Chapter 2Bank Statements and Broken Vows

Eleanor rarely called me.

It wasn't until Lily’s first winter that my phone rang with her name on it. It rang twice, then hung up.

I called back. It took a long time for her to answer.

Her voice sounded hesitant. "Do you guys... have enough to get by right now?"

I was squatting on the kitchen floor, scraping up a bowl of baby puree Lily had thrown from her highchair. My hands were sticky. I pinned the phone between my ear and my shoulder.

"We're fine, Eleanor. Mark’s salary covers it."

I made sure my voice sounded light, effortless.

Eleanor was quiet for a moment. "That’s good. If you ever need anything, you tell me."

I said okay, and thank you.

When I hung up, I put the phone on the counter and knelt back down on the linoleum. I kept wiping at the spilled food, and as I scrubbed, tears began to drop silently onto the wet paper towel.

In the living room, Lily pulled herself up using the edge of the sofa. "Mama, look!"

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, stood up, and walked over, crouching beside her and clapping. "Good job, baby."

When Mark got home that night, he asked what his mother had called about. I told him she was checking if we had enough money.

Mark tossed his jacket over a chair. "Don't pay attention to her. It’s just lip service. If you actually ask her for anything, she'll think you’re after her money. Stop answering her calls. It just annoys her."

I froze. "She thinks I’m annoying?"

"Obviously. You know how she is. She’s terrified people are trying to bleed her dry."

Eleanor never called again, and I never reached out.

By the time Lily was two and a half, I hit the bottom of my savings account.

Forty thousand dollars. Gone.

I told Mark I was going to visit my parents for a few days, but really, I went to hustle for freelance editing jobs. I left Lily with my mom and spent the days taking meetings, picking up quick corporate video edits on Upwork. A few hundred bucks a pop. I did that for two months just to scrape together enough for the next quarter's mortgage payments.

During that time, Mark would occasionally bring home a carton of milk or some fruit, but he never mentioned his paycheck.

I didn't ask. I knew the answers by heart: the company was withholding pay, or he had to entertain clients, or it was just gone.

When Lily turned three, I started taking on steady remote work. Data entry, graphic design overflow. Lily would color on the floor beside me while I stared at my monitor for hours on end. The money wasn't great, but it kept the lights on and food in the fridge.

Now Lily was four, ready for preschool. The local public pre-K had a waitlist a mile long. The private ones ran over a thousand a month. I toured four places and picked the cheapest one—with tuition and enrollment fees, it came out to just under three thousand dollars for the first semester.

I checked my banking app. I had $1,400. I scraped together my Venmo balance and a spare credit card, getting up to $2,000. I was still short by nearly a grand.

I sat on the living room rug for an entire evening, running the math over and over. There was no way around it.