On the last page I wrote a sentence I hoped my son would one day understand: Someone can offer you help without acquiring the right to decide your life.

The next morning, my accounting supervisor offered me a few more hours each week.

I arranged them around childcare, accepted without apologizing for needing the income, and made my first budget that included a small line marked emergency savings.

It contained only twenty-five dollars.

I stared at the figure for a long time.

Four months earlier I might have mocked myself for celebrating such an amount.

Now it felt like a small door I had opened with my own hand.