She came home with blood beneath her fingernails.
Not from violence, not directly. But from scrubbing too long, lifting too much, grasping too hard onto a life that never stopped taking. Her hands had begun to split where the skin stretched—raw fissures at the knuckles, a permanent sting behind her nails. Her fingertips, once soft and painted when she still believed in love, had hardened into something more like bark—coarse, cracking, silent witnesses to her sacrifice.
And yet, in the crook of her arm, she held the toy.
It was the exact model her son had pointed to on the TV screen weeks ago—the one advertised between cartoon shows, where the plastic robot turned into a jet and back again with a single press of the chest. That one cost more than her monthly pay.
She stepped into the cramped living room where her son sat cross-legged, staring at nothing. His eyes flicked to the toy, and he blinked once. No excitement. No sprint forward. Just silence.
