Page 141 of Lennox Lane

Jeanette stopped when she saw Lane, shock registering on her face, then joy, quickly replaced by fear, as if joy felt too dangerous to show without permission.

“Lane,” Jeanette whispered.

Lane stood, and for a brief moment, neither of them moved. Jeanette took one small step forward and stopped herself from invading Lane’s space. Lane was thankful for her mother’s restraint because she wasn’t ready to embrace her in this moment.

“Hi,” Lane said.

“Hi, Baby,” Jeanette spoke back, her eyes filled instantly with tears.

The term of endearment hit Lane in a way she wasn’t sure how to handle, so she didn’t do anything. Jeanette wiped quickly beneath one eye.

“I’m happy to see you. I’m so happy, but I know…” She swallowed, “I know it might not be mutual, so I need to ask, is everything okay?”

Lane looked at her mother’s face, really looked this time. These were not the eyes of the woman who had abused and neglected her for seventeen years. The woman standing before her was thinking of her daughter’s well-being, something she’d never done in Lane’s life. Jeanette radiated guilt and remorse, and it appeared that facing the weight of her actions in therapy was a necessary exhaustion before Lane was a woman no longer living under a drug-induced fog, trying not to ask for what she hadn’t earned.

“I’m happy to see you,” Lane said, making Jeanette’s breath catch. “And you look good, Jeanette. You look really good sober.”

“Thank you,” Jeanette managed to get out as tears cascaded down her face.

Lane held the folder in her lap, allowing her fingers to rest on Jeanette’s name.

“I came because of this,” Lane said while Jeanette’s gaze dropped to the folder in confusion.

“I was going through applications today,” Lane continued, “Employment and volunteer applications.”

Jeanette blinked. “Applications?”

“The Full Plate Project.”

Jeanette’s face shifted with more confusion, then nervousness. “I don’t understand. Why would you be going through applications for that? You work there or something?” Her mother questioned.

Lane opened the folder and turned the application toward her. “You applied there.”

Jeanette stared at the paper with her face flushed. “Oh. Yes. I did, but wh—” Jeanette was still talking when Lane asked her why with a bitterness in her tone that made her flinch before she answered.

“Because they helped me,” she said. “The Full Plate Project helped me a lot of times when I was using. When I didn’t have any food and was too ashamed to go anywhere else. Sometimes I went inside, and sometimes I sent somebody else because I didn’t want people seeing me looking like that.” Her voice cracked, “They never made me feel dirty, even when I was.”

Lane’s fingers tightened around the edge of the folder. Jeanette looked down at the application, eyes soft with embarrassment.

“I saw they were hiring and I know I probably won’t get the job because I don’t have much work history that looks good on paper and I know my record isn’t clean. But I thought maybe I could volunteer after discharge. Give back to the same place that never turned me away.”

Lane stared at her mother as she realized how full circle this moment was. Jeanette had eaten because of The Full Plate Project. Jeanette had survived some of her hungriest days because of the place Lane built out of hunger and abandonment. Jeanette had been fed by the daughter she had once failed to feed.

Jeanette looked up slowly. “Lane?”

Lane’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “I founded it, The Full Plate Project,” Lane said, “I own and operate it.”

Jeanette only stared as what Lane said finally registered.

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Lane confirmed, nodding as tears blurred her vision.

Jeanette covered her face with both hands as tears of shame ran free. Her mother’s cries pulled from a place that had gone too long without light, and Lane’s tears joined her.

“Oh God,” Jeanette cried, “Oh my God, Lane, you fed me after I let you go hungry. I didn’t know,” her voice drenched in shame, “I swear I didn’t know. I knew you were doing good because I saw things online after I got here. I saw your name with Nova and that famous rapper’s wife. I didn’t know it was yours; I’ll look for work elsewhere.”

Lane remained quiet, not because she wanted to but because words had escaped her.