All I had left was loose change.

Standing under the red canvas pharmacy awning, I looked out at the wet pavement of Lane Avenue.

Mark had insisted on cash payments on the first of every month, telling me that bank transfers created unnecessary tax complications for his personal accounting.

I stood there in the drizzle and saw the truth he had been hiding behind his corporate talk.

Cash payments left no paper trail in any bank system to prove a mother was paying her own rent or funding her own health insurance.