“Still late.”
But slowly, something changed between us.
She started asking me to stay for dinner.
Her cooking was terrible.
Once she served meatloaf so dry I drank four glasses of water trying to survive it.
“This is awful,” I told her honestly.
“Then starve,” she replied without missing a beat.
We watched old game shows together most evenings.
She yelled answers at contestants through the television like pure confidence could somehow reach them.
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?”
