Some nights, she talked about her younger years.
And eventually, I started talking too.
About foster homes.
About learning not to expect permanence.
About never making plans too far ahead because life had a habit of destroying them.
One night, she muted the television and looked directly at me.
“You only think about surviving the next month,” she said. “That’s no way to live.”
I shrugged.
“Dreaming feels expensive.”
That winter, she knitted me the ugliest green socks I had ever seen in my life.
“I made those,” she snapped when I laughed. “So your feet stop freezing.”
At the diner, Harvey eventually noticed I rushed out every night after work.
“You dating somebody?” he asked one evening.
“I’m helping Mrs. Holloway.”
He nearly dropped an entire tray laughing.
“That terrifying old woman?”
I explained our arrangement.
When I finished, Harvey nodded slowly.
“Well,” he muttered. “That’s weird as hell. But she likes you. That matters.”
I pretended not to care.
Truthfully, I thought about those words all day.
