Chapter 9 - The Meeting at the Laundromat
In late March, the Chicago snow began to give way to steady spring rain that washed the salt from the asphalt.
I drove my twelve-year-old Civic to a commercial laundromat in Logan Square to wash my heavy winter comforters in the industrial triple-load machines.
As I carried my canvas basket through the glass doors, the smell of warm detergent and fabric softener filled the air.
Sitting on a fiberglass bench near the dryers, folding a basket of simple white cotton shirts, was Amanda.
She wore no designer coat. She was dressed in dark denim, a simple gray hooded sweatshirt, and canvas sneakers. Her hair was pulled into a functional ponytail, secured with a cheap plastic band.
She looked thinner, her face bare of cosmetics, but the frantic, desperate twitch that had defined her expression for years was gone.
She looked up as the door chimed, our eyes meeting across the row of spinning dryers.
For three seconds, neither of us moved.
I set my basket down on a folding table. Amanda looked down at the shirt in her hands, her fingers smoothing the cotton with trembling care, before she stood up and walked over.
"Hi, Em," Amanda said, her voice quiet, almost shy.
"Hi, Amanda," I replied.
She looked at my heavy wool comforter, then down at her own worn sneakers. "Derek told me he cleared the escrow wire in January."
"Yes," I said. "Every penny."
Amanda swallowed hard, a muscle in her jaw tightening as she fought back emotion. "I started paying Mom and Dad back last month. Fifty dollars a week from my call center paycheck."
"That's a good start," I said honestly.
"It will take me eight years to finish," Amanda whispered, looking up to meet my eyes. "Eight years of answering angry insurance calls for twelve dollars an hour."
"Eight years passes whether you pay it or not, Amanda," I said gently.
A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn't wipe it away with manicured nails. She wiped it with the sleeve of her plain sweatshirt, nodding slowly.
"I hated you at Thanksgiving, Em," she admitted, her voice cracking. "When you canceled those cards, I wanted you to die. I thought you had destroyed everything I was."
"I know," I said.
"It took three weeks of eating canned soup in an empty room to realize you didn't destroy anything," Amanda whispered, her shoulders trembling. "You just turned the lights on in a room that was already burning."
She reached into her sweatshirt pocket, pulling out a small, wrinkled envelope. She held it out to me with both hands.
May you like
"What is this?" I asked.
"It’s fifty dollars," Amanda said. "For the interest. On what you lent me over four years. I know it's nothing compared to forty thousand, but... it's my own money, Emma. I earned every cent of it."
