Like an unsuspecting deer staring at the hunter’s riffle, her eyes were fixed on mine. Clearing my throat, I asked if she were accustomed to a middle-class lifestyle. “For Christ’s sake Freddie. I’m staying at the roadside with my daughter. It’s been twenty-seven years since I left my comfortable middle-class family back in Kansas City. I was young and in love with Joe back then. My parents warned me about marrying a penniless working man. At that age, I didn’t care about money and status. Now I’m in trouble and too ashamed to ask my mom for money. When I was first married, he was an honest working man. Hard times in the mines broke him. He turned to alcohol and struck back at his family.”
Jane believed the American dream would fall on her lap as it did for her parents. Before she realize
