She made me grilled cheese.
She tucked me into the spare bed.
And she said the sentence that became the foundation I built an entire life on.
“You are a blessing, not a burden. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you different.”
Marcy had no children of her own.
She worked at a dental office by day and cleaned offices some evenings for extra money, and she folded a whole second childhood into a life that hadn’t been planning for one.
She came to every school event and clapped like she was at the Olympics.
She bought my first real set of paints with overtime money and never once let me see the receipt.
She hung my drawings all the way down her narrow hallway, in frames from the thrift store, and told every guest it was her private gallery.
She had dreams of her own that she quietly set down to raise me — she used to talk about turning the empty half of the yellow house into a little free art room for neighborhood kids someday, “when there’s money,” and there was never money.
