The Seventh Ward was doing what it always did at midnight: surviving. Music thumped from somebody’s house three blocks over. A car alarm went off and stopped. Dogs barked. The streetlight in front of Mama’s house flickered like it was just as tired as my ass.
I knew the feeling.
I climbed the three steps to the porch, key already in my hand. The screen door didn’t close all the way—hadn’t closed right since Katrina—so I had to pull it shut behind me. Inside, the house smelled like Pine-Sol and whatever Mama was drinking tonight. Probably that bottom-shelf vodka she kept in the freezer that she dared anyone to touch.
The living room was dark except for the glow from the kitchen. I could hear ice clinking in a glass.
I dropped my bag by the door, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed onto the couch—the one with the sunken middle cushion that had been broken since the flood. My whole body sank into it like the couch was trying to swallow me whole.
I pulled out my phone.
The screen was so cracked. It looked like somebody had taken a hammer to my whole damn life. But it still worked, barely, and I opened my banking app first because I was a glutton for punishment.
Checking Account Balance: $47.23
I stared at those numbers until they stopped making sense.
Forty-seven dollars and twenty-three cents. That’s what I had left after rent (Mama charged me $200 a month because pride wouldn’t let her take more), after the payment plan with the divorce lawyer, after groceries and the phone bill and everything else that kept me barely breathing.
I closed the app and opened the job listings.
Babysitting. $12/hour. Must have references.
Dog walking. Flexible hours. $10/hour.
Plasma donation center. Earn up to $400/month.
I’d already done plasma twice this month. The nurse told me my veins needed a break. My whole body was tired.
I kept scrolling.
House cleaning. $15/hour. Must have own transportation.
I didn’t have transportation.
Data entry. Remote. $12/hour.
I’d applied to six of those already. Nobody called back.
Egg donation. Compensation up to $8,000.
I paused. Stared at that one.
Eight thousand dollars for my eggs. I’d thought about it before, back when things first got bad. But eight thousand wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t cover what I owed. Wouldn’t get me out ofthis house. Wouldn’t give me a life that didn’t taste like failure every time I woke up.
I kept scrolling.
And that’s when I saw it.
The ad loaded slowly, my cracked screen making the image glitch and reform. But the words were clear enough:
GESTATIONAL SURROGATE NEEDED
Compensation: $250,000
Confidential. Discreet. Serious inquiries only.
My thumb froze.
