6. My first side hustle

Chapter 6: My first side hustle

November 5, 2019.

It was the Fifth of November, still in the year of 2019. I was seated next to my father’s hospital bed. It had been two agonizing weeks since he got burnt in the fire. And he was still unconscious. Despite the tireless efforts of the medical staff, he remained ensnared in the grips of a deep and unyielding coma. The doctors didn’t know if he would survive or not.

In the beginning, the doctors had offered a glimmer of hope—a fifty-fifty chance, they had said. But as the days stretched into weeks, that hope dwindled like a flickering flame in the wind. Now, the odds were stacked against us, his possibility of waking reduced to a meager twenty percent.

My mother was starting to lose hope. She had not slept in days because her jobs were so hectic. With three jobs to juggle and the added burden of caring for our family in the wake of the tragedy, sleep had become a luxury my mother could ill afford. The dark circles were very visible under