Chapter 2

I didn' t quit my job. Quitting was for suckers. I had six weeks of vacation banked and a year of FMLA I' d never touched. The next morning, I made the call. I told my supervisor I had a family emergency and needed to take an extended leave, effective immediately. He was a good guy, he understood.

I came home at 10 AM. Brenda was still in her pajamas, on the phone with her mother, Sharon.

"He' s just being so dramatic about it, Mom," she was saying. Chloe was watching cartoons, her breakfast untouched on the coffee table.

I walked into the living room and dropped my keys on the table with a loud clatter.

Brenda ended the call. "What are you doing home?"

I sank onto the couch and let out a long, theatrical sigh. I looked at her with the most defeated expression I could muster.

"I got laid off, Brenda."

Her face went pale. "What? No. You can' t. Your job is secure."

"Company-wide cuts. Last in, first out. My whole crew is gone." I made sure to sound hollow, broken.

For the first two days, I did nothing. I woke up late. I played Call of Duty until my eyes burned. I ordered pizza and let the empty boxes pile up. The mail started to accumulate on the counter. A red-bordered envelope from the mortgage company. A blue one from the auto loan servicer. The electric bill.

Brenda ignored them. She acted like if she didn' t look at them, they didn' t exist.

On the third day, the panic set in.

"Jack, the mortgage is due on the first," she said, her voice tight with anxiety. "And the car payment for the SUV. And Chloe' s preschool tuition."

"I know," I said, not taking my eyes off the TV screen. I blew up a virtual tank.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she shrieked. "You can' t just sit there playing video games! You lost your job!"

I paused the game and turned to her. My calm was gone.

"Me? What am I going to do? What are you going to do, Brenda? I' ve been the only one doing anything for seven years. I worked sixty-hour weeks. I took every overtime shift. For what? So you could give my money to your deadbeat brother for a car he can' t afford? So you could pay for his crypto fantasies while I saved for my own father' s health?"

I stood up, walking toward her.

"Let' s review. The Dodge Charger payment is probably six hundred a month. That' s our grocery bill. The twenty-two hundred you paid for his credit card debt last spring? That was Chloe' s college fund I started. The money you keep sending your mom? That could have paid this house off five years early."

Tears streamed down her face now, but they weren' t tears of remorse. They were tears of anger.

"You' re a monster! How can you be so cruel?"

"I' m cruel? You stole from my dying father to put your brother in a muscle car! You' ve been neglecting our own child' s future for him!"

That hit a nerve. She flinched.

"Don' t you bring Chloe into this!"

"Why not? You do. Every time you buy your nephew Aiden a new two-hundred-dollar toy while Chloe gets a hand-me-down. Every time you and your mother fawn over him at family dinners while Chloe sits by herself. I see it, Brenda. I' ve been seeing it for years."

She slapped me. It wasn' t hard, more of a frustrated, panicked gesture.

I didn' t even flinch. I just stared at her.

"I' m going to my mother' s," she sobbed, grabbing her purse. "Come on, Chloe."

She yanked a confused Chloe by the arm and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

The silence that followed was the best thing I' d felt in years.