Chapter 2: Lunch With Charles

I could say I sat with Charles that first day because there was nowhere else to sit, and that would be true, but not the whole truth… Continue Reading ⬇️

By the second day, I sat with him because I wanted to.

Soon, noon became ours. The same window table. The same two chairs. Charles usually brought the same kind of sandwich, carefully wrapped in wax paper, as if he had packed lunch the same way for decades.

We talked about ordinary things.

The weather.

Books.

The broken elevator.

The coffee machine that never worked properly.

Nothing we said sounded important, yet somehow all of it mattered.

Charles carried a small notebook in his shirt pocket. The corners were worn soft. After lunch, just before returning to his cart, he would take it out and write one or two lines.

I assumed it was a grocery list.

Or repair notes.

Something ordinary.

I never asked.

That is one of the things I still think about now.

I never once asked what he was writing. Continue Reading ⬇️