Could I pay rent, eat, survive?
Barely.
“When can I start?” I asked.
“Leave your number,” she said. “I’ll call if something comes up.”
I walked out with a small spark of hope. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
That afternoon, Margaret appeared at my door with a shopping bag.
“I brought the basics,” she said. “Sheets, towels, plates… and this.”
She pulled out a framed poster: a beach at sunset, bright orange and pink.
“So you remember the world is still beautiful,” she said, “even when it doesn’t seem like it.”
We hung it on my only free wall. It looked absurdly optimistic in that depressing space, but something in me clung to it like a promise.
Over the next few days, I established a routine. Wake up at six. Walk thirty minutes in the nearby park. Coffee and toast. Call clinics, hospitals, retirement homes, asking for work. Receive rejections. Eat something simple at noon—rice, beans, eggs. Cheap food that filled you without emptying you. In the afternoons, try to organize my space, arranging what little I had left so it looked less sad.
It didn’t work.
Nights were the worst. Silence after the neighbors went to sleep. Just me and my thoughts.
I thought about Lucas. About Leo. About my apartment that was now theirs. I imagined Jessica repainting, erasing me. I imagined Lucas sleeping in what used to be my living room, without guilt.
How does someone sleep after betraying their own mother?
A week later, the clinic called.
“Mrs. Eleanor,” the receptionist said, “Dr. Stevens needs help tomorrow. An 82-year-old patient needs accompaniment to an MRI. Can you do it?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “Of course.”
I arrived fifteen minutes early. Dr. Stevens was about fifty-five, tall, completely white hair, thick-rimmed glasses. He shook my hand firmly.
“Eleanor, right? Look, Mr. Campos is complicated. Early Alzheimer’s. He gets confused easily. I need you to accompany him. Keep him calm. Make sure he follows instructions. Can you do that?”
“I was a nurse for thirty-five years,” I said. “I can handle it.”
And I did.
Mr. Campos was a sweet old man who thought I was his daughter. I let him believe it. I held his hand during the scan. I told him stories to distract him from the noise of the machine.
When we finished, he was calm and smiling.
Dr. Stevens paid me $50 in cash. “Excellent job,” he said. “Can you come back Thursday? Another patient needs accompaniment to chemotherapy.”
“I’ll be there.”
I walked out with $50 in my pocket feeling almost human again.
It wasn’t much.
But it was mine, earned by my effort. Nobody had taken it from me.
That night, Margaret invited me to dinner. She had prepared roasted chicken with vegetables. Real food—not the sad leftovers I’d been eating.
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