The humid air of late August hung thick over our quiet suburban street, the kind of sticky heat that made the cicadas sound like they were drilling straight through the night. I had just finished wiping down the kitchen counters after dinner when I heard it. Deep, broken sobbing right outside our front door.
Not sniffles. Not a few quiet tears.
This was the kind of crying that came from the depths of a person’s chest, the kind that happens when something inside has shattered and there’s no way to put it back together.
I looked out the kitchen window and saw Sarah from next door. Eight months pregnant. Both hands braced beneath her belly as if she physically needed to hold herself together. Tears streamed down her face as she leaned against the porch railing, her whole body shaking like the railing itself was the only thing keeping her upright.
Two days earlier, her fiancé Mark had left. No argument. No explanation. No promise to talk things through. Just a short note and an empty house. His clothes gone from the closet. His toiletries missing from the bathroom. His half of the life they’d built erased as if it never mattered.
Behind me, Tom sat at the dining table scrolling through his phone like nothing urgent existed in the world. He glanced up once, saw Sarah, and let out an irritated sigh.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he muttered. “Some women are born to be burdens. She needs to pull herself together.”
His words landed in my chest like a physical blow. Tom had always been proud of calling himself “practical.” He wore it like a badge of honor. But over the years, I’d started to see it for what it really was. Not strength. A refusal to feel anything that required empathy. A way of opting out of being human.
“That’s enough, Tom,” I said, already reaching for my purse.
He didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. The way he dropped his gaze back to his screen said everything. To him, Sarah’s grief was just noise.
I didn’t wait for permission.
I opened the front door and stepped onto the porch.
Sarah lifted her head, eyes swollen, cheeks wet with tears. The embarrassment on her face cut almost as deeply as the grief itself, like she felt the need to apologize for falling apart.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered, and I wrapped my arms around her before she could pull away.
She clung to me with surprising strength for someone who looked like she might collapse at any moment. Her thin summer dress was damp with sweat and tears, and she smelled faintly of rain and that metallic edge grief carries, like a storm that hasn’t fully broken yet.
I didn’t rush her. I didn’t try to fix anything. I just held her while she cried in long, shuddering waves against my shoulder.
When she finally pulled back, she wiped her face with the back of her hand, as if trying to erase the evidence of her pain. Her voice came out rough and uneven.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Anna,” she choked. “Mark took everything. The bank account is empty. The baby furniture is still in boxes. I’ve got maybe… one week’s pay left.”
Panic sat just beneath her words, sharp and frantic. She was so close to giving birth, and the ground beneath her had completely vanished.
I didn’t hesitate.
I reached into my purse and pulled out the emergency cash I always kept tucked away. Money I’d saved for myself. For the unknown. For whatever life might throw at me.
But I looked at her belly. Looked at her trembling hands.
And the decision made itself.
I counted out nine crisp hundred-dollar bills and pressed them into her palm, closing her fingers around the money before she could refuse.
“Please take it,” I said firmly. “It’s not a loan. It’s just a cushion. Use it for groceries, bills, whatever you need. Right now, your only job is taking care of yourself and that baby. Everything else can wait.”
Her mouth opened like she wanted to argue, but instead a broken sound escaped her.
“Anna… I can’t. I don’t know how I’d ever pay you back.”
“You don’t need to,” I said, and I meant it with everything in me. “Just call me if you need anything, okay?”
She nodded, clutching the money to her chest as if it might disappear. Then she slowly crossed the lawn back to her house, shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
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