Grief.
Because somewhere along the way, Mrs. Holloway stopped feeling like a job.
She started feeling like family.
I grew up in foster care, so maybe that was my first mistake.
You learn certain things quickly in that system.
How to pack your belongings fast.
How not to get attached too easily.
How to keep expectations low enough that disappointment doesn’t completely destroy you.
My mother disappeared after I was born. My father spent most of my childhood in prison. By eighteen, I had aged out of the system carrying two garbage bags filled with clothes and absolutely no plan for my future.
I drifted from town to town for years after that.
Cheap apartments.
Temporary jobs.
Bosses who underpaid desperate people because they knew we had nowhere else to go.
Eventually, I landed a job at a diner called Harvey’s Grill.
That place changed my life before I even realized it.
