The Blue Butterfly Coat, the Hospital Bracelet, and the Price of Dignity

That later that night I would be folding sheets at a motel off the highway until almost two in the morning.

I could have told her my name was April, that I was thirty-four, and that I had not sat down long enough to watch a full movie in three years.

I could have told her their father left with a duffel bag and a promise to “get himself together,” and that the promise was now older than my youngest child.

I could have told her I don’t remember the last time I bought something that wasn’t needed by someone else first.

But people who say things like that are not asking.