So every Friday for a year, her kids came to my apartment. We built blanket forts, burned frozen pizzas, and watched the same animated movies until I could recite them by heart. I learned which one hated peas, which one needed a nightlight, which one cried quietly when they missed their mom.
Mara tried to pay me at first. I refused, every time.
“I’m not a service,” I told her. “I’m just helping.”
My boyfriend didn’t see it that way.
“You’re being used,” he said more than once. “Every week? For free? That’s not kindness—that’s charity she’s taking advantage of.”
I brushed it off, but the words stuck. Especially on nights when I was exhausted, when I canceled my own plans, when I wondered if maybe he was right.
Then, suddenly, it ended.
Mara got promoted. Big promotion. Different city. Different life.
Her last day at work was chaos—meetings, emails, rushed hugs. She waved at me from across the office, mouthed “Thank you,” and then she was gone. No goodbye. No long conversation. No closure.
I felt foolish. Embarrassed. Like I’d poured a year of my life into something that evaporated without a trace. My boyfriend didn’t say “I told you so,” but he didn’t need to.
Three weeks later, an envelope arrived in my mailbox.
Inside were two plane tickets and a handwritten letter.
“Come visit,” it said. Nothing more.
