Chapter 9 - Sixty Days
I gave her sixty days to build an employment plan. No rent during that stretch, but she'd contribute what she could from support payments and savings. I helped rewrite her résumé once. Once. Mom sent her two job listings. Dad offered to run mock interviews with her.
That Sunday, Grandma Opal came over, announced she'd heard "the entire unfortunate story," and I braced for another lecture. Instead she sat across from me and said, "I owe you an apology."
"That was fast."
"I'm old, not slow." Despite myself, I smiled. She tapped the agreement. "I was the one saying family doesn't abandon family."
"You weren't wrong."
"No. But I forgot something."
"What?"
"Helping somebody across a river doesn't mean carrying them the rest of the road."
"That sounds suspiciously wise."
"I have my moments."
Two weeks later Renee got an interview and almost canceled it. "I'm not ready."
"You probably aren't," I said, sipping coffee.
"Very supportive."
"You'll never feel ready before the first one."
"I've got nothing professional to wear."
I looked toward her bedroom. "You bought six hundred dollars' worth of clothes."
Her face tightened — then she laughed. The first real laugh we'd shared in months.
"Fine," she said, and went.
She didn't get the job. She came home devastated. I didn't call anyone for her, didn't rewrite the résumé again, didn't badmouth the interviewer.
"That hurts," I said.
"Yes."
"Pizza?"
"Yes."
We ate pizza with the kids. The next day she submitted three more applications. A month later, a medical billing office hired her as an administrative coordinator — modest pay, but a schedule that lined up with school hours.
She came through the front door holding up her phone. "I got it."
Sophie screamed. Owen hugged her. Cole asked if a job meant they could get dessert.
Renee looked at me, tearing up. "Congratulations," I said.
May you like
"Thank you."
The next morning she was up before the kids — breakfast, lunches packed, drove them to school, went to work herself. Nobody applauded. That mattered too. Ordinary responsibility shouldn't need a parade just because it had been missing.
