The Boat Left at the River

In a small optometrist’s office on a bright, unhurried morning, a receptionist named Marisol meets a mother whose son’s glasses have broken and whose insurance will not renew for another eleven weeks. Between a policy page nobody wants to read aloud and a box of donated frames on a lower shelf, Marisol remembers that rules are only boats meant to carry us across a river, and that no one is required to carry the boat afterward.