Three hours after I gave birth without my husband beside me, my mother texted:
“Your sister’s kids expect new phones for their birthday. Send $2,000.”
When I did not answer, she used the emergency bank card I had trusted her with after my father died.
She thought I was still the daughter who would stay quiet.
She did not know the bank had already flagged the card in her purse or what my father had left inside a sealed folder.
My husband, Derek, had flown to Tucson three days earlier after his father collapsed at a construction site.
He promised he would be back before the baby came.
He meant it.
Our daughter did not wait.
At 5:15 Friday morning, my water broke.
Derek’s phone went straight to voicemail because he was inside a hospital waiting for news about his father’s emergency surgery.
