An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny

The apartment that Maurice shares with his grandmother becomes a veritable squatters’ den, filled with friends, relatives, junkies, and drunks. Maurice decides he has to get out and starts living on the streets. His life takes on a strange but predictable rhythm, with him begging for change to get into the movie theater where he is able to safely sleep for a few hours. Eventually, Maurice gets tired of begging and decides he needs to earn money on his own. He doesn’t want to sell drugs, having seen where that leads, so he gets a job as a courier and starts also selling designer knock off jeans. He earns enough to rent a room at a motel where he has his own bed and a shower.

His Mondays with Schroff continue, although her life is also changing in complicated ways. Michaels warms up to Maurice, but only a bit. They never become friends in a sincere and meaningful way. Michael also drops a bombshell—he doesn’t want children and is not willing to even discuss the issue. Schroff is heartbroken, and the loss of the family she dreamed of is more heartbreaking than the loss of her father, who passes away from lung cancer after years of smoking.