I rang my son and told him the heart medication had come in higher than I expected and that I was a little short. Marcus used the voice he keeps for customers with poor credit and told me he could not keep enabling this behaviour and that I needed to live within my means. Then the line went dead. Bridget texted back that she was strapped and sure I would be okay. Neither of them asked whether I was unwell. I had raised them alone on double shifts at Halloran’s, bought their first cars, and paid off loans they told people they had handled themselves.
Then Elias rang. Twenty two years old, four hundred dollars to his name, and he drove two hundred and fifty miles that night with groceries and an envelope so I would not worry.
