"I'm sorry Miss Yvette, but you have only one month to clear the debt or the house will be taken from you."

I nodded my head with a sigh as the man from the bank took a polite bow before walking out. I sat there, under the withering mango tree in the compound. It was winter and the trees were shedding their leaves already.

I looked at the place where I have lived for the past twenty three years of my life. The only place I have grown to call home.

The fading colours of the golden paint on the walls didn't deter my love for this place for it was here I had all the memories of my life.

Now, the bank was threatening to take it away if I do not pay up the loan my whore of a mother had taken to better the life of one of her numerous boyfriends.

She passed away last month, my mother. Two days later, the bank officials were at my front door. It was then I got to know that mother had taken a whopping sum of three hundred thousand dollars as a loan from them. I wasn't shock but angered to find that she had placed the house - my father's only legacy - as a collateral.

I wasn't sure if I missed her, though. I know that the house was always empty. Not like she was home much.

She wasn't always a whore. Infact, she was the best mother I could ever have. At least until my dad passed away five years ago and his company was confiscated by his brother. After that incident, she had started to act rather different and brought home different men. Sometimes boys young enough to pass as my younger brothers and she wouldn't stop for anything.

One time, I had asked her why she chose to do things like that. Know what she said?

"Pumpkin, life is short and I chose to enjoy it before I die. Now that your father is no more here to feed me, I can't die of starvation." Those were her words. Though I was only twenty, I knew better that she wasn't talking about the usual food but of sex.

I didn't realize I had been lost in my own little world until I heard an old but warm voice drift into my mind. I looked up to see Maggie, the housekeeper staring at me with tears in her eyes.

I looked away immediately. I knew why she was in tears. I knew why the rest of the servants behind her were in tears too.

Today would be their last day in this mansion. I had dismissed all of them after paying them their three months salary in advance. I didn't want to go, but I couldn't also afford them. I was as reluctant to send them away as they were to go. If I could pay them, I would keep them for eternity.

Sadly, I can't. I'm an ordinary secretary with a medium sized salary who couldn't even afford to keep her father's only legacy. How pathetic!

I sighed and stood up from the bench I had been sitting on. I held Maggie's hand in mine, they were warm and soft. I smiled as I remembered how she would spank me with them whenever I did something wrong.

"Maggie…" I was at the verge of a breakdown. Yet, I didn't want to let my tears fall before them.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way." I said and my tears came pouring down like rain. I had been holding them in for too long.

Maggie sniffled a tear and pulled me into her arms for a hug. "My child, let it all out. Maggie's here."

Maggie let me cry out my heart until I had quietened down. The other servants behind us were already in tears too. No one wanted to leave, I know.

I broke free from Maggie's hug and wiped my face with my scarf before plastering a weak smile on it. I looked at the other servants and spread my hands out.

They all came in and engulfed me all the whilst shedding unsaid words through tears.

"I'm sorry" I kept muttering until the hug ended. I took a step back to stand beside Maggie and rest my head on her shoulder. I was a few inches taller than her so it was easier.

"I'm sorry we have to say goodbye now," I begun, my heart shattering to a thousand pieces with every word I said. "Believe me, I want you all to stay."

"Then let us!" I heard a voice yell weakly from the back. I look up to find my best friend amongst them, Katerina, looking at me pleadingly. "Let us, Eve"

I shake my head slowly. "I can't"

"Why?" Someone asks again, a man who was in his early forties. He was my father's personal chauffeur who didn't like being called a driver.

"Because I can't pay you all." I respond truthfully. I couldn't pay them and they knew. They should be making this easier for me by leaving, not trying to stay.

"I might lose the house in a month too." I add, quickly taking a deep breath to push my croaking voice to its pitch.

Maggie wrapped her hand around my waist and pulled me close. "I know. We all do."

My eyes widen. "You know?" I ask and she nods. I turn to the others and they nod too.

Katerina took a step forward and said, "We weren't supposed to leave until that one month is up."

"But, I can't afford to pay you all. Maybe even feed you." I mumbled, letting more tears flow.

"Yvette," Maggie called, using her finger to raise my chin up to my meet her eyes. "Let us remain until the bank comes. We have enough to last us three months."

"Please, Yvette," Katerina chimed in and my resolve was broken to pieces.

How could I let them stay when I can't handle them? If I did let them stay, in one month, they may be homeless. We all might just be.

"Yvette, listen." I heard Ralph say. Ralph was the old butler and Maggie's husband. Together, they had raised Katerina, their daughter.

"We will stay. We will remain with you till the end. Okay?" He said sternly and I couldn't argue anymore.

If there was anything I knew, it was the fact that I couldn't win an argument against Butler Ralph and Maggie. I never did. And certainly not now that they had everyone's backing.

I nodded and there were rounds of applause in the air. The atmosphere felt lighter and even my heart did. My family weren't leaving and I wouldn't be leaving. Just a month, I'd take it.