At night, she worked for a commercial cleaning company. She would leave the house at 8 PM and scrub offices until 2 AM for eleven dollars an hour.

She never bought herself anything new. She wore the same faded blue winter coat with a broken zipper for nearly ten years.

And I wore Goodwill clothes. The kids at school made fun of me because my jeans were always too short and my sneakers were worn down to the rubber soles.

We ate rice and beans almost every single night. Sometimes we had canned chicken soup if it was on a special clearance sale at the grocery store.

I grew up feeling like a massive burden. Every time I needed a new notebook or a pack of pencils for school, I felt sick to my stomach. I hated asking her for anything.

I used to lie in bed at night, listening to her cough in the kitchen, feeling so guilty that she had to work herself to the bone just to keep me fed.

The only thing she ever spent money on was her crossword puzzle books. She bought them at the dollar store, three at a time, and filled them out with those cheap blue pens.

But then I turned eighteen. I was working at a local diner, saving up my small tips so I could maybe afford one class at the local community college.

One afternoon, a certified letter arrived from a law office in downtown Decatur. It said I needed to come in regarding the estate of my parents.

I was confused. I thought my parents died completely broke. The next morning, I walked into the lawyer’s office, which smelled of leather and old dust.

The lawyer, an older man named Mr. Henderson, looked at me with a soft, pitying smile. He opened a thick manila folder on his desk.

“I have been waiting for this day, Clara,” he said. “Your parents had a life insurance policy. It was a seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar policy, and you were the sole beneficiary.”

I just sat there in the leather chair. I could not draw a breath. My chest turned completely cold.

“A trust was set up when you were four,” he explained. “Your aunt, Karen, was named the trustee. She was supposed to manage the funds for your housing, education, and care.”