The girl didn’t look up. Her fingers guided a piece of faded blue fabric under the needle with careful precision, her jaw clenched in focus that looked far too heavy for her small frame.
“Where’s your mother?” Daniel asked before he realized he was speaking.
The girl startled. The machine stuttered to silence. Slowly, she lifted her eyes—eyes dulled by exhaustion, too knowing for a child.
“She’s sick,” she said quietly. “Please… I just need to finish this seam.”
Daniel’s gaze drifted around the room. A thin mattress on the floor. A pot on a stove that hadn’t been lit. No toys. No TV. Only neatly stacked scraps of fabric beside the machine.
“What are you making?” he asked.
“Dresses,” she replied. “For a shop on Maple Street. They pay by the piece.”
Something tightened in his chest. “You shouldn’t have to do this.”
Her hands curled around the cloth. “If I don’t, we won’t eat.”
A cough echoed from the back room—deep, wet, and weak. Daniel took a step forward, then paused. He was familiar with hardship, but only as an abstract concept. A statistic. A margin.
“I’m here for the rent,” he said, hating how official it sounded.