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“Duh.” She bulges her brown eyes, identical to my own, at me like I am the stupid one here.
“Well, then, we are safe. I make this sausage from chicken.”
“Ew, Daddy, that’s even worse!”
“And why’s that?”
“Did you ever see a mermaid who eats chickens underwater? They would be all soggy.”
I bite on my lips to stop myself from laughing. She is too adorable for her own good.
“Ah, of course.” I nod along enthusiastically. “How could I not consider that. Okay then, how about you eat your eggs?”
“Okay,” she agrees easily, and I decide telling my too-smart-for-her-own-good daughter that eggs come from chickens is not the best time right now.
Sophie snickers around us, stealing the leftover sausage fromsoggychickens.
“There is a letter on the counter for you,” she says quietly, and I immediately know it’s not happy news of me winning the lottery. “I will try to help as much as I can.” She squeezes my arm as I reach for it and leaves in the blink of an eye for her college.
Dear Mr. Levidis,
This letter was sent to inform you that starting next month, the monthly payment for your mother, Mrs. Valerie Levidis’s stay with us will increase from $3,500.00 to $4,000.00 per month. Please make sure your next payment reflects the new changes.
If you no longer wish to work with us, please let us know within the next week.
If you have any questions, we are here to answer them for you.
Sincerely,
Life Collective Team
Fucking great. I silently sigh into my hands, already deciding in my head what sacrifices we will have to make to make this work.
I can’t move Mom to another hospice, and her medical will not cover anything based on a tiny loophole they found somewhere along the way. We fought, but those bastards always win.
It’s okay. We’ve got through this storm this far. We can keep doing it.
I will make it work.
Shuffling the new “exciting” news to the back of my head, the morning routine passes in a blur as I dress Victoria in her favorite mermaid shirt and do her hair to drop her off at kindergarten.
I am putting the final seashell clip in her hair when she asks the one question I dread more than anything. The one question I can’t wait for her to forget even though, most likely, it will never happen.
“Daddy, is Mom coming back?” Her brown eyes are drilling into me as if she is trying to pull the answers out herself because I keep making up no-good excuses or simply avoid the question altogether.
I sigh and do what I always do. “I am not sure, Vee.”
Yeah, I am sure.
But my angel of a daughter doesn’t need to know her mother abandoned her after crushing my heart to tiny pieces and draining our accounts of every penny we had saved up.
Hell…maybe my boss is not the only heartless soul around New York. Maybe mine is just as broken.
Chapter four
The past
My hand shakes slightly as I try to cut through the thick but soggy carrot with our old, dull, and chirped knife.
