On Sunday morning I spread our household budget across the kitchen counter, the grocery receipts clipped to the utility bill, Lily’s school notice underneath, and Marcus came in and wrote thirty-nine dollars across the front of an envelope and underneath it he wrote the word sneakers.

She needs them now, I asked.

The tape is coming loose again, he said.

I moved the five hundred and fifty dollar transfer line over so it sat beside the ordinary expenses, the way you move one card next to another to see whether they are the same suit.

The electric bill was a hundred and forty-two dollars.

Groceries for the week had been a hundred and sixty-eight.

The school lunch account was forty-eight.