before the truck reaches our block.
And normally, the second Ellie hears it, she comes running toward me with one hand already extended.
“Mom, can I have three dollars?”
Ellie is a good kid.
She’s bright, funny, curious, and lately observant enough to notice things I sometimes wish she wouldn’t.
Her father and I divorced when she was four.
It wasn’t some terrible battle.
We simply realized we were better apart.
So now it’s mostly Ellie and me in our little house, building a life that is smaller than the
