“Wake up, Mom!” I felt a little hand on my face and reluctantly opened my eyes. There was my son, ready to start the day. I also heard my babies awake in the next room. Ready or not, the day had begun!

I loved being home with my little ones, but I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. My husband and I had just bought a house, and some unexpected expenses made our budget tighter than it had ever been. I was weary of spending more pennies. We weren’t foolish with our money. We worked hard. We were doing all the right things, but we had had one financial disappointment after another.

I was going to pick up my kids’ photo portraits from the studio at the local mall. Despite our small budget, it was important to me to have pictures of my children as they were growing up. The previous week, I had found a coupon (优惠券) and used some change from the car to buy a $7.99 portrait package, and today was the day I was to pick up the portraits. Since we were going to the mall, I decided to make it an outing and packed some sandwiches for us to eat at the food court. What’s more, there are many ride-on toy cars in the mall’s food court for fun and for free.

After breakfast, we went off. After we parked, we walked into the portrait studio at the mall, and I approached the counter. The young woman smiled.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to pick up our photos.”

The woman asked my name and opened her drawer. “Ah, yes, here they are. Aren’t they just so adorable?” She took out the photos, and the smiling faces of my kids warmed my heart.

“Yes, they are great. Thank you,” I said.

She put the photos into an envelope. Then she spread out additional photos of my kids that I hadn’t ordered. I knew what that meant. The upsell pitch (推销) was coming.

“Would you like to purchase these extra portraits? They are only fifteen dollars apiece!” she smiled sweetly.

My heart turned cold. “I don’t have fifteen dollars.”

As we were having our lunch, the young woman came up and pressed something into my hand.

My name is Yolanda. Whenever I recall the autumn 20 years ago, my heart is filled with mixed feelings. Joyce, aged 18---just one year older but much taller than me--was my best friend, so do our parents.

“Joyce is a knock out,” Mom would say so. I would have protested if these remarks were on anyone else. But Joyce had her unique charm--the long light hair curled slightly on her temples, the large and beaming eyes; an invariable smile on her cheeks whether in the brilliance of sunshine or in the twilight of dusk--the figure was too graceful for anyone to defend.

Sure enough, that autumn witnessed her fortune take over---signing with a modeling agency, now already doing registration and runway work.

On my 17^th birthday, Father gave me his refurbished (翻新的) SVT Cobra R as he promised--a gift I like most but to be wasted on me for now, as I did not come of age for a driving licence. I promised Dad I would be driving around in a year’s time.

But the urge to have a go had been scratching me.

That weekend, I proposed to drive Joyce to the movie’s downtown as my gift of congratulations on her job offer. She accepted my offer of a ride in my beloved car. I reminded her to put on the lap belt. There we went,putting some fries on the seat between us to share.

It was a purple night, and I was driving my best friend around contentedly. Turning around a curve too fast, before I knew it, I skidded along and hit the guardrail in the middle of the road. My cheekbone cracked on the steering wheel, the car came to a stop with the passenger door open just a few feet from me. There under the moonlight on the path, French fries, the dash (仪表板), and my lap. An impossible amount of blood on Joyce’s face, flaps of skin were hanging out of her eyes...

We were rushed to the hospital in separate ambulances. Later, I learned that I was to recover soon. When I asked about Joyce, my mother hesitated for a moment, then spoke quietly, “She’s all right, but the scar above her eye--best plastic surgeon in the city, but end of her modeling career.”

When her mother, Betty, entered my ward (病房), I burst into tears.                                                              

I had never expected Betty’s forgiveness, which brightened up that autumn, and the rest of our life.