I’d barely slept Friday night due to the gymnastics inside my stomach. I couldn’t tell Mom that I was going back to our old neighborhood. Despite a few interviews and a few hundred job applications, she still hadn’t found a job, although she had a second interview at one place next week. She’d even mentioned that she was considering signing up for a medical research experiment, something about being part of a test group of women over forty who had had hysterectomies. I’d begged her not to do it. “I can’t not work,” she’d said to me. “I have to provide for you and Jack. Besides, the car needs new brakes.” It had made for a stressful morning for the both of us all the way around. We never used to talk about money and jobs and car repairs. Now our lack of it consumed us and we weren’t very good at discussing it. Which was probably why Mom signed up for a financial-management seminar offered next week through A New Start, too.
