Chapter 1

The layoff call was a blur.

A perky HR voice on a Zoom call, talking about "restructuring" and "synergies."

All I heard was that my six-figure salary, my stock options, my entire career at the top tech firm in Seattle, was gone.

I ended the call and walked to the bathroom, the familiar wave of morning sickness hitting me hard. I'm four months pregnant.

My husband, Kevin, came home a few hours later from his shift managing a Best Buy.

I told him the news, my voice flat.

He didn't hug me. He didn't say it would be okay.

His face went tight, a strange, cold anxiety in his eyes.

"Oh," he said. "Wow. That's... a lot."

He just stood there, in the middle of the living room of the townhouse I bought before we even met.

That was it. That was his entire reaction.

A week of silence passed. A week of me wrestling with nausea and a growing sense of dread.

Then, he called for a "family budget meeting."

His mother, Brenda, was there. She' d moved in two weeks ago from some dying town in the Midwest, supposedly to "help with the pregnancy." So far, her only help was leaving dirty dishes in the sink and watching daytime TV at full volume.

They were sitting at my dining table. Kevin had a laptop open, a spreadsheet glowing on the screen.

"Chloe," he started, his voice all business. "Given the new reality of our financial situation, I think it's time we get serious. We need to go strictly 50/50 to weather this storm."

I just stared at him, my stomach churning for a reason that had nothing to do with the baby.