. Not abuse bruises—the kind you get from sleeping on the floor. From not having a bed.
“Destiny,” I said carefully. “Is your mama really in the car?”
That’s when the truth came out. Her mama wasn’t in the car. Her mama was in a homeless shelter two blocks away, dying of stage four breast cancer. They’d been evicted six months ago when her mama got too sick to work. Lost everything. Living in shelters and sometimes in their car.
The shelter didn’t have laundry facilities. Her mama was too weak to walk to the laundromat. So seven-year-old Destiny did it alone. Every week. Washing her dying mother’s clothes. Trying to be the big girl her mama needed her to be.
“She’s all I have,” Destiny sobbed into my chest. “My daddy died in Afghanistan. My grandma died last year. It’s just me and Mama. And when she dies, I’ll be alone.”
I held that little girl while she cried out every fear a seven-year-old should never have to carry. And I made a decision that would change both our lives.
“You’re not alone,” I told her. “From now on, every Tuesday at 4 PM, I’ll be here. You come do your laundry, and I’ll help. And we’ll figure out how to help your mama too.”
“Why would you help us?” she asked. “You don’t even know us.”
I showed her a picture in my wallet. A little girl about her age. “This was my daughter. Her name was Sarah. She died when she was eight. Leukemia. That was forty years ago.” My voice cracked. “I couldn’t save her. But maybe I can help you save your mama. Or at least make sure you’re not alone when… when the time comes.”
For the next two months, every Tuesday, Destiny and I met at the laundromat. I’d help her wash clothes. Buy her snacks from the vending machine. Listen to her talk about school, about her mama’s good days and bad days, about how scared she was.
