She came around the table, and she put her hand on Emmett’s shoulder, and she said, “Your dad never complained once. Not one time. You should know that. He has been the most dignified man in this building for three years.”
And the whole line — twenty people who had nothing, waiting for soup — stood absolutely still and let a family be a family for a minute.
Nobody there had any money.
They had the only thing Thea never managed to steal.
They had decency, and they spent it on us, for free.
Chapter 5: Carried
Here is the thing I had to learn at seventy-two, which is a humbling age to be learning anything.
I spent ten years refusing to be a burden.
I was so proud of it. I told myself it was love — that the finest gift I could give my son was to never, ever be something he had to carry.
