12

The termination letter sat on the kitchen table for three days before Shane bothered to read it. I watched him pick it up, his coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, and his eyes scanned the page while his jaw got tighter and tighter.

"Fired," he said. "You got fired. For causing a scene in the lobby."

"You caused the scene. I just stood there."

He crumpled the letter and threw it at the trash can, missing by a foot. "Doesn't matter who caused it. What matters is there's no more paycheck coming. How are we supposed to pay rent now?"

I didn't answer because the math was already running through my head. My final check was supposed to arrive by mail, but it would be half a month's pay at best, and the electric bill was overdue and Shane's gambling debt had a way of swallowing whatever money made it into the account. I had been doing the math for years, and it never added up.

"The sure thing," I said. "The investment you were waiting on. Did it come through?"

His face went dark. "Don't."

"Shane."

"I said don't." He slammed his mug on the counter hard enough that coffee sloshed over the rim. "It fell through. The guy backed out. Happy now?"

I wasn't happy. I wasn't surprised either. His sure things had a way of falling through, and somehow it was always someone else's fault. The contact who betrayed him. The market that turned. The wife who didn't support him enough. I had heard every version of this story, and I was tired of being a character in it.

"I'll find another job," I said. "I'll start looking today."

"You do that." He grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door. "I'm going out. Don't wait up."

The door slammed, and the apartment went quiet. I stood in the kitchen with his cold coffee still on the counter, and the crumpled termination letter on the floor, and the weight of everything pressing down on my chest. No job. No savings. A husband whose mood swings were getting sharper. And a secret I still didn't know I was carrying.

I cleaned the kitchen first because I couldn't think in a mess. The dishes went into the sink and the counters got wiped down and the trash got taken out, and while I was tying the bag I saw the thin folder tucked between the old books on the shelf. My professional certificate. The one Shane had made me hide years ago because he said I didn't need it anymore, that I had a husband who could take care of things.

I pulled it out and held it in my hands. The paper was still crisp and the embossed seal was still raised under my thumb. I had earned this. Late nights studying after hotel shifts, exams I'd passed while Shane complained about the lights being on too late. All of it hidden in a drawer because the last time he'd seen it, he'd made it very clear where it belonged.

I put the certificate back and grabbed my bag. The library was three blocks away, and their computers were free.

The library was quiet the way libraries always are, with the soft hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional rustle of pages. I sat at a computer in the back corner where no one would look over my shoulder and started updating my resume. The template was old, from years ago when I'd first applied to the hotel, and I had to delete half of it and start over.

A man at the next computer was playing solitaire and muttering to himself every time he lost. "Cheating game," he whispered. "Rigged from the start." He slapped the mouse and started a new game, and I hid a smile behind my hand because at least someone was having a worse day than me.

The resume took an hour. I typed and deleted and typed again, trying to make five years of hotel work sound impressive. VIP guest services. Conflict resolution. Event coordination. The words looked good on the screen, professional and clean, like they belonged to someone who had her life together. I sent out three applications before my time ran out, and each one felt like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean.

On the way home, I stopped at the corner store for milk and bread. The cashier was a teenager with bright pink hair and a nose ring, and she hummed along to a song playing from her phone while she scanned my items.

"Long day?" she asked.

"Long week."

"Same. My cat threw up on my uniform this morning and I had to borrow my roommate's shirt." She gestured at her wrinkled top and grinned. "She's going to be so mad when she sees the stain."

I laughed, and the sound surprised me. It was the first time I'd laughed since the gala, and it felt rusty but real. "Hope your cat's okay."

"He's fine. He's just dramatic." She handed me my change, and I walked out into the cold evening air feeling almost human again.

Shane was home when I got back, sitting on the couch with a beer and the television loud. He didn't ask where I'd been, and I didn't offer. I put the milk in the fridge and the bread on the counter, and he watched me the whole time with those flat eyes that never gave anything away.

"Any luck?" he asked.

"I sent out a few applications. We'll see."

"We'll see." He took a long drink from his bottle. "Bills don't wait for 'we'll see,' Adeline."

"I know."

He didn't push further, but the threat was there, hanging in the air between us. The bills were piling up, his sure thing had fallen through, and I was the only one who could fix it. That was how it always went.

I made dinner in silence and ate standing at the counter. The resume was in my bag, the certificate was back in its hiding spot, and three job applications were floating somewhere in the digital void. It wasn't much, but it was something. A small crack of light in a room that had been dark for too long.

Later, when Shane was asleep and the apartment was quiet, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through job listings under the covers. A position for a personal assistant caught my eye. Good pay. Full benefits. The company name was Vale Industries. I didn't know much about them, but the description sounded like something I could actually do. I sent my resume before I could talk myself out of it, because any port in a storm was better than drowning.

The reply came the next morning while Shane was still passed out on the couch. An interview request. Monday at nine. I stared at the screen and felt something flutter in my chest that I hadn't felt in years. Hope. Fragile and small, but there.

The bills were due. My husband's patience was wearing thin. And this interview was the only lifeline I had.