was thirty-five, unemployed, and carrying a résumé so awkward even I’d stopped believing in it.
From a once-successful designer, I’d turned into someone who couldn’t get past the first interview round.
“You’ve got solid experience… and this is… what, a speech issue?”
It’s just a stutter,” I wanted to explain, but usually I only nodded. My thoughts always moved faster than my mouth could follow.
The stuttering had started three years earlier, the day my mother left and never came back. She’d simply said:
“I’ll be back soon, sweetheart. Just need to… clear my head.”
And then she vanished. No note, no call.
searched the neighborhood, phoned hospitals, walked the forest line by the bridge, and filed a missing person report
Time moved on, but I stayed stuck between that abandoned half-eaten pie and the phone that never rang.
My friend Rachel tried to pull me out of that haze whenever she visited.
“You have to do something. Anything. Take one step. Go for a jog. It’s not about your body — it’s about your mind. Start tonight.”