At 29, he was living out of a car that no longer locked, trying to stretch twelve dollars and a worn coat through another week. Fourteen months after losing his job at the plant, he had reached the point where every small expense felt like a decision between eating, driving, or staying warm.
That was the condition he was in when he first met Mrs. Winslow outside a laundromat on a Thursday morning.
She was 76, struggling with two blue plastic laundry baskets filled with wet sheets. Her hands shook too much to lift them into the trunk. He was a stranger with no job, no stable home, and nothing to offer except time and a pair of working arms.
He carried the baskets for her. That small favor became another visit, and then another.