The rain has been dripping through your apartment ceiling for so long that you no longer hear it as weather, and I stopped noticing it as anything natural months ago. It sounds like a clock now, one that measures hunger instead of time, and every drop hits the dented metal pot beside my son’s mattress with a hollow sound that reminds me how close everything is to breaking.
My son is burning up again, and I can feel the heat before I even touch him. At eight years old, my boy named Caleb should be outside scraping his knees and racing across the cracked courtyard, but instead he lies under a faded blanket with flushed cheeks and fast breathing that terrifies me.
Every few minutes he shivers so hard the mattress springs tremble beneath him, and each movement slices through my chest like something sharp and invisible. On the floor nearby, my daughter Lily sits cross legged in a worn pink dress, brushing the tangled hair of a broken doll with one arm missing while humming softly as if the world is still gentle.
I stand in the kitchen and stare into an empty refrigerator that feels colder than it should. It has been three days since anything real sat inside except a half bottle of mustard and stale baking soda, and the emptiness seems to echo louder than any argument ever could.
I have already sold my earrings, my grandmother’s watch, my winter coat, and the black heels I once wore to a wedding when I believed life would include moments worth dressing up for. Bills devoured everything else, and rent finished whatever scraps remained.
My landlord taped another warning to the door this morning, and the clinic refuses to see Caleb without payment. My ex husband disappeared two years ago with a waitress from Alabama and left nothing behind except silence that feels heavier than debt.
That morning I kissed Caleb’s burning forehead and forced a steady voice that did not match my shaking hands. He whispered, “Will you bring medicine,” and I swallowed hard before telling him, “I will bring something better than medicine.”
He tried to smile for me, and that almost broke me completely.
I spent the next two hours walking through downtown Birmingham, asking restaurants and laundromats and small stores if they needed help. Some people ignored me completely, while others glanced at my cheap blouse and tired eyes before saying no with practiced ease.