I feel a ball of dread form in the pit of my stomach.
I walk over to where she sits on the couch and sit next to her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her against me like she’s done me so many times over my adolescent and teenage years.
“What is it, Mom?” I ask her again, softly.
She finally pulls back and sniffs before taking a deep breath.
“Summer,” her voice breaks when she says my name, “I just don’t know what we’re going to do, baby. I can barely make ends meet as it is.”
Guilt floods me that my mom has this burden on her. I’ve been looking for another job in addition to my part-time one to help out, but I haven’t been spending every spare moment job hunting like I should have been doing. Wasn’t I just now playing volleyball on the beach with my friends like we’re all still in high school?
“If this is just about money, Mom, don’t worry. I’ll get another job and help ease some of the burden.” I stroke up and down her back soothingly.
My mom is thin like me, but her hair is more of a dirty blonde than the light blonde I got. She looks tired and worn down by life. I know being a single mother was hard on her, and I just wish there was more I could do to help.
She shakes her head. “No, you don’t get it, Summer. It’s not just money. It’s our home. We’ve got thirty days to get out. The whole building does. Our landlord sold the building, and the new owner is gonna bulldoze the place down, and I don’t know where we’re going to go. We could barely afford this place, and rents are so high everywhere.”
She lets out a big, shaky sigh before continuing, “And this place is within walking distance of my job, and we don’t have a car, and I know there’s no way we’re going to find something this close to my work, which means I’ll have to start spending money to get to work if we can even find somewhere to move to.”
That little ball of dread drops within my stomach and settles there heavily. This might be a crummy little apartment, but it’s our crummy little apartment. It’s our home. It’s where I’ve lived all my life with the beach as my backdoor.
I don’t want to think about moving somewhere else. About what that will mean for us. Yeah, we’re just scraping by, but that’s better than some people do. We’re making it, even if we’re living paycheck to paycheck.
I shake my head in denial. “What?” I ask her like I don’t understand what she’s saying. I’m praying I misheard her, but I know I didn’t.
Thirty days. We have thirty days to get a whole new life. The landlord sold the building, and we’re all just casualties of cutthroat business dealings. The new owner is going to uproot our entire lives like we don’t matter at all.
“This can’t be happening,” I mutter.
“Oh, honey,” Mom lays her hand on my check. It’s her turn to comfort me now. She pulls me into a hug and then begins crying again.
I sit there stiff in her arms, a whirl of emotions flooding through me. Disbelief, dread, fear, worry, anger, then a stubborn hope.
That stubborn hope is what I choose to cling to.
We can’t just give up. Not yet. Not without trying everything within our power to try.