“You should eat,” she said seriously, holding it out to him. “When your stomach hurts from being empty, it makes everything worse.”
The shame hit Jonathan harder than grief. Here he was, drowning in sorrow despite wealth and privilege, while a child with nothing was offering him food. He crouched slightly to meet her eye level and wiped his face.
“I am not crying because I am hungry,” he said softly. “I am crying because I miss my son very much. I have not seen him in a long time.”
The girl nodded slowly, as though this explanation made perfect sense. “I miss my mom too,” she replied. “It has been a year. Some people gave her candy, and then she started acting strange. Men in white coats took her away, and she never came back.”
Something about her words sent a chill through Jonathan. Two losses, tied to the same stretch of time, intersecting beneath the rain. The girl introduced herself as Grace and spoke with unsettling calm about how she had run away from a shelter where she was treated harshly, choosing the streets because at least there she could see the sky and avoid people she feared.