The power went out Tuesday night and didn't come back until Friday morning. Three nights of absolute dark, just one candle I carried from room to room.
The second night I dug out an old photo album from the hall closet. There was my first-grade school picture, wallet-cropped with scissors so it would fit a plastic frame.
I remembered my mother doing that. She was always trying to make things fit that weren't meant to. I was the youngest by eleven years, always an afterthought squeezed in.
On the third day I saw the Henderson kid across the street holding up a pay stub. First job, busing tables at the diner. He was beaming like the sun.
He shouted across the road, "I got my first paycheck!" I waved and called out to save half. He didn't hear me, off to spend it.
That night in the candlelight I thought about how long it had been since I felt that seen. Not about the money. About someone noticing you exist.
When the lights flickered back on Friday, everything looked the same. But I felt different. I'd been fighting a quiet battle with being invisible, and for three nights I'd finally sat still enough to see it.