Somewhere outside Montgomery, Alabama—a gas station. A young girl stands in line. She has long woven hair. In her hands: a soda bottle and a bag of chips.
In front of her is an older gentleman. He has weathered skin, ratty clothes, and work boots.
He tells the cashier he wants twenty-dollars worth of gas. He hands his cash over.
“This ain’t twenty,” says the cashier. “It’s only fourteen bucks.”
The girl steps forward. “Here,” she says, laying a five on the counter.
The man tells the girl he can’t accept money from a little kid.
The girl ignores him.
The cashier rings him up, the girl returns her soda and chips to the shelf. Before the girl leaves, she high fives the man.
He smiles and almost ruptures a cheek.
“God bless you,” he says.
Alpharetta, Georgia—his wife cheated on him and ended up pregnant. She left him and moved in with her lover.
Her lover turned out to be a piece of work—he ditched her. She had her baby alone.
A few hours after she gave birth, the girl called her parents. They
refused her—for religious reasons. A few of her friends did the same.
So, she called her ex-husband. He answered his phone. She expected him to hang up. He didn't.
In fact, before they finished talking, he had already piled into his car and pointed it toward the hospital.
He held her new baby, he kissed it. And years later, that kid still calls him “Daddy.”
Mobile, Alabama—her father committed suicide when she was sixteen. She had three brothers, and a mother who was mentally ill.
And a mortgage.
She got a job to support the family. She worked long hours, then came home to cook suppers. She was a child-mother.
Long after the girl’s brothers left home, she cared for her elderly mother until she died. The girl never married.
She made it to eighty.…