She wrote that she had left a job where her supervisor often called her stupid in front of customers.

She had spent months believing the insults because they came from someone who signed her paycheck.

“I saw you standing there,” she wrote, “and I thought you looked ashamed.

Then I read what you said about dignity.

I applied somewhere else.

They hired me.

I wanted you to know.”

I placed the letter beside my mother’s recipe box.