“What does it feel like to be completely useless?”…

Credit card. School deposit. Emergency car repair.

Supplier settlement. “Unexpected inventory issue.” “Temporary payroll gap.”

I even made a column for the receipts I’d requested but never received. Months went by.

The column stayed mostly empty. The total at the bottom of the page grew at a pace that surprised even me. Numbers had always been neutral to me, simply facts on a page.

These ones, though, felt like tiny pinpricks under my skin. Not enough to make me bleed. Just enough to keep me awake at night.

I never showed it to them, and they never asked. Dependable had become my unspoken title, not “Mom” or “Lenor,” but the one who quietly kept everything from falling apart. In the beginning, I told myself it was love.

Then I reasoned it was my duty as a mother. After a while, I stopped trying to name it at all. It just was.