I thought about the girl I’d been a few months earlier, counting coins before buying groceries.

She hadn’t disappeared.

She was still inside me, reminding me to save receipts and check the bus schedule.

But she no longer believed that desperate circumstances were permanent.

I accepted the promotion, then went home and called Elena.

“What do assistant managers do?” she asked.

“Apparently everything that goes wrong before breakfast.”

She laughed so hard that I started laughing too.