“Emma, what happened here?” I had asked.
She had looked up at me, guilty, and said, “I needed the money.”
“For what?”
“Mom, I saw Caleb covering the holes in his shoes with tape.”
My heart skipped at that. Caleb was the new boy in her class. He and Emma had become close, but I had no idea his family was struggling that much.
“So I started saving,” she said. “Birthday money, chore money, the snack money you gave me, everything. It took a few months, but I bought him a new pair of sneakers.”
I had been so proud of her. After everything we had gone through, it meant everything to know my daughter hadn’t lost the kindness and sensitivity I once feared she might.
My husband, Joe, had died three years earlier, not long after his business collapsed.
There had been a scandal. People questioned whether the decision that ruined the company had been part of something corrupt.
The pressure had been too much for Joe. He suffered a heart attack.
But even then, the whispers didn’t stop. If anything, they grew worse.
