“I know.

I needed to say it out loud.”

Before leaving, he took an old cereal box from my pantry and wrote their names on it in thick marker: EMERGENCY SNACK FUND.

Then he deposited three crumpled dollar bills.

“That’s not how budgeting works,” I told him.

“It’s a start,” he said.

When Austin came back, he found the box and immediately contributed a quarter.

I had never been so relieved to hear two boys argue over twenty-five cents.