I hated watching tape cover the holes in my sneakers while Victor received the largest piece of chicken. We were struggling too.

I was eleven when I finally said what had been building inside me.

“He eats better than I do, Mom.”

Mom kept stirring at the stove without looking up.

“Fiona, don’t start. Please.”

“Mom, the lights got shut off twice this winter,” I said. “But Victor gets lunch every day like he’s family.”

The spoon slipped from her fingers and clanged into the sink.

“Don’t say his name like that, Fiona. He needs help.”

I crossed my arms. I was cold, hungry, and cruel in the way wounded children sometimes are.

“Why? He’s just some man behind our house.”

Mom turned toward me, her face suddenly drained of color.

“No,” she said. “He isn’t just some man.”

“Then who is he?”

For a moment, I thought she was finally going to answer.

Instead, she pressed the warm container into my hands.

“Take him his food, hon.”

I stared at her.

“Maybe if you stopped feeding strangers, we wouldn’t live like this.”

Mom slammed her palm against the counter so hard that I jumped.

“Don’t you ever say that again. Do you hear me? You have no idea what that man gave up.”

“Gave up for who? You?”

Her body trembled.

Then she turned away.

“Take him his food, Fiona. This conversation is over.”

So I did.

Victor sat near the fence, rubbing warmth back into his hands.

“Your mom make soup today?” he asked.

“Yeah. Chicken.”

A gentle smile appeared on his face.

“That’s her best one.”

“You don’t even know her.”

The smile disappeared entirely.

“I know her soup.”

For some reason, that made me dislike him even more.

The years went by, and eventually I moved out. Mom and I argued less because I stopped asking questions.

But Victor never left.

Sometimes I noticed him repairing a loose porch step or stacking firewood after storms.

One year in high school, when my boots split apart, a secondhand pair mysteriously appeared beside my backpack.

“Where did these come from?” I asked.

“Church donation,” Mom answered too quickly.

I looked through the kitchen window.

Victor was outside brushing snow from the steps.

None of it made sense to me.

—

Then cancer arrived and slowly shrank my mother.

Stephanie had once carried groceries in both hands and opened doors with her elbows. Near the end, her wrist bones showed beneath her skin.

Two weeks before she died, I sat beside her hospital bed while she nervously picked at the blanket.

“Fiona.”

“I’m here.”

“You have to promise me something.”

I leaned closer.

“Mom, rest.”

“No.”

Her fingers wrapped around my wrist.

“Victor.”

 

 

part2