The blue ink on the edge of the legal form is smudged where I gripped it too hard. It has been sitting on the granite countertop since Tuesday morning. That was when the phone rang at 9:04 AM. I was pouring coffee when I saw the name pop up on the screen. My heart did a strange little flip.

My son, Danny, has been clean for three years. Three years is enough time to start hoping again, but it is also short enough that every time the phone rings late, I hold my breath. He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded hollow.

“I lost the apartment, Mom,” he said. His voice was thin and shaky. “They gave me until the end of the week.”

I didn’t ask about the job or the rent. I didn’t ask what went wrong. I just looked at the calendar on the wall. I asked about Maya, his little girl. She is only six. She likes drawing horses and she hates the way green beans feel in her mouth.

“She’s with me,” he whispered. “I have nowhere else to go, Mom.”

My husband, Gerald, was sitting at the table reading the paper. He heard the tone of my voice. He knew exactly who it was before I even hung up the phone. Gerald has spent the last three years finally sleeping through the night. He has spent that time getting his blood pressure down and enjoying his garden.

“No,” Gerald said. He didn’t look up from the sports section.

I turned around. I had the phone still clutched in my hand. “Gerald, she is six years old.”

“We are not doing this again,” he said. He folded the paper with a sharp, crisp snap. “We gave him everything. We gave him the money for the rehab, the car, the peace of mind. I am not losing our home for this.”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. I spent forty years reading patient charts at the county clinic. I have seen thousands of them. I know the rhythm of a relapse like I know the back of my own hand. It starts with the excuses, then the missed calls, then the empty spaces where a person used to be.

If I say no, I know exactly where Maya goes. Her mother is not in the picture in any way that counts. The state would take her. A six-year-old girl in a system that doesn’t have the time to learn how she likes her toast.

“I need to think,” I told him.

Gerald stood up and walked out of the room. He went to the garage to work on the tractor. He hasn’t spoken to me since. We eat dinner in silence. We watch the news in silence. The only sound in the house is the ticking of the clock and the occasional scrape of my pen as I hover it over the paper.