Chapter 2: The Second Gate
Patrick, my younger son, was waiting in his old pickup truck. He worked construction, rented a tiny apartment, and had gone weeks without steady work. When he saw me walking back with empty eyes, he didn’t ask any questions. He simply started the engine.
“Take me to Victoria,” I said.
Dr. Victoria Dawson lived in a modern home with a private medical office. She came outside wearing her white coat, talking on her phone, clearly in too much of a hurry to deal with her mother.
“Mom, why are you here without calling?”
“I don’t have a home anymore, sweetheart. The bank foreclosed because of your father’s debts. Patrick took me in, but there are already four people living in two small rooms. I only need a place to stay until I figure something out.”
Victoria never invited me inside. She opened her designer handbag, pulled out a 100-dollar bill, and pressed it into my hand.
“Here. Buy food and pay for a taxi. There are decent nursing homes. I work in the emergency room, my daughter has classes, and my husband is buried in audits. I can’t take this on.”
I stared at the bill. It was almost the same amount I used to give Victoria for textbooks when the family could barely afford dinner.
“So... I can’t even come inside?”
Victoria sighed. “Please don’t make this harder.”
May you like
The gate closed.
I stood on the sidewalk with the black bag at my feet and the hundred-dollar bill folded once in my palm. Two children. Two houses large enough to hold extra rooms they claimed were unavailable. Two closed doors that had required no raised voices to become final. Only the sound of locks and the careful language of people protecting their schedules from the inconvenience of the woman who had once sold tamales to keep them in school.
