Chapter 9 - Not Their Second Mother
I didn't sleep after that text.
I kept seeing Lila and Jo carrying backpacks onto a sidewalk, wondering where they'd go.
Renee found me at the kitchen table at three in the morning, drawing a budget on a napkin.
"What are you doing?"
"Figuring out how much money Mom needs if I work weekends."
"To pay for the equipment she put in your name?"
"To keep the girls in their house."
Renee sat across from me.
"Those are two different problems, Zarya."
"They don't feel different."
"I know. That's how she keeps handing them to you."
For a while, we listened to a freight train moving through town.
Then Renee told me something I'd never known.
After Dad died, she'd offered to take the girls on school afternoons while Mom worked.
Mom refused.
"She said help always came with conditions," Renee said.
"She didn't want anyone seeing how badly she was struggling."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I thought she was handling things. I should have looked harder."
The next morning, I called Mom with Renee beside me.
"I can help you apply for childcare assistance," I said.
"And Renee knows people who work events."
"I don't need strangers raising my children."
"You let me raise them."
A long silence followed.
"You're too young to understand sacrifice," Mom finally said.
I looked at Dad's notebook open beside my breakfast.
"I understand it better than you think."
"Then come home until Christmas."
"No."
She hung up.
Later, the lender's fraud investigator called to arrange a recorded statement.
She'd reviewed my employment verification letter.
May you like
"We have a question about the income figure," she said.
"Your reported salary wasn't the only thing that appears to have been invented."
