Emma sat in the middle of her braided rug, holding Barnaby, her stuffed purple rabbit, tightly by his left ear.

“Are we packing for a long trip, Mommy?” she asked.

“We’re getting our things ready for a new place,” I told her.

I pulled a strip of brown packing tape across the top flaps of a box and pressed the sticky seal down with the heel of my hand.

In seven hours my mother had methodically torn down every support I’d built over the past three years.

My summer prep contract at the elementary school was frozen, putting my forty-four-thousand-dollar yearly salary at risk.