Marcus slept in a nest of blankets and couch cushions in the kitchen. The heater in his bedroom had failed two weeks earlier, and she could not afford repairs, so she kept him near the stove for warmth. Unpaid bills stacked up. The house, set apart at the end of Maple Street by a vacant lot, seemed pushed to the margins—much like she felt in her own neighborhood. Some white families in the nicer homes down the street rarely acknowledged her; when they did, it was with wary glances and abruptly halted whispers.
“Why did you have to leave us, Jerome?” she asked the quiet room. Her ex-husband had left eight months before, saying he needed to “find himself,” ultimately moving in with a 23-year-old waitress in Tennessee and ignoring child-support obligations. Divorce papers, stamped in red, sat in a folder on top of the fridge.
Her phone buzzed. A text from her cleaning-company manager read: “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow. We’re letting you go. Your kid was crying too much during your shift yesterday. Customers complained.” It was her third job lost in two months: the laundromat had dismissed her when Marcus fell ill and she brought him along; the diner had let her go after she nodded off during an 18-hour stretch between multiple shifts. Daycare, at $200 a week, was out of reach. Her mother—the only person who fully understood her struggles—had died three years earlier.
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