She had found out about the shoes from a story I told during a scholarship workshop, and apparently she had remembered it.

“I think I will,” I said.

Driving home alone, I stopped at a small store and bought myself a pair of comfortable walking shoes.

They were not expensive.

They were simply mine, bought without guilt or a speech about what I could have done for someone else with the money.

That evening, I went to the community center to help set up for the next application workshop.

A mother stood in the doorway with her teenage son, looking uncertain.