she had just told him to stop trying to protect her. His sister, whom he had spent the last ten years trying to keep safe, was drawing a line between his crisis and hers.

He returned to the job listings.

By the afternoon, Alphonsus had applied for six different positions and been rejected by all of them. Not verbally, but through automated emails thanking him for his interest and informing him that other candidates had been selected.

He tried a day-labour agency at three in the afternoon. They had work available, but it started at five in the morning and paid fourteen dollars an hour for physical labour.

Ten hours of labour for one hundred and forty pounds, minus taxes. It wasn’t enough to solve anything, but it was something. He accepted the job for the following morning.

At seven in the evening, he went to the hospital to sit with his mum. She was sleeping when he arrived, so he sat in the chair beside her bed and watched her breathe.

The machines beeped in steady rhythms. The monitor displayed her heart rate and oxygen levels—numbers that meant she was still here.

He thought about the photograph, his mum’s warning that there were people who wanted to know he existed, and her insistence that he keep the picture safe.

At eight forty-seven that evening, his phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.

“We have work available starting at five in the morning tomorrow. Day-labour position. Warehouse and logistics. Sixteen pounds per hour. Interested?”

It was the day-labour agency confirming the job. He typed back, “Yes. Confirm.”

The response came immediately.

“Confirmed. Report to Eight Hundred and Forty-Seven Industrial Park Road at four forty-five in the morning. Bring ID and work boots. Supervisor: Marcus T.”

Alphonsus read the message twice. It named Marcus T. as the supervisor.

A different warehouse, a different chance. Small, but a chance.

He set an alarm for three thirty in the morning and drove home.

At three forty-five, Alphonsus woke before the alarm and couldn’t fall back asleep.

He showered and dressed, putting on clean but worn work clothes and boots that had seen better days.

He made coffee in the dark apartment. It was officially his now, since Vivian had taken most of the furniture and he hadn’t replaced it. There was the couch, the coffee maker, and a bed. Not much else.

He sat at the kitchen table with the divorce notification open on his phone. He read it one more time, then closed it. That part of his life was finished. Whatever came next started now.

At four thirty in the morning, he was driving along Industrial Park Road in Ashford, United Kingdom. The sun wasn’t up yet.

The city looked different at this hour: quieter and emptier, as though it belonged to another version of itself.

Alphonsus drove through red lights that nobody was watching and thought about Cindy telling him to handle his own problems while she handled hers. He thought about his mum in the hospital, keeping secrets she wasn’t ready to share. He thought about the photograph of a man whose face looked like his own but belonged to a stranger.

At four forty-three, he pulled into the industrial park and parked. Three other men were already waiting outside the warehouse entrance.

They didn’t look at him, and he didn’t try to talk to them. They were all there for the same reason: money, even if it wasn’t enough. The same desperation, wearing different faces.

A supervisor walked out at four fifty-two.

He was a stocky man in his fifties, carrying a clipboard and wearing the tired expression of someone who had been doing this job for too long.

“You four,” he said, pointing at the men. “Come on. We’re loading trucks today. It’s going to be hot, so take water breaks. Don’t break anything. You get paid at the end of the day.”

He looked directly at Alphonsus.

“You the one from the agency?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Name?”

“Alphonsus Jameson.”

The supervisor checked his clipboard and nodded. “All right, Alphonsus. Let’s see if you can keep up.”

They went inside.

By seven in the evening, Alphonsus had loaded pallets, moved boxes, and organised merchandise. Every muscle in his body felt the strain.

His shoulders burned. His lower back was tight, and blisters were forming on his hands where they weren’t accustomed to the friction.

At the end of the shift, the supervisor, whose name was Dwight Torres, handed him cash. He had worked thirteen hours, more than the advertised ten, and received two hundred and eight pounds.

“You showing up tomorrow?” Dwight asked.

“If you have work.”

“We’ve got work. Same time.” Dwight checked his clipboard again. “You’re faster than the other guys. You can probably move up to seventeen pounds if you want to come back.”

Alphonsus took the money and nodded. It wasn’t enough. It would barely cover a third of his mum’s next treatment.

But it was more than he’d had yesterday, and it was money he had earned through work he’d finished.

He was driving home when his phone buzzed with a message from Cindy.

“How much would it cost to get Mum transferred to a better hospital? One that doesn’t require payment upfront?”

He pulled over and sat in the dark parking lot, thinking about his sister trying to solve problems while he was away.

He thought about his mum in a hospital bed, keeping secrets. He thought about the two hundred and eight pounds he had earned and a job that existed only one day at a time.

His phone buzzed again.

“A guy named Dwight Torres just called me. He’s looking for someone to help organise inventory at the warehouse. He said you recommended me. The interview is tomorrow at two in the afternoon. Is this real?”

Alphonsus stared at the message, confused. He hadn’t told Cindy about his new job.

Then he remembered filling in her details on the form.

His phone rang. The caller ID displayed: “UNKNOWN NUMBER.”