My eldest daughter, Lily, stood at the kitchen counter waving a spoon in the air, her voice cutting through the morning chaos. I blinked, dragged back from the spiral in my head, and took in the scene around me.
Cereal bowls clinked together. Juice pooled across the table. The twins argued over the last waffle. My youngest darted in circles, laughing as the dog skidded across the linoleum trying to escape tiny hands.
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” I said, forcing a smile I’d perfected over the last two years.
But I wasn’t fine. Not even close.
Ever since my husband, Ben, died suddenly two years earlier, I’d been holding our family together with grit and sheer stubbornness. Raising five children alone felt like standing in the eye of a hurricane—brief moments of calm swallowed by relentless storms.
The rent was months behind. The lights flickered nightly, a warning I couldn’t ignore. I’d pawned wedding jewelry, sold furniture, skipped meals so the kids wouldn’t have to. And now the final blow had landed.
