The Satellite Son and the Cane Son: When Money Can’t Carry Grief

fluorescent lights buzzed over tired faces. People pushed carts like they were pushing through life on autopilot.

I felt eyes on me.

Small-town eyes.

The kind that remember the version of you who left and judge the version of you who returned.

At the produce section, a man I’d gone to high school with squinted at me.

“Michael?” he said slowly.

“Yeah,” I continue reading …