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“About the same as they always are. Clara’s doing really well,” I said, scrolling through my emails while I waited for Reid to return from one of her last meetings of the day. “She’s kind of impressed me but don’t tell her I said that; she’d probably pass out.”

“Ugh, I still feel so bad that I dumped so much work onto her while she was under so much pressure to learn everything,” Rae said sadly.

“I know how this sounds, but I think that you taking time off helped her become a little more confident in herself.”

“Oh?” Rae asked, and I could hear the smile in her words. “Maybe I should stay off work more often, cough cough.”

I laughed along with her, a familiar sense of normalcy finally returning after the last few weeks of, well, madness.

“That’s actually why I’m calling,” I told her. “I got an email here saying you’d be back at work next week, is that right?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve been away long enough,” she said. “I feel awful and ever since the medication wore off the guilt has been riding me pretty hard.”

“It’s not a question of how long you’ve been away, Rae,” I said gently. “It’s a question of whether your doctor has cleared you to come back and whether or not you feel like you can handle being at work full time again. It’s not like you went to the hospital for a routine checkup.”

“I know,” she said, her voice subdued. “I honestly feel strong enough to come back, and my doctor should clear me by the end of the week. To be honest with you, Mia, I'm losing my mind here at home.”

I smiled. I understood exactly what she meant.

After landing myself in hospital a few years ago, I’d been distraught. Reid refused to let me work, or even just manage her schedules. She took all my meetings and had HR look into hiring assistants for me.

Which was how Rae and Clara’s positions came to be.

And in the last week before I went back to the office, I’d been confined to my apartment with nothing to do but stress about how much work Iwasn’tgetting done.

It had been a hard lesson in delegation.

“I get it,” I said. “But coming back just for the sake of it could put your health at risk and that’s the last thing we need. How about this: I’ll check in again on Friday after your checkup and you let me know what the doctor says and how you’re feeling, and we’ll go from there?”

“Okay, that sounds like a plan,” she agreed. “Thanks, Mia.”

“Take care of yourself, Rae,” I said before hanging up.

“How is she?” Clara asked, her quiet voice coming from the door. I looked up to find her standing on the threshold, clutching her iPad to her chest.

“She's doing much better,” I assured her, setting my phone down. “She wants to come back next week but I told her I’d check in later this week to find out if she was up for it.”

Clara nodded, a tiny hint of relief curving her lips upward.

“I hope she gets better soon,” she said. “I have to admit, though, I didn’t think that companies were this understanding about sick leave.”

Of course she’d think that way. Before DawnStar, she’d worked in the hospitality industry, one of the worst in terms of employee care.

“There’s no point in forcing Rae to come back to work if she’s still sick,” I explained, even though it felt a little silly to say it out loud. “But I had the same mindset when I started here. I asked Reid why she’d been so understanding when I ended up in the hospital and missed a whole week of work. She just told me that her employees would always be treated the way they should be – with respect.”

Clara looked at me, awestruck.

I giggled. “She also said something that stuck with me ever since,” I continued. “She told me that constantly replacing employees is expensive, but kindness and compassion are free.”

“She’s so fucking cool,” Clara breathed, her eyes going wide when she realized what she’d said. She slapped a small hand over her mouth and I laughed.

“Yeah, Reid is probably the coolest person I know.”

“Hey, Mia,” my sister said, answering the call on the third ring.

“Hi, Toria, how is everything?” I asked, our usual dialogue a habit at this point.

“Pretty great,” she said, the hum of students in the background fading as she walked further away from the noise. “I’m heading to the library to study right now; exams are starting soon.”