I glanced at her. “Yeah,” I said again, letting her find the point herself.
Lily stared out the window for a moment, then said, “So… people who make fun of cheap stuff are kind of… small.”
I smiled. “Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes they’re scared.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Scared of what?”
“Of being judged,” I said honestly. “Of not belonging.”
That evening, Lily asked to visit Grandma Margaret.
Which surprised me, because Lily loved Margaret, but she didn’t go out of her way to ask for serious conversations with anyone.
Margaret welcomed us in, offering snacks and trying not to look nervous.
Lily didn’t waste time.
“Grandma,” she said, sitting straight at the table, “did you used to be poor?”
I froze. Jack, blissfully unaware, was busy stacking crackers.
Margaret went completely still.
Her eyes flicked to me, then back to Lily.
Margaret took a slow breath. “I wasn’t poor,” she said carefully. “But I wasn’t… what people would call Thompson-worthy.”
Lily blinked. “What does that mean?”
Margaret’s mouth tightened. “It means I felt like I had to become someone else to be accepted.”
Lily leaned forward. “Did you ever feel cheap?”
The word landed like a stone in water.