That night, I knocked gently on their bedroom door. She opened it with wide eyes, bracing herself as if she expected bad news.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
Her voice cracked on that last word, and I felt it deep in my chest. She wasn’t making excuses. She was simply telling me the truth.
She shared her story: her mother had passed away three years earlier, her father wasn’t in the picture, and she had been on her own since nineteen—working odd jobs, sometimes sleeping in her car, even spending nights in a church basement.
Suddenly, my frustration over grocery receipts seemed so small compared to what she’d carried alone.
I reached across the table, placed my hand over hers, and said, “You’re not a burden. Not in this house.”
A Shift in Perspective
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