The Little Girl Who Could Only Afford Hope. The little girl was so hungry that even standing looked difficult. She stood beside a hotdog stand on a crowded morning street while people rushed past carrying coffee briefcases and shopping bags without ever slowing down enough to notice her.

The winter rain began to fall in freezing needles as Lena walked the four miles back to her basement apartment on 8th Street.

She clutched her worn canvas jacket tightly around her shoulders. In her right pocket rested the crumpled termination slip Grisham had shoved into her hand, along with the single five-dollar bill representing her final day’s docked wages.

"If you want to run a charity, open your own church!" Grisham’s parting roar still echoed in her ears. "In my cart, every sausage is accounted for down to the ounce!"

Lena stepped around a muddy puddle, her breath pluming like white smoke in the twilight.

Her feet throbbed in her thin-soled shoes, and her stomach let out a hollow, aching rumble. When she reached her unheated one-room apartment, she turned on the cold water tap, filled a chipped porcelain mug, and sat at the rickety wooden table.

She pulled out a small glass jar containing her life savings: thirty-two dollars and forty cents.

The landlord would be knocking for the two-hundred-dollar rent at the end of the week.

Yet, as Lena looked at the frost forming on the windowpane, her mind did not dwell on Grisham’s cruelty, nor did it linger on her empty pantry.

She closed her eyes and saw the tear-stained face of the little girl.

She remembered the way the child had cradled that warm paper-wrapped hotdog with two trembling hands, treating a piece of bread like the most priceless treasure on earth. She remembered the fierce, stubborn dignity in the girl’s voice when she swore: “I promise I will pay you back.”