Chapter 1 – Love is All We Need

Please help. Single Father with Young Daughter. Deadbeat Mother.

I waved that sign around as I sat in the November cold on the bridge connecting Metrotown Skytrain Station and Metrotown Mall.

Hordes of people passed me, but they did not look me in the eyes. They merely walked on.

A little while later, a middle-aged man in a thick winter coat and a scarf approached, sneering.

“What is this? Some sort of scam?” he said. “You need money for drugs or booze?”

“It’s no scam, sir.”

“Get a job, you bum!”

He scowled, and hurried past me.

I stared at a piece of gum on the dirty ground.

“I would if I could,” I muttered, my stomach rumbling.

In another little while, a red-haired young man my age approached me. He was holding a burger from A&W.

I looked up in excitement as my stomach roared even louder. It was 3pm and I had not eaten yet.

The guy handed the burger to me and just as I was about to take it, he yanked it out of my grasp.

“Psych!” he shouted, and then howled with laughter.

I brushed it off. This was my reality. I was used to it.

I stared at the meager change in my cap. There were only $3 in there and $2 was from me.

An icy wind brushed past me and I shivered in my hoodie and faded jeans.

I glanced at my watch. 3:15 pm. My daughter would be out of class soon. I needed to go.