“I know,” I said.

“We don’t have enough for heat this month,” she said, her voice trembling. “Could you… could you just loan us a few hundred dollars?”

I looked at her hands, which were dry and cracked from the cardboard boxes.

I remembered the ten years I had spent working fourteen-hour days, sacrificing my youth to pay for her fake treatments.

“No, Megan,” I said quietly. “I can’t do that.”

I turned my back on her and walked toward the cash register.

As I paid for my tape, I looked out the front window of the store at the gray Cleveland sky.

The rain was starting to fall, tapping softly against the glass.

For the first time in ten years, I didn’t feel the weight of my family’s expectations on my shoulders.

I got back into my truck, started the engine, and drove home to the apartment that finally belonged entirely to me.