I gave the old lady some change every day. One day she stopped me and said, “…”
Simone Lawson woke up to the sound of her alarm and for a few seconds couldn’t figure out where she was. The empty half of the bed reminded her the divorce had been finalized three months ago.
The apartment belongs only to you now. And Darnell moved in with his new flame. At thirty-five years old, her life felt split into a before and after.
Yes, there were twelve years of marriage, shared plans, joint trips to his parents’ place outside the city, where she dutifully weeded the garden while he drank beer with his friends. After all that, there was just this empty apartment, the silence, and the necessity of starting over. She got up, pulled on her robe, and went to the kitchen.
The kettle boiled fast, the only thing in the entire apartment that worked flawlessly. Simone made herself coffee, looked out the window at the gray April city of Atlanta, and sighed. “Welcome to Betty’s Stories.
I share new life stories here every day, and I’d really appreciate it if you hit subscribe and liked my video. Now, let’s jump back into my story. I’m sure you’ll love it if you keep listening till the end.”
Today was Monday, which meant a full week ahead at the small accounting office for a private firm called Prime Solutions Group.
It was a grand name for a business of only five people cramped into two rooms on the third floor of an old commercial building downtown. She had found the job through her friend Sierra, who knew someone who knew someone else. After the divorce, Simone desperately needed money for the lawyer, for utility bills, and for life in general.
She’d had to leave her previous position at a large retail company. Her colleagues asked too many questions, giving her too many pitying looks. All she wanted was to forget everything and start fresh.
Here at Prime Solutions, no one knew her story, and that was a relief. The director, Victor Sterling, a man in his fifties with a receding hairline and a perpetually dissatisfied expression, hired her without asking too many questions. He looked at her degree, heard about her experience, nodded, and named a salary.
Nothing spectacular, but acceptable. Simone agreed right away. The work turned out to be straightforward: processing documents, preparing reports, and keeping track of income and expenses.
Nothing complicated for someone with fifteen years of experience. Simone finished her coffee, got dressed, and left the apartment exactly at eight in the morning. The commute to the office took forty minutes: ten minutes walking to the MARTA station, twenty minutes on the train, and another ten minutes to the building itself.
It was the familiar route she had been taking every weekday for two and a half months. Leaving her building, Simone turned right and walked down the narrow street toward the station entrance. Here, right by the door, sitting on a beat-up piece of cardboard, was an elderly woman.
Simone had noticed her on the very first day of her new job. The old woman never begged loudly, never whined, and never reached out her hand. She just sat there wrapped in a faded coat with a small tin cup in front of her.
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