Rain stung my face as I crouched beside the old beggar, his trembling hands wrapped around himself like broken twigs. The noodle cart was closing, but I bought a bowl anyway—steam cutting through the cold. "Eat," I said, pressing it into his grasp. His eyes met mine, glassy with pain, yet piercing, like he saw everything I’d become.

Across the street, my brother Kenji sped past in his black sedan, windows tinted, oblivious. If he’d seen me—kneeling in the gutter, feeding trash—he’d have disowned me all over again.

The beggar whispered, "You’re the only one who stopped." Something in his voice cracked open a memory. My father used to say that exact phrase… before he erased me from the family.

That night, the lawyers came. A new will. My name at the top. And a note: "She gave me more than food. She gave me hope."