Chapter 1 - The Call No Mother Should Get
My four-year-old daughter was in the ICU, and nobody from my family had come.
Not my mother. Not my father. Not my brother Jason, whose wedding I had helped rescue a month earlier when his venue suddenly demanded twelve hundred dollars by Friday.
Two days into Layla's ICU stay, the nurse was the first person who asked if I had eaten.
Andrea set a wrapped turkey sandwich beside my coffee and said, "Claire, you need something in your body. Even if it's three bites."
I looked at Layla instead.
Her small fingers rested inside mine, the pale-pink polish she had painted herself chipped at the edges. Oxygen moved softly through the mask over her face. Every steady beep from the monitor felt like permission to keep breathing.
"I'm fine," I whispered.
Andrea gave me the look nurses give people who are obviously not fine but don't have the energy to argue.
My phone vibrated against the metal table.
For one foolish second, hope lifted my chest.
Mom.
Maybe she was finally asking about Layla.
I opened the message.
Can you help with Jason's honeymoon fund? Five thousand should do. We need it today.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
No How is Layla?
No Are you sleeping?
No Do you need anything?
Five thousand dollars.
I turned the phone facedown.
It started vibrating again.
Dad.
I ignored it.
He called again.
And again.
By sunrise, there were sixteen missed calls.
When Layla finally settled into a deeper sleep, I answered the seventeenth.
My father's voice hit my ear without hello.
"We need your Social Security number."
I stared at my daughter.
"What?"
"Don't make this difficult, Claire. Jason's bank needs to verify something."
"Why would Jason's bank need my Social Security number?"
A pause.
Not long.
Just long enough to scare me.
Then Dad said, "We already put your name on the application."
My hand went cold around the phone.
"You did what?"
Andrea stopped near the doorway.
Dad lowered his voice as if I were the unreasonable one.
"It's temporary. We just need the number to finish it."
I stood so fast the chair legs scraped the floor.
Layla stirred.
I froze, instantly turning back to her.
"Mommy?" she breathed through the mask.
"I'm here, baby. I'm right here."
I covered the phone with my hand and leaned close until her fingers tightened around mine.
Then I lifted the phone again.
"Dad," I said quietly, "tell me exactly what you put my name on."
He exhaled.
May you like
And when he answered, my family problem became something much bigger.
"A loan," he said. "For forty-eight thousand dollars."
