I took money to pretend I was an old woman’s son because I needed to keep my own mother alive. Then the woman I was lying to started holding my hand like I belonged to her, and after she passed away, the nursing home told me she had left behind one final request just for me.
The dashboard clock read 11:47 when I pulled my delivery van up to the curb outside my mother’s apartment. Rain blurred the streetlights into long yellow smears. I sat there for a moment, counting bills in my head, subtracting prescriptions from rent, getting the same impossible answer.
I grabbed the grocery bag and the small paper sack from the pharmacy and climbed the three flights.
I wasn’t okay.
Mom opened the door before I knocked, the way she always did.
“You shouldn’t be out this late, dear.”
“Ma, I’m fine. Brought your blood pressure pills and that soup you like.”
She held my face in both her hands. Her palms were warm, the way they had been my whole life.
“You look tired, Jeremy.”
“I’m okay, Ma.”
I wasn’t okay.
I should have walked out.
The next morning I picked up a coffee shop run between shifts. That was when the man sat down across from me without asking.
He looked expensive.
“You’re Jeremy, right? A friend of mine mentioned you. Said you could use some extra income.”
“Who’s your friend?”
