My husband had passed away the previous year. My parents were the last people I could call.
“Mom,” I whispered, gripping the phone as pain throbbed through my hips. “I need you and Dad to take the twins until I can stand. Just a few weeks.”
She sighed as though I had asked her to donate an organ.
“I still need time for pickleball! Your sister never bothers us the way you do.”
“Mom, I was almost k:illed.”
“And we are not built-in babysitters, Mara. Figure it out.”
Then she hung up.
I stared at the ceiling while every expense I had ever paid for them replayed in my mind: their house, SUV, health insurance, country club dues, vacations, my sister Claire’s failed boutique, and even the roof repair my father had jokingly called an “early inheritance in reverse.”
For eight years, I had served as the family bank.
