Closed Doors Everywhere
All day she dragged her suitcase block after block, stopping at every storefront with a “Help Wanted” sign.
But the moment they saw her swollen belly, polite smiles turned into gentle rejections:
“We’ll let you know.”
By late afternoon, her feet were throbbing, her hope was gone, and the only shade in the district was the tree where she now sat.
She had no family—her parents had died when she was sixteen.
No friends—Diego had made sure of that.
No job—her bookstore boss had let her go, calling her pregnancy a “disruption.”
Now, for the first time, she truly didn’t know where to turn.
