The interviewer, a woman named Rosa Delgado, asked why I wanted to teach financial skills.

“Because I know what it’s like to understand money on paper and still feel powerless in my own life,” I said.

She didn’t rush to rescue me from the silence.

Then she asked whether I could explain a simple checking account to someone who had never been allowed to open one.

I smiled.

“Yes.

And I’d start by asking what they need it to do.”

Afterward, in the parking lot, I sat with my hands resting on the steering wheel of Lena’s borrowed car.