“Playing charity worker on company time?” a businessman in a gray suit sneered one morning, slapping his newspaper onto the counter. “Kids these days expect handouts everywhere.”

“Times must be changing,” another regular muttered. “In my day, no one gave away free food just because someone looked sad.”

I let the comments slide off me like rain on a windowpane. I had my father’s stubbornness. But Mark, the diner’s manager, was harder to ignore.

He called me into the cramped, humid office behind the kitchen. His face was serious beneath his perpetually sweaty brow

“I’ve been watching you with that kid,” Mark said, his fingers drumming an impatient rhythm against the laminate desk that smelled of stale tobacco and receipt paper. “We can’t have employees giving away free meals, Jenny. It’s bad for business. It sets a precedent. Next thing you know, we’ll have a line of freeloaders out the door.”

I twisted the fabric of my apron in my hands, feeling the rough cotton bite into my skin. My heart hammered against my ribs, but my voice, when I found it, was steady.

“I understand,” I said. “I’ll cover the cost myself.”