Chapter 2
2
CONSTANCE
“Mommmm… can we go?”
Constance looked at her daughter Paige and sighed. Her daughter would never understand that it was killing Constance to stay in the house, surrounded by memories, ignoring the phone calls from creditors, and swamped by anxiety because her life felt completely out of control, and she hoped her child never had to experience any of this. Adjusting slightly, she set Kayla down beside her, who immediately flung her little arms up into the air, wanting to be picked up once again.
“Paige, please don’t start,” Constance uttered quietly, looking at her child and realizing just how much she was like her – once, long ago. “This makes me feel good to help others, to give back, and it costs us nothing but time and energy to give help to someone else who might be struggling too.”
“But Mom… this is gross stuff. I mean, look,” Paige held up a can and made a face. “Beets. No one likes veggies, much less beets. This can is beets, and this can, and this one, and this one… they are all beets or lima beans because people don’t eat that stuff. It’s gross. So why would you give it away to someone needy?”
“Because when you need help, you accept it from wherever it comes and find gratitude in knowing you’ve put off that feeling of hopelessness one more day.”
“With beets?”
“With anything that fills your belly or warms your heart,” Constance said tenderly, smoothing the young girl’s hair. “I know it’s hard because you don’t understand, but to some of the people here – they are happy for those beets, for the lima beans, for the hominy…”
“Ugh, hominy!” Paige interrupted, shivering – and she heard a man chuckle in the distance, almost looking to see who it was that laughed at her daughter’s behavior.
“And those cans will help fill the bellies of beautiful children like you and Kayla,” she finished quietly. “Not everyone gets grilled cheese or dino nuggets.”
“They should,” her daughter muttered under her breath – and Constance hugged her.
“Yes, they should, sweetie.”
Her daughter sighed, rolled her eyes, stomped a foot, and then looked at her warily before letting her shoulders sag. They weren’t leaving, and that was finally sinking in.
“Help me fill another bag with food and toiletries.”
“Yes, ma’am…”
“Paige?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you and think you are amazingly bright, do you know that?” Constance smiled, hugging her. “You and Kayla are my little lights that get me through each day.”
“Mommm…” she protested – but not too hard, which made Constance chuckle with awareness – only to have Kayla drop a can of new potatoes on her foot. Wincing, she saw a tanned hand suddenly appear as she moved to pick up the can.
“Here,” a man said quietly, handing her the can. “It works better in the bag than on the toes.”
“Yes, it does,” Constance replied, accepting the can and quickly turning away. “Thank you.”
“I’m Keith.”
“I’m not interested,” Constance said easily, packing another bag and ignoring the laughter from her daughter nearby, who overheard the brief exchange. “Paige, we’ll leave once our bags are full and we’ve given them out.”
“Would you like help?”
“No. We’ll manage.”
“How’s that been working for you so far?” he asked – and Constance whirled around to look at him, meeting a pair of light golden-brown eyes beneath a pair of dark eyebrows. They were hard eyes, eyes that had seen too much and had been scarred from it, eyes that reminded her of a person who’d nearly been broken yet somehow made it. The hardest metals are forged in the fires of hell, her husband used to say before he died, his pale face wan, his hands trembling as he held hers, giving her a weak smile, and she felt tears sting her eyes at the unexpected memory from two years ago.
“I’m sorry,” the man said softly, almost like he knew or understood. “Life sucks sometimes, so we try to make it better for somebody else because it makes you feel good for about two seconds… and you hang on to those precious two seconds as hard as you can because you’ve got nothing else, right?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head almost like to wake herself up from some spell. “What was your name again?”
“Moron,” he chuckled lightly – and she smiled warily as he held out his hand. “I’m kidding. It’s Keith.”
“Constance,” she replied, shaking his hand and then moving back to the slew of cans before her. “If you want to help pack the bags, that’s fine. We’re all lined up along the tables and…”
“How old are you?” he interrupted suddenly, causing her to start.
“Weirdo,” Paige muttered loudly – and Kayla repeated it. “Weir-yo-man.”
“I’m sorry,” Constance apologized immediately, turning to glare at her daughter, who just shrugged, before she looked at Keith again, who was frowning. “I’m sorry, that’s a very odd question from a stranger that I don’t know.”
“You’re right,” he said grimly, looking away and unfurling a bag, shaking it, before starting to put several cans inside. He grasped another, gave it a shake, and proceeded to put more cans in another. By the time he got to the fifth bag and Constance hadn’t moved, he paused and looked at her. “It was just a question.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Twenty-nine.”
“You look younger, which is why I asked,” he said simply and then pointed at Paige. “But she’s the only reason I asked. You don’t look old enough to have a kid nearly ten.”
“I’m eight… moron.”
“Lovely child at that, too,” he retorted wryly.
“She’s not usually like this.”
“Lucky me.”
“I don’t usually have people talking to me…”
“Again, lucky me…” he replied once more, but this time there was a slight curl to his lip that made her realize he was joking. “C’mon,” he gestured to the bags and started filling another one.
Constance didn’t know what to make of this man standing beside her. One minute, she was pretty certain he was flirting with her, and the next he seemed to be backpedaling like he would rather not deal with a woman with a bunch of kids. She silently went back to packing her bags, shaking them open and loading cans that Paige was handing her in each one… only to pause.
“Do you have any children, Keith?”
“Uh, no,” he said flatly, not missing a beat.
“Why not?”
“Not married,” he answered and shrugged.
“I see,” she replied and went back to filling bags before pausing again. “Is there a reason?”
“Of course,” he said simply – and then paused to look at her. “It’s not something I want to talk about, but I have my reasons. I’m not married, and I have no kids. No pets, no family, a couple of bad habits, and have obviously lost my marbles but that’s about it. You?”
“I have kids,” she chuckled, smiling at him, and unfurled another bag, glancing sideways at him warily. “I was married, but my husband passed away suddenly two years ago due to pancreatic cancer and…”
“I’m sorry,” he interrupted gently.
“Me too,” she nodded. “He was a really great person.”
“All the best ones are gone too soon – aren’t they?”
“I agree,” she replied and cleared her throat once more. “No pets, no family except these two, definitely a few bad habits,” she smiled at his soft laugh. “And most definitely have lost my marbles.”
“Ahhh, I see.”
“Yup. Me in a nutshell.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you… nutshell.”
Constance had been surprised—pleasantly, albeit cautiously—when Keith hadn’t pressed her for conversation or pushed the idea of asking her out. He had every opportunity to, and yet, he hadn’t. Maybe the sight of her with two small children was enough of a deterrent. Plenty of men balked at the idea of dating a widow with kids, especially one as outspoken as Paige and as restless as Kayla. Paige, with her endless stream of chatter and blunt observations, often left people struggling to keep up. And Kayla, growing impatient with the slow-moving food line, had taken to sitting on Constance’s sneaker, trying in vain to stack cans beneath the rickety table.
It wasn’t easy raising two children alone. It wasn’t easy to exist in this endless cycle of exhaustion and survival.
Maybe Keith had sensed it. Maybe he had taken one look at her—a young widow, stretched thin, dressed in worn jeans and a sweatshirt that had seen better days—and decided that whatever fleeting curiosity he might have had wasn’t worth the effort. He wouldn’t be the first.
Not that she blamed him.
She had never expected to end up here, parceling out and collecting her own bag of donated food, struggling to make ends meet, drowning in responsibilities she had never anticipated shouldering alone. She and Robert had done everything right. They had followed the steps. Met in college, become friends, and fallen in love. They had both gone into teaching, both passionate about shaping young minds. They had married young, full of dreams about the future, about the family they would build together.
And they had… for a while.
When Paige was born, everything had changed in ways she hadn’t expected. The sleepless nights, the crying, the sheer exhaustion of being a new mother. She had struggled to adjust, to find her footing, and by the time she did, years had passed before she and Robert felt ready to have another child. Then Kayla arrived, and any sense of ‘normal’ vanished altogether.
Not that normal had lasted long, anyway.
First, it had been the little things. The indigestion Robert brushed off, the weight loss he insisted was nothing. Then came the fatigue, the growing paleness of his skin, the way he no longer had the energy to chase Paige around the living room after work. By the time they knew what they were dealing with, there had been no time to prepare. No time to plan. Just a rapid, terrifying descent into the inevitable.
Cancer stole him from her so fast that she barely had time to breathe before she was standing at his funeral, clutching a six-year-old with one arm while her one-year-old daughter screamed in the other. Twenty-seven, widowed, with two small children, no life insurance, no will, and no clue how to navigate the wreckage of the life they had built together.
They had been waiting to buy a house, waiting for the right time, waiting until they felt secure. And now, there was nothing. No house. Just two car loans—one of which she had to let go because there was no way she could afford it on her own. Their savings, meant for the future, had disappeared into medical bills. She had buried her husband in a casket she was still paying for, had signed papers, and made decisions she never should have had to make alone.
And now, here she was.
Working constantly just to keep the lights on. Stretching every paycheck, every food donation, every moment of sanity she had left. Taking home a bag of cans to get them through another week.
Keith probably saw all of that in an instant. Most people did. They either looked at her with pity or with relief—thankful that it wasn’t them standing in her shoes. And if he wanted to walk away without getting too close, she wouldn’t blame him for that, either.
She didn’t have anything to offer.
Not anymore.
“Keith?” Constance said before she realized it, turning to look at the stranger. “You are right – life does suck sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“Very much so,” he agreed quietly.
They stood there looking at each other, almost like each was afraid of what the other would say in those moments, completely confused on how to take the next step… and finally he spoke.
“Can I get your number – you know – in case you ever want to talk about how bad things suck sometimes?”
“Oh my gosh…” Paige muttered, slapping her forehead, causing Keith to look at the child and smirked wryly in awareness.
“You know, I think I might like that,” Constance replied quietly, pulling a pen off her the apron that boldly proclaimed she was with the food pantry. “Do you have a piece of paper?”
“You can text me,” Keith began. “Or I can text you?”
“No cell phone,” Constance said, shaking her head. “Life sucks, remember? You could call the house phone after six p.m. or leave a message. I have an answering machine.”
His frown deepened as he looked at her before nodding. She rattled off her number and saw him start to open his mouth before he closed it again.
“What?” she smiled. “Don’t be shy now – you’ve already gotten more out of me than most, and that should be an honor.”
“It’s nothing,” Keith said and looked away – and for some reason, Constance felt like the man was floundering in his own private hell, and she hated that for him. She put her hand out, touching his arm, only to see his look of surprise as he turned back to her.
“You know, it might suck now… but honestly, life can be beautiful if you give it a chance. If you are stuck in the middle of a storm cloud, keep going . It can’t rain forever – can it?” She said softly, meeting his eyes, and then smiled. “Or at least I keep telling myself that because I remember all that sunshine and those rainbows from long ago.”
“No, I suppose not,” he murmured, his eyes warming slightly as he nodded. “It was very nice to meet you.”
“You too – and I hope you call sometime.”
“I might.”
“Well, I might answer,” she replied softly, her smile widening as his own touched his lips. “I just might answer, Keith.”