Chapter 11 — The Credit Cards

Meanwhile, the bills kept arriving, because the bills always keep arriving, and a baby was coming, and my brother could not stop any of it without confessing the thing he could not bring himself to confess.

Lauren believed, all through those months, that Ethan was still earning his normal salary, still going to the office every day, still the steady provider he had long been.

So the two of them went right on preparing for their child exactly as they had planned — buying the crib, furnishing the nursery, keeping the medical appointments, laying in all the small supplies a new baby needs.