Alleyways

I remember not understanding why she looked sad. Sitting there on the sidewalk at the mouth of an alleyway, tiny, maybe my age, beside her mother. They had pieces of old newspaper spread out at their bare feet, and on top there were dollar bills and coins galore. And yet, they looked sad. Sad and tired. It was more money than I had ever seen in my life, and I remember asking my Mom how come the girl had more than I made from my allowances in a whole year, and still had holes in her shirt. I remember her looking at my Dad with a weird smile as the light turned green and we crossed to the other side. 

In a few years, when I came to understand, the girl was still there every day, somehow tinier. Those days her mother’s face had begun to look blue, and I almost always saw her with three mismatched jackets on and shivering under the weight of them all. One day, as I passed them biking back from school, a sharp wind blew some of their money into the spokes of my tires, and the girl got up and ran around collecting the others that rolled down the street. I tried to hep by picking them off my wheel and bringing them to the mother. Before leaving, added my jacket to the pile on her back, where it looked like it made very little difference. When Mom later asked about it, I told her I’d left it in my locker.

When I was in high school, Dad got a big promotion and moved us to a house that he had been eyeing for some time in the better part of town. There, all the shirts had proper stitching, and everyone’s money stayed in big wallets, safe from sharp winds.

The summer after graduation, while walking with an old friend near my old place, I passed by the girl’s spot, and she was sitting there alone. When I asked my friend about the mother’s whereabouts, he just gave me a confused look.

Once I moved to the west coast for college, I did not return home for some time. Mom and Dad decided they could not stand the idea of seeing me only once or twice a year, and so Dad pulled some strings and moved to a place an hour away from campus. I studied my heart out for two years, until I decided it was for naught and I did not know where I was going with all of it. My Mom was disappointed when I told them of my decision to drop out, and Dad said he could definitely get me an entry-level position at one of his offices. I found the work there easy, and having everybody answering to Dad helped, for they thought they had to answer to me too, which made me a favorite for any promotions that opened up. It was my fifth year in the job when news leaked of illicit practices being conducted by the company heads, which included Dad. The company laid off almost all its employees before liquidating, and Mom and Dad spent almost all their savings in legal battles. A year after victory in court, Dad’s hair had turned gray and he spoke much less. 

Soon after, one of Dad’s friends back home reached out to tell us that our better part of town had recently undergone upgrades to become even better, and housing prices were higher than ever. He said that in light of everything that had happened, it would be best for the family to come back, consider selling or re-inhabiting the old home. By the time we wrapped up loose ends and landed at the airport, I had decided to visit old stomping grounds, contact childhood friends, start life anew. Stopped at a light in a cab on the way home, I instinctively looked towards the sidewalk, which led into an alleyway. There, under a dim light, stood a man and a woman both in coats. The man had a hat over his face and towered over the girl, making her appear small. He then appeared to say something and nudged her, at which point she glanced around both ways and slowly opened her coat to him. He looked her up and down for a long time before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a very big bundle of cash. The way her eyes seemed to widen, it was more money than she had ever seen in her life.