Baby shampoo.

A small stuffed bear with floppy ears that I absolutely should not have bought.

I picked that bear up three different times and put it back twice because I knew every dollar mattered.

But something about it broke me emotionally. Maybe because it made everything feel real. Maybe because I wanted my baby to have at least one comforting thing waiting for them in this messy situation.

The older woman working the counter was kind to me. I still remember her reading my total and quietly lowering her voice when she explained the payment options, like she already knew I was embarrassed.

After that, every week I stopped in and paid whatever I could from my coffee tips.

Sometimes twenty dollars.

Sometimes ten.

Once, I think I paid four dollars and some change because that was literally all I had left after gas and groceries.

I remember apologizing to the cashier for how small the payment was, and she looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Sweetheart, four dollars is still four dollars.”

I cried in my car after that.

Two weeks before Christmas, I went back to make another payment after finishing a closing shift. I was exhausted and honestly humiliated because I knew I still had a balance left, and I wasn’t sure how I’d finish paying it before the due date.

The same woman was working the counter.

She typed in my information, frowned for a second, then looked up smiling.

“Honey,” she said softly, “your layaway’s already been paid off.”

I actually laughed because I thought she was joking.

“No, it’s not,” I told her. “I still owe money.”

She turned the screen toward me.

Balance: $0.00.

I just stared at it.

“There has to be a mistake,” I said.

She shook her head. “Someone came in this morning and paid off ten random layaways. Yours was one of them.”

I couldn’t speak.

My chest tightened so fast I thought I might actually faint. I remember gripping the edge of the counter because suddenly every emotion I’d been holding in for months hit me at once.

Relief.

Shock.

Embarrassment.

Gratitude.

The woman came around the counter and hugged me while I stood there crying in the middle of Walmart like a complete stranger had just handed me my ability to breathe again.