I didn’t expect four dollars to mean anything. Not to me, not to anyone else. It was late—the kind of late where the hum of fluorescent lights drowns out your thoughts, and the hot-dog roller ticks like a metronome for a song no one’s singing. I was working the night shift at the gas station off Highway 52. Coffee. Cigarettes. Three songs on loop. I’m Ross—forty-nine, married to Lydia, dad to two kids who burn through shoes like they’re made of paper, and the reluctant owner of a mortgage that always feels one size too tight. The factory I gave twenty-three years to shut down overnight. Padlock on the gate. Paper on the fence. “Thanks for your service.” This job was what I could find: a counter, a till, and hours to think.
She came in around 11:30, moving like a prayer—slow, careful, a sleeping boy draped across her shoulder. Hair pulled back, sweatshirt worn thin, eyes hollowed out by a week’s worth of worry. She made a quiet loop through the aisles and placed three things on the counter: milk, bread, diapers. No extras. No indulgences. I told her the total and watched her count crumpled bills twice.
I didn’t think. I just reached into my wallet, pulled out four singles, and slid them into the till. “It’s fine,” I said. “Get home safe.”
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