I thought I was just covering a stranger’s shortfall, the way you might hold a door or offer a seat on the bus. But that night cracked open a part of my life I didn’t know was still unfinished. Her letter didn’t just thank me; it handed me a missing piece of my own history, wrapped in trembling handwriting and a single word I never expected to see addressed to me: “sis.”

Meeting Hannah the next day felt like walking into a memory I hadn’t lived yet. We compared stories, timelines, the versions of our mother we each carried. Grief loosened its grip a little as we realized how much of her still lived in both of us. Now, when her son reaches for me over the counter, the store doesn’t feel like just a job. It feels like the place my life quietly turned a corner, where six crumpled dollars bought something no paycheck ever had: a family I didn’t know I’d lost.