She would have accepted fifteen.
If the stranger seemed kind enough, she might have let it go for ten.
She had no idea what a bicycle should cost. She only knew that the pink paint was still pretty, the wheels turned properly, and the little silver bell made a cheerful sound when she pressed it with her thumb.
She also knew that her mother had not eaten a proper meal in two days.
That mattered more than anything else.
The girl was six years old, with straight light-brown hair that fell just below her shoulders, large blue eyes, and the kind of serious expression that made adults occasionally forget how young she was. She wore a sleeveless yellow dress with a small white collar and a pair of sneakers that had been washed so often their original color was difficult to recognize.
Her bicycle stood at the edge of the front lawn.
It was small, pink, and decorated with fading flower stickers. The training wheels had been removed earlier that summer, although one of the pedals still squeaked whenever she rode too quickly.
Across the handlebars, she had tied a piece of cardboard with two lengths of string.
She had written the words herself in thick black marker.
FOR SALE.
The letters were crooked.
The S leaned backward.
And the final E was so large that it nearly touched the cardboard's edge.
She was very proud of the sign.
She had made it while her mother slept.
At least, she hoped her mother was sleeping.
The woman had spent most of the morning sitting beneath the old oak tree beside the porch, wrapped in a thin gray blanket despite the warm autumn weather.
She was thirty-three years old, with tired blue-gray eyes, shoulder-length brown hair, and a face that had once been full of easy laughter. She wore faded jeans, a plain white shirt, and a cardigan with a missing button.
For several months, she had been trying to convince her daughter that everything was going to be all right.
She had said it while stretching half a carton of milk across three breakfasts.