The phone slipped from my hands.
It hit the old tile floor with a sharp crack that echoed through our tiny apartment, far louder than it should have been at that hour. The sound cut through the night like something breaking that couldn’t be fixed.
No.
No, no, no.
My chest tightened as panic climbed up my throat, cold and bitter. The kind of fear that makes it hard to swallow. My eyes stayed locked on the cracked screen of the phone we all shared, my reflection staring back at me, far too serious for a twelve-year-old.
On the screen, the words blinked slowly.
“Sending…”
Then: “Delivered.”
Two check marks.
In my arms, my baby brother stirred.
Then he cried.
It wasn’t a soft cry. It was sharp and desperate, the kind that couldn’t be soothed with whispers or gentle rocking. The kind that came from a place deeper than discomfort.
It was hunger.
Real hunger.
Five Days Too Long
I looked around our kitchen in East Riverside, a forgotten corner of a tired Midwestern city.
The stove was older than I was. One of the table legs was shorter than the others, always wobbling. The walls carried dark stains from years of damp winters. On the counter sat the last can of powdered milk.
Empty.
My mother worked nights cleaning office buildings downtown. Her paycheck came on the fifth of every month.
It was still five days away.
Five days doesn’t sound like much. But when a baby is crying from hunger, five days might as well be forever.
I glanced back at the phone and finally noticed the name at the top of the screen.
“Aunt R.”
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