Two weeks after he moved in with them, Lucy walked to work on a bitter cold morning only to find a note on the door of the building that said “Closed out of business.” The owner of the chain had known the business was going under for quite some time, but could only bring himself to tell the managers. And the managers did not bother to tell the staff. With no warning, just like that, Lucy was out of a job.
For the next two weeks, she tried desperately to find work, but each time she went in for an interview they would tell her something to the tune of, “We’ll call you back within two weeks to tell you if you have the job.” Despite her embarrassment, sheer desperation drove Lucy to apply for food stamps. But when she walked up to the desk with her paperwork filled out, the woman behind the social services desk informed her that it would take up to 30 days to receive her benefits in the mail. She went to a local food bank but the doors were closed for the night. That evening, Lucy stole a can of soup and an apple from a local supermarket because she didn’t know what else to do.
Aria recalled the arguments that began between Travis and Lucy. She remembered the numb paralysis that would devour her when she heard their voices gashing through the air in the apartment. Sometimes she could hear her mother being hit or held against a wall. She would hide in her mother’s closet and close her eyes and ears until Travis slammed the door and she could hear the sound of her mother weeping. It became a common scene. Aria would venture out to find Lucy bruised or bleeding, staring out the window as Travis drove away, muttering “please don’t leave, please don’t leave, please don’t leave” between panicked tears.
When the rent came due later that same month and neither Lucy nor Travis could pay it, an eviction notice came in the mail. At that time, Aria did not understand what was going on when she watched her mother crawl underneath the secondhand linoleum table in the kitchen and cry. All she knew was that they were in trouble. They were facing homelessness. Lucy had to pull Aria out of daycare. The television became her babysitter at that point.
But then one day Travis burst through the door of their apartment with a smile on his face. He walked straight up to Lucy and slapped what he was holding in his hand on the table. It was three $50 bills. “Where did you get it?” Lucy gasped, exhaling in relief but also suspicion. Travis pulled her into the bedroom to explain. He had an acquaintance that made his money selling crystal meth and prescription pain pills. When Travis had lost his job, he couldn’t believe his luck when he was offered some money in exchange for doing a hand-off to a local nightclub. It was Lucy’s poverty that forced her to consent.
Travis soon stopped looking for other jobs. What was the point? He could make enough money to afford the apartment and his car, and best of all he didn’t have to answer to anyone. After realizing how much money he could make as a supplier instead of a runner, he began to cook meth himself in the utility closet of their apartment. Lucy was so naive that she didn’t know how toxic the process of cooking meth really was. So when Aria developed a cough and dizzy spells, Lucy didn’t know it was because of exposure; all she could think was she couldn’t afford to take her to the doctor. When Aria’s symptoms worsened and lethargy began to set in, Lucy was so desperate that she asked Travis for some money. He smiled and said, “Yeah, I’ll give you the money but you got to deliver something for me.” She nodded in acceptance and later that night Lucy ran drugs for Travis for the very first time.
For a few months, Aria’s life began to settle. She started kindergarten at a nearby public school and Lucy didn’t seem afraid about money anymore. She even took Aria to get an icecream cone after school every Friday. It was a luxury they could never have afforded before. But then Lucy came home one day in January to find all of Travis’s things gone.
His absence sent her deep into the torment of a depression. She could not function on her own. For a couple of weeks, she would walk Aria to the school bus and then go back to bed and stay there. Aria would make her way back from the bus stop in the afternoon, drag a chair to the counter and climb up on it to find whatever food was left in the cupboards. She tried to cheer her mother up with little pictures she scribbled with marker on the backs of food wrappers. She would watch hour upon hour of shows on Nickelodeon. She wanted to play outside but Lucy always said no. Lucy had withdrawn from Aria’s life. She couldn’t face her own life any more than she could face her daughter.
One day when Aria returned from school, she tried to open
