She held up a sign that read F-O-O-D! I handed her two bucks, but she stared at my McDonald’s bag.

“Thanks for the bucks, honey, but I thought it was food you were bringing me.”
7-Eleven was down the block, Krispy Kreme was across the street. “But that’s junk food,” I said.

“Yup, that’s just junk food,” she answered.
“How about the Cress Café?” I asked.
“Oh, hon, that’s too expensive,” she said.

She grabbed two $10 bills from my hand and ran across the street, her gray hair, shopping bags, and the cardboard sign flowing behind. She never looked back.

— Jane Schulman writes poetry and short fiction. She works as a speech pathologist in a Brooklyn public school with autistic and emotionally-disturbed young children, teaching them to find and hone their voices.