“You’re a mother,” Diane said.
“If you’re a good mother, you’ll figure it out.”
The words hit me so hard I actually looked around like someone else must have said them.
Robert cleared his throat.
“Thirty days. That’s reasonable,” he said.
“We’re not monsters.”
I wanted to scream, but screaming never helped in that apartment. It just gave them something to point at later.
So I nodded.
“Okay.”
And I tried.
I looked at listings during my breaks at the hospital, my thumbs scrolling while I gulped cafeteria coffee. I called places. I got told the same thing over and over.
First and last month. Deposit. Proof of income. Credit check.
Sorry, we chose another applicant.
Every day I felt like I was running uphill with Laya on my back.
And then came the night they decided thirty days was actually a suggestion.
It was after a late shift. I’d helped a confused elderly man back into bed three times, cleaned up a spilled tray, and held a woman’s hand while she cried because she was scared of surgery.
I came home after midnight.
The hallway light outside my parents’ apartment was on. My stomach tightened immediately.
Two cardboard boxes sat outside the door.
My boxes.
I stared at them for a long second like my brain refused to accept the shape of what I was seeing.
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