Every Christmas, my mother carried a warm meal to a homeless man at the laundromat down our street. She did it year after year without fail. This time, she wasn’t there anymore—cancer had taken her. So I went in her place, continuing what she had started. But the moment I saw him, I knew something was different. And nothing could have prepared me for the truth she had hidden all those years.

It was the one she carefully wrapped in foil and placed into a bag for someone else.

I remember being eight when I first asked about it.

“That one isn’t ours,” she said, folding the foil with care, like it held something precious.

She slipped it into a grocery bag, tying it up with the same gentle focus she used when lacing my shoes.

Years later, at fourteen, I asked again, “Who is it for, Mom?”

She handed me my coat and put on hers. “For someone who needs it, baby.”