It came out haltingly at first, and then all at once, the way water comes through a crack that has finally given way, and I could not have stopped it if I had tried.

I told him about Caleb, about the eight years of night shifts and skipped meals, about the surgery my son needed and the number on that single sheet of paper, a number with more zeroes than I would earn in many years of scrubbing floors.

I told him that I lay awake at night doing arithmetic that never came out right, and that every time the hospital called I was afraid it was to tell me we had run out of time.

I heard my own voice shake as I said it, and I was ashamed, because I had learned long ago not to lay my burdens at other people’s feet.