I started crying. Couldn’t help it. “Three hours. My daughter… she said she couldn’t afford to keep me anymore. The nursing home wanted $6,000 a month and she said it was too much. So she brought me here and told me to go to a shelter.”
The truck went silent. When I looked up, all three men had tears in their eyes.
I nodded. Ashamed to admit it. Ashamed that my own child had done this to me.
“That’s not right,” Frank said quietly. “That’s not how you treat family. That’s not how you treat anyone.”
At the diner, they ordered me soup and coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich. Watched me eat like they were afraid I’d disappear. Asked me questions. Where was I from? Did I have other family? What happened to my husband?
I told them everything. How my husband died six years ago. How I’d lived alone until I fell and broke my hip. How I couldn’t take care of myself anymore. How my daughter had taken me in but resented every minute of it.
“She’d make comments,” I said quietly. “About how much I cost. How I was a burden. How she had her own family to worry about. My grandson wouldn’t even look at me. They put me in the basement and I wasn’t allowed upstairs when they had company.”
Tommy was gripping his coffee cup so hard I thought it would shatter. “How long did you live there?”
“Fourteen months. And every day she reminded me how much I owed her. How I was ruining her life.” I wiped my eyes. “This morning she said she couldn’t do it anymore. Said I needed to figure something else out. Drove me here and left.”
“What about your son?” Marcus asked.
Frank pulled out his phone. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”Continue reading…
