It was from Monarch Hospice, the organization that I had emailed my résumé to. My heart racing, I opened it.

Thank you for submitting your résumé for the Social Worker position at Monarch Hospice. Your qualifications are very impressive, and we would be interested in setting up a phone interview with the Hiring Manager sometime next week. Please let us know some dates and times that work with your schedule, and we look forward to speaking with you.

Holy shit. They wanted to interview me. Next week.

A foot in the door, maybe. A chance, an opportunity to show what I could do. Or at least what I thought I could do.

I mentally calculated the time I would need to prep. I hoped Jess wasn’t too annoyed by Emily and Jack, because I would need to lean on her and Melissa to help with the kids while I got everything together. A pang in my heart reminded me of Liz, how if she were her normal self, she would scoop up my kids and take them all day—for ice cream, to make homemade crafts, to watch a movie in her backyard. All without complaints. I had joked one time that my kids could burn her house down, and she would cover for them and take the blame.

I smiled, feeling the excitement run through my bones as I forgot about the moment in the toy aisle. This was more than a chance, more than a job opportunity. It felt almost like a calling.

Before I could get too deep into my elation, I spotted another Winchester Elementary mom and sped my cart after her.

“Joelle! How are you?”

—

Twenty minutes later, I left Target, feeling dejected. Joelle had pretended she was on a phone call when I got her attention, no doubt intuiting that I was actively searching for help. Although it was sort of funny when her phone rang while she pretended to talk into it.

I needed help, and my next move was to tell Jess and Melissa that their husbands had to run some of the games. They wouldn’t be thrilled, either, since they would want to take their own kids around to the booths, but desperate times and all that.

I pulled down Maple Leaf Drive, and the first thing I saw was a gaggle of children running down the sidewalk, screaming. As I drove closer, I recognized the screams as ones of terror, rather than summer afternoon shenanigans.

I stopped the car in front of Jess’s house, where the group was headed, and got out of the car. Jess ran out of her house dressed in a sports bra and workout bike shorts, hands in the air. The children, Emily, Jack, Summer, and Melissa’s twins, all crowded around her, talking at once.

“What’s going on?” I said as I jogged across the grass.