Lashonda ran her fingers slowly across the fabric. It was real wool with a satin lining that still carried the faintest trace of her mother's perfume, White Diamonds, the inexpensive drugstore scent Diane Hayes had worn for years. To anyone else, it was just perfume.
To Lashonda, it smelled like home.
Diane Hayes had died two years earlier from advanced breast cancer. By the time doctors discovered how serious it was, the medical bills had already begun crushing both of them. Lashonda worked double shifts for 18 months trying to stay ahead of the debt.
She sold almost everything.
Her mother's furniture.
Her jewelry.
Her own car.
Anything with value eventually disappeared.
Everything except the coat.
That coat was all Lashonda had kept.
She put it on carefully, buttoned it against the morning cold, and stepped into the predawn darkness.
Getting to Riverside Cafe required two buses. Lashonda could have taken a more direct route, but it cost an extra $1.50 each way. Three dollars a day seemed small until it was multiplied across weeks and months.
She sat near the window and watched the city change as the bus passed through different neighborhoods. First came apartment buildings like hers, aging structures with broken entry lights and notices taped to doors. Then came recently redeveloped blocks filled with coffee shops charging six dollars for drinks people carried away without finishing.
After that came tree-lined streets and beautiful brownstones worth more than Lashonda expected to earn in her lifetime.
A woman wearing a camel-colored coat sat across from her scrolling through her phone. The fabric looked soft and expensive, probably cashmere. Lashonda automatically did the math.
That coat probably cost more than three months of her wages.
She looked away.
Outside the window, the bus passed the neighborhood community center where Lashonda volunteered every Sunday, helping children with reading. It was the one regular thing she did that had nothing to do with money, rent, medical debt, or survival. It was the place where she felt most like Diane Hayes's daughter.
As the bus turned onto Market Street, Lashonda saw another eviction notice on the front door of Mrs. Lane's apartment building. It was the third notice she had seen on that floor that month. Rents were rising everywhere, landlords were selling to developers, and longtime residents were being pushed away from neighborhoods they had spent decades building.
Lashonda knew she could easily be next.
Riverside Cafe stood at the corner of Market and Ninth. It had been part of the neighborhood for 40 years. The vinyl booths were patched, the floors were scuffed, and one letter in the neon CAFE sign had been flickering for so long that regular customers barely noticed anymore.
But the place was clean.
The food was good.
And the people were family.
Dmitri Palos, the owner, was already working in the kitchen when Lashonda arrived. He was 67, a Greek immigrant who had purchased Riverside Cafe in 1985 with nearly everything he had saved.
She hung her burgundy coat inside the tiny staff closet.
"Morning, Dmitri."