She leaned her head against my shoulder.
“I don’t know how to stop worrying.”
“You don’t have to stop worrying. You just have to remember that I am still a person. I have a life to live, even now.”
“Even now,” she repeated.
“Especially now.”
She laughed softly.
That afternoon, after they left, I sat on my porch swing with a blanket across my knees.
I thought about Dale. I thought about the years we had spent working hard, saving what we could, and raising a daughter who believed she had to solve every problem herself.
I thought about the number on Todd’s paper.
Eight hundred dollars.
It had seemed so small when I first looked at it. Just a figure. A reasonable figure, perhaps, for a room, a share of groceries, and a few hours of childcare.
But it had carried a question neither of them had known how to ask.
