Chapter 2

The world became a blur of desperation. My body was still a wreck from childbirth, but there was no time for recovery. Leo' s tiny form, so perfect and new, was fighting a battle I couldn' t afford.

So I worked.

I took every gig I could find. Late nights were for food delivery, zipping through the cold city streets on a rented scooter, the smell of grease and other people' s dinners clinging to my clothes. Early mornings, before Leo' s first cries, were for transcribing medical records online, my fingers flying across the keyboard until they cramped, the technical jargon a meaningless drone against the roaring terror in my head.

I sold my laptop. I sold the few pieces of decent jewelry I owned. I begged for extensions on our bills. Every dollar was a drop in an ocean of debt, and the tide was rising fast.

My efforts were frantic, pathetic. A few thousand dollars here, a few hundred there. It was nothing. It was never going to be enough.

Leo' s fight ended in a crowded, underfunded public hospital.

He died in my arms, his small chest still, his breath a memory. The weight of him was immense, and then it was gone. All that was left was a hollow, echoing silence.

I couldn' t even afford a proper burial. The best I could do was a basic cremation. They handed him back to me in a plain cardboard box.

I couldn' t bear it. I walked in a daze to a thrift store down the street, my hands shaking, and found a small, simple wooden box for five dollars. It was meant for jewelry, maybe letters. I took it to the crematorium and asked the attendant, a man with weary eyes, to transfer the ashes.

He did it without a word.

I held the small wooden box against my chest. It was all I had left of my son. It was all I had left of my dream.