I remember the day I opened that account, clear as yesterday. It was 2005. Tuesday, 11 AM, right after my shift on the new bridge project, the one over the old canal. I went to the bank on Main Street, the one with the broken clock that always said 3:15. Sat down with a teller named Brenda, a kid barely out of high school. Told her it was for "incidentals." Bullshit, of course. It was for Maria. Every single penny. Every month, for years. Twenty-three hundred a semester, then twenty-five hundred, then three thousand. For her engineering degree. My little sister. She was so bright, always had her nose in a book, even on our old man’s job sites, covered in dust and concrete. She deserved more than what we got. And I swore to God, she’d get it, no matter what it took. My wife… she doesn't know the full extent of it. She knows I’ve helped out, sure. A few hundred here, a grand there for "books." But the actual number? The cumulative total? She’d have a fucking aneurysm. She’d say we needed it for us. For our retirement. For the house. For *her* new car. And yeah, I get it, logically. We weren’t rich. Far from it. I swung a hammer for thirty years, my back is permanently bent, every single day I ache. But Maria… she was our chance. My chance to do something good, something truly selfless, without all the fanfare. I couldn't bear to see her struggle, not when I could do something about it. Not when I could just… fix it. Every damn time. Now, she's a goddamn structural engineer, designing buildings, making real money. And I'm here, retired, watching TV, feeling every ache in my bones, still taking care of everything around here. Making sure the bills are paid, the house is clean, the groceries are bought. My wife complains about the price of eggs. And I just sit there, sipping my lukewarm coffee at 4:30 AM, watching the sun come up over the same damn houses I built, and I don't regret it. Not one bit. But sometimes… sometimes I just want someone to know. Someone to understand what it cost me. What it cost *us*. But I can't. Never could. So here I am, typing this out, a secret even the internet will forget. Every single day, every day.