My stomach dropped.
“How bad?”
Mia’s eyes filled. “They call her names. They ask if she can even see. Yesterday she hid in the bathroom during recess.”
I closed my eyes for a second.
Then she said, very quietly, “She told me her parents can’t get her new ones right now.”
I wanted to say yes.
That hit hard, because I know what that kind of sentence feels like. I know how shame sounds when it tries to make itself smaller.
Mia looked at me and asked, “Can we help her?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to be the kind of mom who says yes and figures it out later.
But the power bill was due. I had groceries for maybe three days. My checking account was not a checking account so much as a warning.
So I told her the truth.
The next afternoon, I got home and noticed her Lego bin was gone.
“I am so sorry, baby, but I can’t pay for glasses for someone else right now.”
She did not argue. She just nodded and said, “Okay.”
Then she went to her room.
That somehow made it worse.
The next afternoon, I got home and noticed her Lego bin was gone.
Not moved. Gone.
She came running in, smiling for the first time in days.
This wasn’t some random toy box. This was her favorite thing in the world. Four years of birthday sets, holiday gifts, garage sale finds, little rewards after hard weeks. She sorted pieces by color. She built whole cities on the living room floor.
