Eli gives a long, jaw-cracking yawn. Rubs his eyes. What looked to me like intoxication becomes exhaustion.

“You okay? Dreams?”

Eli shakes his head. “Nah. I stayed up too late.”

“Doing homework or reading internet forums?” His sheepish look tells me the answer he doesn’t need to say aloud. I laugh, relieved. “Why do you do that to yourself?”

“I can’t help it,” he replies honestly. “I get sucked in and have to read all the updates.”

If I ask him about the forums he’s subscribed to, that will reveal the low-level stalking I did on his old laptop, so I pretend I don’t know. “Anything interesting?”

“True crime stuff, mostly,” he says.

“Too scary for me.”

He shrugs again.

“You’d better get moving.”

He looks over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. “Yeah, shoot. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Hungry?” I ask him when he comes into the kitchen to fill his insulated cup.

He yawns again. “Nah. Thanks, though. Don’t forget, the concert’s tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“You said I could go,” he begins, but I wave him quiet.

He looks wary. He looks like me. He has his father’s hair and eyes, but the set of his mouth is mine. So’s the expression.

“I didn’t remember it was tonight. That’s all. Do you need money for anything? A T-shirt or something?”

“You don’t have to give me any money, Mom.”

I’m already looking in my purse for the cash I got from Beth. “I know I don’t have to.”

“Mom,” he says sharply. “I don’t need you to give me anything. I know …”

I look at him.

“I gotta go,” Eli says.

And I am left behind with eggs that have gone cold in a pan on the stove.

My fingers tap in the code for my bank app. I hold my breath. The mortgage came out. Nothing else came in.

Three hundred dollars is not going to go far at all. I call my husband and get sent to voice mail. As I’m leaving him a message, a call from him comes in.

“Did you find out what’s going on with your paycheck?” I ask without preamble.

“I told you I’d take care of it, okay? It’s just a glitch in the system or something. I got that huge bonus. We should be fine for another month, at least.”

Alarmed, I take a sudden breath. “You think it’s going to take another month—”

“It’s not going to take a month,” he interrupts.

“Did you really tell Christian he only needed to pay three hundred dollars for rent?”

Silence.

“He’s paying for the renovations out of pocket. Bartering,” Ken says when I refuse to be the first to speak.

“Are you overseeing his choices at all? Is he running anything by you?” I demand. “Did you tell him he could sell my grandmother’s furniture and take a cut?”

“We’ll have to talk about this when I get home, Jewelann. I’m about to meet a customer.” Ken’s voice crackles and breaks up, static.