I’m eighteen, and I graduated from high school last week. Everyone asks, “What’s next?” but it still feels like the world forgot to press play. Everything is paused. The hallways smell of cafeteria rolls and disinfectant. Sometimes, when the house is quiet, I think I hear footsteps in the kitchen—though I know I can’t.
My grandmother raised me. Not part-time. Not “helped out.” She was everything—my parent, my safety net, my constant—after my parents died in a car crash when I was little. I don’t remember the accident, just fragments: my mom’s laugh, the ticking of my dad’s watch, a soft song on the radio. Then it was just the two of us.
She was fifty-two when she took me in, working full-time as a cafeteria cook at the very school I’d eventually graduate from. Our house was old, creaky, and money was always tight—but she never let it feel that way. She made things warm, steady, survivable.
Her name was Lorraine. Most students just knew her as “Miss Lorraine” or “the lunch lady,” as if that title erased the fact that she loved fiercely and showed up every single day. At seventy, she still arrived before dawn, gray hair tied back with a scrunchie she’d sewn herself. Every apron was different—sunflowers, strawberries, whimsical patterns meant to make kids smile. Even after serving hundreds of lunches, she packed mine every morning, tucking in a note: Eat the fruit, or I’ll haunt you. You’re my favorite miracle.
We didn’t have much, but she made it feel like we had everything. When the heater broke, she turned the living room into a spa with blankets and candles. My prom dress cost eighteen dollars at a thrift store, and she stitched rhinestones onto it while humming Billie Holiday. “I don’t need to be rich,” she’d say. “I just want you to be okay.”
And I was—until high school made things harder.
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