The number still doesn't feel real. In two weeks, I'll have earned more than I made in two months of catering gigs and temp work combined. Enough to make this month's payment. Enough for groceries that aren't ramen and peanut butter sandwiches. Enough for?—
The playground.
The plan crystallises, sharp and sweet. There's a park about twenty minutes from our apartment. Nice neighbourhood, actual grass instead of concrete, a coffee shop right across the street with outdoor seating where I can watch Lily play.
I've walked past it dozens of times. Watched other mothers sit with their lattes while their kids climbed and swung and screamed with joy. Told myself someday while counting pennies for bus fare.
Tomorrow, someday becomes today.
I'm going to buy an overpriced coffee. Maybe a pastry. Something with chocolate that I don't have to share—though Iabsolutely will share because Lily's puppy eyes are weapons of mass destruction.
And Saturday...
Saturday, we're going to the zoo.
Lily's been asking for months. Years, maybe. Ever since she saw a nature documentary about penguins and decided they were her "best animal friends." I've made a hundred excuses. Maybe next month, baby. When Mommy has more money. When things settle down.
Things never settled down. Money never appeared. And my daughter learned to stop asking.
But this Saturday, we're going. I've already looked up ticket prices. Mapped out the route. Planned which exhibits to hit first based on Lily's animal ranking system, which changes daily but always includes penguins in the top three.
We're going to eat overpriced hot dogs and buy a stuffed penguin from the gift shop and take a hundred photos that I'll actually get printed instead of letting them rot in my phone's memory.
This is what normal feels like, I think. This is what I've been fighting for.
The tears catch me off guard. Hot and sudden, sliding down my temples into my hair.
Not sad tears. Not this time.
These are the other kind. The ones that come when you've been holding your breath so long you forgot you were drowning, and suddenly your head breaks the surface.
I can breathe.
Nico
The compound sounds different with a child in it.
I notice it the moment I step out of my office at noon. Laughter. Small, bright, completely out of place in these halls.
Kristen never texted back last night. After I told her to bring Lily, nothing. Radio silence. I stared at those messages for twenty minutes before I threw my phone across the room.
Pathetic.
I've been avoiding her all morning. Easy enough when she's been doing the same. After yesterday we've developed an unspoken agreement. She takes the east wing. I take the west. We don't cross paths.
It's efficient and logical.
I hate it.
The laughter comes again, echoing from the corridor that leads to Bruno's wing. My blood runs cold.
Bruno's wing.
Where my brother sits in his wheelchair and sharpens his cruelty like a blade, waiting for someone stupid enough to wander close.
I move fast, feet silent on the floor. Tactical awareness kicks in calculating how quickly I can get between Bruno and a four-year-old if he decides to?—
I stop dead.
