"But I don't want you to go."
The words come out in a whisper, hoarse with vulnerability I've spent years burying. It's the first time I've said what Iwantinstead of what Ifear.It feels like the ground disappearing beneath my feet.
"I don't want you to go. And that terrifies me more than losing my job, more than Easton's threats, more than anything." My voice cracks completely. "Because I know how this story ends."
The trembling starts in my hands and spreads through my entire body like an earthquake. I can't stop it. Can't control it. Can't do anything but let the memories pour out like poison from a wound.
"I was eight years old," I whisper, and suddenly I'm not in my apartment anymore. I'm standing in our old kitchen,clutching my Barbie lunchbox, home from another day of pretending everything was normal.
The house is too quiet.
That's the first thing I notice when I push through the front door, my backpack heavy with homework I'm excited to show Mom. Usually, there's music playing—she always has the radio on while she does the dishes or folds laundry. But today, there's nothing. Just this thick, cottony silence that makes my ears feel funny.
"Mom?" I call out, dropping my backpack by the door the way she's always telling me not to. "I'm home!"
No answer.
The afternoon sunlight slants through the kitchen windows at the wrong angle, casting everything in this golden, underwater glow that makes the familiar feel strange. The coffee pot is still on from this morning, the bottom of the glass carafe burned black and filling the air with the bitter smell of something ruined. I reach up on my tiptoes to turn it off, the way she taught me, because leaving things on is dangerous.
That's when I see her.
Mom is sitting on the kitchen floor in her nightgown—the pink one with tiny flowers that she only wears to bed. It's three in the afternoon. I know because the big hand is on the six and the little hand is almost on the three, and that means it's time for my after-school snack.
She's not crying. She's not doing anything. Just sitting there with her back against the cabinets, staring at the wall like there's something really interesting written there that only she can see.
"Mom?" I drop my lunchbox, and it clatters against the linoleum. The sound echoes in the weird quiet, but she doesn't even blink. "Are you okay?"
I kneel down beside her, the cold from the floor seeping through my school dress. Up close, I can see that her eyes are open, but they look... empty. Unfocused and utterly blank, like she's not looking at anything at all.
"Did you hurt yourself?" I ask, because maybe she fell down and can't get up. Sometimes grown-ups fall down. "Do you need a Band-Aid?"
Nothing. She doesn't even look at me.
A scary feeling starts growing in my stomach, like when you're on a swing and you go too high and suddenly you're not sure if the chains will hold. I wave my hand in front of her face, the way kids at school do when they're trying to be annoying, but she doesn't react.
"I'm hungry," I tell her, because maybe that will make her remember she's supposed to take care of me. "Can I have a snack?"
Still nothing.
So I get up and make myself a peanut butter sandwich, standing on the step stool to reach the counter. I put it on my special plate—the one with the rainbow—and I sit at the kitchen table to eat it. The chair feels too big, and my feet don't touch the floor, so they swing back and forth while I chew.
Mom doesn't move.
I do my math homework at the table, writing the numbers carefully the way Mrs. Peterson taught us. Seven plus five equals twelve. Nine plus three equals twelve. When I get stuck on a hard one, I look over at Mom to see if she'll help, but she's still just... sitting there.
The shadows in the kitchen get longer and darker. My stomach starts growling again, but Mom hasn't moved to start dinner. She always starts dinner by now. Always.
That's when I notice the papers scattered on the counter—white envelopes with red writing that says things like FINAL NOTICE and PAST DUE. I can't read all the words, but I know red writing means something bad. It means you're in trouble.
I climb down from my chair and walk over to Mom again, these papers clutched in my small hands.
"Mom, there's scary mail," I say, my voice smaller now, because the feeling in my stomach is getting bigger and scarier. "The red kind that makes you upset."
But she doesn't answer. Doesn't even look at the papers. Just keeps staring at that empty wall with those empty eyes.
And that's when I understand, with the terrible clarity that sometimes comes to children in moments like this: Daddy isn't coming home. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. And Mom... Mom is broken. Like a toy that stops working, or a TV that only shows static.
I'm going to have to take care of everything now. The bills with the red writing. The dinner that needs to be made. The bedtime stories and the good-morning hugs and all the things that make a house feel like home instead of just a place where broken people sit on kitchen floors.
