And time.
I called him.
“You can’t just give things away,” he said flatly. “It’s not your money.”
“She didn’t have food,” I replied.
“That’s not our responsibility.”
There it was.
The sentence that splits rooms in half.
Not. Our. Responsibility.
He told me I’d have to pay for the order.
And sign a write-up.
I refused.
“I’m not pretending this is normal,” I said.
He stared at me like I’d chosen drama over logic.
“Then you’re done,” he said.
I handed him my uniform shirt.
I walked out unemployed.
No applause.
No heroic music.
Just the smell of dumpsters in the alley and the sudden weight of rent due in ten days.
I Went Back
I didn’t mean to.
But I drove to her street again.
Knocked.
No answer.
My stomach dropped.
I pushed the door open.
She was still in the recliner.
Gray. Pale. Smaller somehow.
“I turned the heat back down,” she whispered. “The bill scares me.”
She’d eaten half a banana.
Half.
In a country where billionaires launch rockets for fun.
I asked about family.
She mentioned her son, Eddie.
Said she didn’t like to “bother him.”
I found his number in a little address book.
When I called, he answered with one word:
“What.”
Suspicion.
Defensiveness.
Fear wearing anger as armor.
“She’s not fine,” I told him.
He came.
He stormed in.
He accused me of playing hero.
He looked at the groceries like they were evidence.
Then he opened the fridge.
And saw it.
