I gave away my last $47 to a stranger in a grocery store while an eviction notice sat waiting for me at home. Two days later, just as I was packing up my son’s life into boxes, a letter arrived that made me realize that moment in aisle seven was never as simple as it looked.’m 37. Single mom. My son is six.Three days ago, I got an eviction notice.The paper felt rough against my fingers when I signed for it. I remember that because I kept staring at my own name like maybe it belonged to someone else. Maybe this was some clerical mistake. Maybe there was still timeThere wasn’t.I had $53 left. That was everything. Fourteen months of scraping by since the divorce, and that was the number sitting in my account like a joke.

That afternoon, I took my son to the grocery store because I needed to stretch what little we had into something that looked like meals. Pasta. Eggs. Bread. Peanut butter. The kind of shopping where you keep adding numbers in your head and putting things back.We were in line when the woman in front of me tried to pay.She was young. Maybe mid-20s. Baby on one hip, diaper bag sliding off her shoulder, hair half-falling out of a clip. The baby was chewing on the collar of her sweater.The cashier glanced at the total. “$47.”The woman swiped her card.Declined.She swallowed and tried agaiDeclined.One more time.Declined.That awful beep kept cutting through the air.