“Thanks. I just didn’t know what—”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Before getting to the closet where several days’ worth of items were collected to give to the homeless, Cass said, “Hey Thomas?” in a way that made him stop. He wondered if something was wrong.

“I think it’s really amazing what you did. I don’t think I would’ve done something so cool.”

He shrugged, uncomfortable with the compliment and really uncomfortable that it came from Cass.

“Confirms what I thought when I wrote the letter,” she continued.

“What’s that?” he managed to say. Or more like he had to say.

But Cass only smiled this time.

Stripped and Left Barren

It was her fourth interview in three days, and this one was probably the worst. The guy had spent the time running his eyes up and down her body while ignoring half the things she said. Partway through, Lynn had realized that even if he offered her more money than she expected, she would rather live on the streets than work for him. When he said he’d give her a call, his tone told her it might not actually be to offer her a job but for something else.

The job had been all wrong for her anyway. It was a basic receptionist job, but she didn’t have the right experience. Waiting tables was something she could do. Answering phones was something she could do as well. But when he started talking about the computer and running Microsoft Excel and making spreadsheets—that was when she was lost. It was embarrassing to admit, but she’d never spent much time on computers. She couldn’t really type. As he talked about her sending e-mails and typing letters, she had known that this wouldn’t be the right fit.

And obviously he could get someone else who could serve as eye candy as well as work on the computer.

As Lynn walked down the street, she found it odd to think of herself as attractive. Sure, she had dressed up as best she could for the interview, but she hadn’t thought of herself as pretty since before she became a mother. When she and Daryl met, during those early days of dating, he’d made her feel like the most beautiful girl in the world. The strains of motherhood have a way of aging a person, she thought.

Now whenever guys looked, and more often they didn’t, she just assumed they were the kind who looked at any living and breathing woman between ages fifteen and fifty.

Sometimes, in the stillness of her thoughts, she wished she could be beautiful again. It was something she would never admit or tell anybody, because dreams like that couldn’t come true. One day she woke up and realized that the pretty young girl with all that potential had been replaced by a tired old mommy with all those wrinkles.

Before she got in her car, a voice startled her. It made her stop, not because it was sudden and out of the blue, but because she recognized it.