Part 1
I sat in a lawyer’s office, across from Mrs. Rhode’s niece, and every few seconds, she glanced at me as if I were dust stuck to the sole of her shoe. The lawyer cleared his throat, opened a folder, and began to read in a monotone, nonchalant voice.
“The house on Willow Street will be donated to Saint Matthew’s Outreach Charity.”
I blinked, confused.
“What?”
He continued reading without looking at me.
Her personal savings will be divided between St. Matthew’s Church and various charities. She leaves her jewelry collection to her niece.
I remained completely still, waiting for my name to be called. Mrs. Rhode had promised me everything. She had told me that if I cared for her during her final years, everything she owned would be mine when she died. But the lawyer turned the last page, closed the folder, and looked up.
“This concludes the reading.”
I stared at him.
“Is that all? But she promised me…”
The words caught in my throat as a terrible thought struck me. Had Mrs. Rhode lied to me? I got up and left before they could see me cry. When I got back to my small rented apartment, my chest ached. I went inside, closed the door, and collapsed onto the bed without taking off my boots. At first, I felt anger. Then, humiliation.
Then, that familiar, old shame of realizing I’d been the fool in a story everyone else had figured out before I did. But beneath it all was something worse: pain. Because at some point, I’d started to believe that Mrs. Rhode cared about me as much as I cared about her.
I grew up in foster care, so maybe I should have known better. My mother abandoned me as a baby, and my father spent my childhood behind bars. I learned early on that adults can make promises they don’t keep. I learned to pack fast, to put away my important things, and to avoid crying in front of strangers.
When I turned eighteen, I left with two garbage bags full of clothes and no plan. I ended up in that town because the rent was cheap and no one asked me many questions. I worked dead-end jobs for even worse bosses until, finally, I walked into Joe’s diner during the breakfast rush and asked if they needed help. A waitress had just quit, and Joe looked me up and down.
“Have you ever carried three plates at once?”
“No.”
He shrugged.
“You’ve got ten minutes to learn.”
That was Joe: gruff, direct, as big as a refrigerator, and yet one of the most decent people I’d ever met. At the end of long shifts, he’d shove a burger and fries down my throat and grumble.
“Eat before you pass out and do my paperwork.”
Sometimes I’d stay after closing time to clean the counters while he complained about the suppliers, the food prices, the broken freezers, and people ordering eggs in ways that should have been illegal. Mrs. Rhode came in every Tuesday and Thursday morning at exactly eight o’clock. The first time I served her, she squinted at my name tag.
“James. You look so tired you could fall flat on your face in my waffle.”
