I survived because of careful arithmetic.
Rent came first, then diapers, formula, electricity, bus fare, and whatever food remained within reach afterward. I learned that oatmeal could become dinner, that a loaf of bread could be stretched further than seemed reasonable, and that embarrassment became much easier to live with once two babies were depending on you.
A widowed woman named Mrs. Avery lived across the hallway and watched the girls for almost nothing whenever my schedule became impossible. She never treated her kindness as charity, which may have been the reason I was able to accept it.
“Everybody needs somebody eventually,” she used to tell me whenever I tried to apologize for asking too much. “Your turn to give will come.”
At seventeen, I did not believe I had anything left to give.
I was wrong.
The Man Outside the Pharmacy
It happened on a Thursday evening in early December, after one of those New England rains that seemed determined to turn every sidewalk into a mirror and every winter coat into a damp, heavy blanket.
