I'd been cutting hair for three weeks before the first check hit. The shop is forty minutes from the exurbs, past fields and a strip mall that lost its anchor store ten years ago.
That morning I saw the jury summons pinned to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a lobster. I hadn't even opened it yet. It felt like a warning I didn't have time for.
But the paycheck was real. A number I could hold. And all I could think about was my sister, eleven years older, who'd driven me to every appointment and every haircut before I knew how to hold shears myself.
She lived a thousand miles away now. She'd never been back since she left. I wired the whole check to her bank account with a note: 'Come home for the weekend. I'll pick you up at the airport.'
She called an hour later, voice cracking. 'You don't have to do this.' But I did. This was the first thing my hands ever earned that wasn't for rent or ramen. It was for her.
I texted her the flight info. Then I took the jury summons off the fridge and stuffed it in a drawer. I'd deal with that later. Tonight, I was someone who could bring someone back.