Prompt from Deb Courtney:
Sometimes you get exactly what you want from life, sometimes you get what life hands you. Most of the time I draw the wrong card, never quite able to fill the inside straight. Nothing as sad in your hand as a busted straight. So I fold. I settle. I move on.
Susan came into my life late, way past the age when another chance seemed possible. I was making enough to get by, not much extra. Small apartment to go with my small life and small hopes.
I met her at my front door. Her car had broken down and she wasn’t getting a signal to call for help, so she was knocking on doors in the little apartment complex that’s been my home for too many gray years. No one else was home, of course. Not at 2pm on a workday. Little apartments are a big expense to the people who live in them. You gotta work to keep a roof over your head, even a shabby one.
I was just coming off shift or I would never have seen her. She would have knocked and moved on. I came up behind her, staying back a few feet so I wouldn’t scare her. I’ve got a few miles on me, and coming up close behind a pretty woman seemed like a bad idea. I stood on the broken concrete of the sidewalk and asked her, “Can I help you? That’s my door if you’re looking for me.”
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