“Just don’t make a habit of paying out of your own pocket. But… it was a kind thing you did.”
That hit harder than any lecture would’ve.
I slipped the envelope into my apron and went back to my lane.
“There’s something else I need to tell you.”
For the rest of my shift, I could feel it against my hip every time I moved.
By the time I clocked out, my hands were shaking. I went straight to my car, shut the door, and finally pulled the envelope out. I ripped it open and slid out a few folded sheets of paper. I unfolded the first.
“Dear Amelia,” it started. “I’m the woman you helped last night with the baby and the formula.”
My throat tightened.
“I wanted to say thank you,” she wrote. “Not just for the six dollars, but for how you treated me. You didn’t make me feel stupid or ashamed. You just helped.”
She wrote about skipping dinner. About doing the math in her head. About realizing she was short and wanting to disappear. Then the letter changed.
She’d given that baby up.
My heart started pounding.
“I always knew there was a woman out there who had me and then let me go,” she wrote. “My adoptive parents are good people, but they didn’t have many answers. I’ve wondered about her my whole life.”
I thought of my mom.
One night, she started crying at the kitchen table. She told me she’d had a baby before me. Too young. Too scared. Too alone.
She’d given that baby up. She’d called me her second chance.
We never talked about it again.
The whole thing stayed like a bruise. I didn’t press on.
I kept reading.
“Our biological mother died a few years ago.”
“After my son was born,” she wrote, “I started looking for information. I wanted to know where I came from. I didn’t want to wreck anyone’s life. I just needed answers.
“Eventually, I found some records. I found a name that kept appearing with mine. Your name. Amelia. And our biological mother’s name. Scarlett.”
My hands shook. Scarlett. My mom.
“Our biological mother died a few years ago,” she wrote. “I’m sorry if this is how you’re finding out, in case no one told you.”
I already knew, but seeing “our biological mother” on the page hit differently.
“I didn’t know how to approach you,” she went on. “I found where you worked, but I was scared to walk in and say, ‘Hi, I think we’re related.’ I kept putting it off.
“I really was short on money. I didn’t plan that.”
“Yesterday, I came in to buy formula. I was exhausted. I wasn’t thinking about anything except getting through the night.”
“Then I saw your name tag. Amelia. I realized the woman ringing me up was the person from the records. The one connected to Scarlett.
“My sister.”
I stared at that word until my vision blurred.
She continued.
“I really was short on money. I didn’t plan that. When I told you to cancel the formula, I felt like a failure. And then you reached for your own money.”
“I don’t expect anything. You don’t owe me a relationship.”
“You didn’t know who I was. You didn’t know we might share a mother. But you still helped. In that moment, I knew something about you that no file could tell me.”
The last lines were short.
Continue reading…
