up. There were nights I lay awake staring at the ceiling, doing math, trying to figure out if I could keep the house on a librarian’s salary.
I couldn’t. I sold it. I moved the girls into a two-bedroom rental on Elm Street with a tiny backyard and a kitchen faucet that drips no matter what you do to it.
Ava cried when we moved. She said she didn’t want to leave her room.
June didn’t understand any of it. She just wanted to know if the new house had a bathtub. (It did. She was very relieved.)
Max got the girls every other weekend and Wednesday nights. He’d pick them up in his new car, a black SUV with leather seats. Claire would sit in the passenger seat with her blond ponytail and her sunglasses and her perfect arms, and she’d wave at the girls.
She never waved at
