Outside, you could hear the local ice cream truck passing by with its music playing, and in the distance, the vendors at the local flea market packing up their canopies—that clattering of metal poles and shouting that always marked the end of the afternoon in our neighborhood. I thought about the times I had walked through those stalls, comparing tomato prices, bargaining for avocados, and carrying heavy bags just so this family could say later: “Melanie cooks so delicious.”
They never said: “That must have been expensive.”
They never said: “She must be so tired.”
Ryan tried to laugh it off.
“See? I told you. Dramatic. It’s my birthday, and she wants to ruin it because she got some crazy idea in her head.”
“No,” I said. “I just want to obey you.”
That caught him off guard more than any scream could have.
Mrs. Helen walked up to the table.
“Son, did you actually say that to her?”
Ryan turned to her with an almost childlike face.
“I was angry, Mom. Sometimes people say things harshly. But she knows how I am.”
“Yes,” I replied. “That’s why I did the math.”
I opened the box I had under my chair.
I pulled out a green folder.
It wasn’t fancy. It was just a regular office folder with a white label and bent corners. But inside lay months of the absolute truth.
Receipts from the grocery store.
Invoices from the butcher shop.
Receipts from the local bakery.
Utility bills.
Bank transfers for electricity and water.
Receipts for flour, butter, and sugar for my baking.
A notebook where I recorded every cake sold, every pastry delivered, every decorated dessert I made in the early hours of the morning while Ryan slept, claiming that I “just helped out.”
I put everything on the table.
“This is what I paid for over the last six months.”
Mrs. Helen picked up a receipt.
Then another.
Her glasses slid down her nose.
“Ryan…”
He waved his hands dismissively.
“Now you’re going to turn my mom against me?”
“No. Numbers don’t have a mother.”
Tyler let out a cough that sounded like a laugh. He stopped when he saw Ryan’s face.
