The other girls could sniff it on my thrift-store jeans and my wrinkled shirts. Teachers tried to help, but only made things worse. I didn’t talk much, smile, or get invited anywhere.
And then, one freezing afternoon, when I was 11, I saw her.
I was walking home from school because, as usual, the car wasn’t “working again.” That was my mom’s excuse for being too broke to buy gas.
My hands were tucked into my sleeves, teeth clenched, and all I could think about was whether the heat would be on when I got home.
Teachers tried to help…
The woman was there on the side of the quiet road.
She was hunched and clearly trying to stand, one knee on the pavement, trembling as if she’d fallen and couldn’t get up.
Her grocery bag had exploded — there were eggs cracked open on the blacktop, yolk mixing with the dirty slush, and an orange had rolled down into the ditch.
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