Time rolled on without permission, bringing change after change that weighed ever heavier on Firman’s small shoulders. Three years had passed since Rizka’s selfish departure. Firman had grown into a twelve-year-old pre-teen. His body was thin and lanky from meager nutrition, but his eyes radiated a quiet resolve that other children his age simply didn't possess.

During those three years, not a single letter, phone call, or sent penny came from the next town. Rizka had truly kept her promise: to bury Firman and her past deep underground, as though they had never existed in this world.

Yet the real punishment of poverty fell entirely upon Grandmother Sumarni and Firman.

That morning, a heavy, hacking cough echoed once again from Grandma's bedroom. It was dry, painful, and always ended with a breathless rasp. Firman, who was buttoning his outgrown middle-school uniform that sat awkwardly short on his wrists and ankles, immediately hurried his movements.

He rushed into the kitchen, poured warm water into a glass, and stepped into her room.

"Grandma... take your medicine first," Firman whispered, kneeling beside the sagging cotton mattress.

Grandmother Sumarni slowly opened her eyes. Her once-strong face had grown hollow, her pale skin dotted with age spots. Her wrinkled hands trembled violently as she tried to reach for the glass. Firman quickly supported the base of the cup, helping her sip carefully.

"Thank you, Firman..." Grandma’s voice was terribly raspy, barely more than a whisper in the wind.

Firman stared blankly at the bedside table. The tin can where she kept her pension money sat completely empty. Ever since Rizka left, the meager widow's pension had to be split two ways—for their food and her increasingly expensive medicine. Chronic lung disease was slowly consuming her aging body without mercy.

"Don't worry, Grandma. I don't need allowance money today. We have group work at school, so I can just ask for water at the canteen," Firman lied, forcing a smile so she wouldn't feel guilty.

Grandmother Sumarni looked at her grandson's face—the boy who was legally her son on paper. Tears slowly leaked from the corners of her crusty eyes. She reached out, clasping his hand with what little strength she had left.

"Firman... I'm so sorry... I just don't have the strength anymore," she whispered, her voice shaking with profound guilt.

"What are you saying, Grandma? You're going to get better. Once I graduate, I'll get a job and buy you the best medicine," Firman replied, trying to hold back the tremor in his own voice. Panic surged in his chest at the terrifying thought of losing his only pillar of support.

Grandmother Sumarni only shook her head softly. She knew her body's limits. She knew her health would never last long enough to see Firman grow into a man. Worse yet, months of unpaid water, electricity, and rent bills had stacked up. They were on the verge of eviction.

That afternoon, that bitter reality manifested in its cruelest form.

Firman had just walked three kilometers home from school to save on bus fare. As he rounded the corner into his alley, he saw several neighbors standing around, watching the house. Out on the porch, a few pieces of their furniture—a cracked wooden table, a rusted kerosene stove, and a few plastic buckets—had already been hauled into the yard.

A stocky, middle-aged man—the landlord—stood by the doorway with his arms crossed.

"I gave you a three-month grace period, Mrs. Sumarni! But I need money to feed my own family too! If you can't pay the remaining back rent today, you have to pack up and clear out!" the landlord barked coldly.

Grandmother Sumarni stood at the threshold, holding onto the wooden doorframe to keep from collapsing. She wept, pleading in broken gasps brought on by her shortness of breath.

"Please, sir... give us until the end of the month... my pension will come through..." she wailed.

"No way! Every month it's the same excuse! Your daughter who worked doing laundry ran off God knows where, didn't she? Leaving you with the burden of a kid! I don't care—get your things out now!"

Hearing those insults made Firman's blood boil. He sprinted through the crowd of neighbors and threw himself in front of his grandmother, spreading his thin arms wide to shield her.

"Don't you yell at my Grandma!" Firman shouted, his eyes rimmed red with rage and trampled pride. "We'll leave! We won't beg here anymore!"

The landlord let out a sharp sneer. "Glad you know your place! Look at this little brat playing the hero."

The spectating neighbors only whispered among themselves. A few looked on with pity, but not a single hand reached out to help. In this harsh world, poverty was a contagious disease everyone feared.

That night, they were forced to sleep in a storage shed behind the house of a kind resident who granted them a few days to pack their belongings. Inside the muggy, dark, dust-scented shed, Grandmother Sumarni sat leaned against a stack of old cardboard boxes.

Firman lit a small candle—their only source of light. The dim glow cast long shadows of two souls cast aside by fate.

Grandmother Sumarni watched Firman painstakingly pack his school uniforms into a cardboard box. The boy didn't complain. He didn't cry the way he used to when he was nine. The twelve-year-old before her seemed to have accepted that his life was simply destined for hardship.

And it was precisely his silent resilience that tore her heart to pieces.

I am too old, sickly, and now we are homeless, she thought bitterly. If I selfishly force him to stay by my side, this child will have no future. He'll drop out of school, end up a day laborer, or scavenge in the streets. I can't let his entire future be ruined just for my sake.

A momentous decision—terribly bitter yet grounded in reality—finally crystallized in her mind. A choice made not out of hatred, but out of an overwhelming love wrapped in the desperation of an old woman too exhausted to fight fate any longer.

"Firman..." she called softly, staring straight into his eyes.

Firman turned around, pausing his work. "Yes, Grandma?"

"Tomorrow... come with me, alright? We're going somewhere better for you," she said, her tears slowly falling, shimmering under the flickering candlelight.

Firman didn't ask where. He simply gave a quiet nod. Deep down in his heart, he already had a sinking feeling that the place she spoke of was where their journey together would draw to its final close.