Chapter 4

It was the combination of the bank account hitting zero, the $1,000 in royalties, the birthday cake that never existed, the room that had been turned into a storage closet, and that remark, "Why is this child getting more and more temperamental." All these things combined to break the last straw.

I sat up. I dug around in the corner of the nightstand and found an old photo.

It was one I had dropped here when I came back before Jona was born. The girl in the photo was sitting at a desk in a rented apartment, with a tub…