one I once imagined but still safe, warm, and ours.
Being a single mother makes you notice details.
Where your child goes.
What they take with them.
What they come back with.
Whether the story adds up.
And the free ice cream wasn’t adding up.
The first time, Ellie came inside holding a strawberry shortcake bar.
The pink-and-white kind covered in those little crumbs.
It was already melting down her wrist.
“I thought you spent the last of your allowance,” I said.
I knew she had.
Three days earlier, she
