First Class Stamp Read Online Free Page A

Alex grinned. “Even got to keep the change!
Eighty cents!”
    “Well you must be a charmer. I never get tips,” Mr. Manning
chuckled. “Thanks for watching the store for me. You are officially relieved.”
    “Thanks Grandpa,” the boy yelled as he ran from the store,
through the back room and up the stairs to the apartment he shared with his
mother.
    Aldo, Mr. Manning, sat on the stool behind the counter and
waited for the next customer. Saturdays weren’t exceptionally busy. He made his
money during the work week when all the business people stopped in for this or
that to or from work. He’d extended the store hours to accommodate the
customers and his business had profited because of it. He’d opened the store
over thirty years ago and had managed to support his small family relatively
well. With the small insurance check he’d received when his parents died in a
car accident, he and his wife, Gloria, very pregnant with their first, and
only, child Sophia, had bought the building; a small grocery/convenience store
on the ground floor with some basement storage, and three stories above, each
holding one good sized apartment. As skyscrapers and modern high-rises had
risen around them, he’d been made many offers over the years to sell. But Aldo
was happy with the simple and comfortable life he’d made for his family. And in
two more payments he’d have the mortgage paid off and be able to use the
monthly expense for their retirement fund, which they hadn’t started yet. They’d
rented out the top two apartments until just a few weeks ago when Sophia and
Alex had moved back home. They still had renters on the top floor, but his
daughter and grandson had taken the third floor apartment after the divorce and
the scumbag attorney that her ex-husband had hired left her with nothing.
    Willis Grossman had swept Sophia off her feet and convinced
her to marry him. Then, after he’d secured her, like a possession, he’d made
her quit college to help put him through school. Aldo knew that she was blindly
in love with him and would do all he asked. She worked two jobs, barely
sleeping, quickly became pregnant and continued to work up until her water broke
in the middle of the eatery where she worked the evening shift. Four weeks
after Alex was born, Willis had allowed her to quit one of her jobs and
four years later, he’d finally gotten himself a job at a big advertising agency
and Sophia was finally able to stay home and be a full-time mother to their
son. Willis was gone a lot but by then the magic spell had been broken and
Sophia didn’t mind being alone with Alex most of the time. She adored her boy
and concentrated on being the best mother she could be.
    About a year ago, Sophia began seeing the signs of
infidelity. She discovered a second cell phone in a suit pocket and a credit
card statement with hotel expenses in the city, just a few blocks from their
apartment in Tribeca. Instead of confronting him, she enrolled in community
college, hoping to finish her education so she could eventually leave him on
her terms and support her and her son.
    But Aldo knew his son-in-law was a bastard, and Willis filed
for divorce first, hiring a pit-bull of an attorney and controlling all their
joint assets leaving Sophia all but destitute. Fortunately, the tenants on the
third floor had just given their notice to move and Sophia and Alex only had to
be subjected to sharing a bathroom with her parents for two weeks.
    That had been seven weeks ago and only a week after they’d
settled in to their new home, and Alex into his new school, Gloria had been
diagnosed with breast cancer. She’d had a double mastectomy just a week ago and
Sophia was now their angel. She once again dropped out of school, even though
both he and Gloria insisted that she should continue, and was at her mothers’
bedside all day long. When Aldo locked up the store at nine o’clock every
night, Sophia served him dinner, made sure her mother was