When an elderly regular forgot his wallet, she smiled and told him to pay next time.

She remembered, precisely and forever, exactly how it had felt to need twenty-eight dollars and to dread the judgment that might come with asking.

There was a symmetry in that which no one but Lianna would ever fully appreciate, and she appreciated it every day.

The whole ordeal had begun with a woman ashamed to ask for a small sum, afraid of the judgment of the people she asked.

And it had ended with that same woman standing behind her own counter, in a place that was hers, making sure that no one who came to her hungry and short of money would ever have to feel that particular shame — the shame of need meeting judgment — under her roof.