Ellie was seven.
And for the last three years, I had been raising her alone.
My son Daniel and his wife Claire died in a car accident when Ellie was four.
After that, there was just us.
Money was tight.
Some months, painfully tight.
There was a pot beneath the leak in my kitchen ceiling.
My prescriptions seemed to cost more every time I picked them up.
Ellie’s shoes were getting too small.
And that Friday, I stood in the juice aisle holding a carton of orange juice that cost almost six dollars.
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