The Paint That Covered My Dreams
My name is Fatima Jones, and I am sixty-seven years old. I’ve spent the last fifteen years working in the kitchen at Murphy’s Diner, arriving at five in the morning and leaving at seven in the evening with my uniform soaked in grease and my hair smelling of fried onions. My hands are marked with small scars from hot pans and sharp knives, evidence of decades spent earning my living through honest work that left me exhausted but proud.
I was widowed twelve years ago when my Robert, a good man who worked his whole life at Henderson Furniture Factory, died suddenly of a heart attack at fifty-eight. He’d been looking forward to retirement, to fixing up an old car in the garage and taking me on the vacation to Florida we’d been planning for twenty years. Instead, I found myself alone, grieving, and facing a future I’d never imagined I’d have to navigate by myself.
