For 4 years, I picked up my sister’s kids from school for free. One day I was 37 minutes late, and she screamed at me in front of them: “Not with my children!” Then she shoved me out of her house. I stopped picking them up. 11 days later, the school called me. Then my sister called 6 times. I turned my phone face down.

I stared at it.

“What is this, sweetheart?”

Ruby smiled proudly.

“It’s twenty-three dollars and sixty cents!”

Caleb nodded.

“I counted it too.”

I crouched in front of her.

“Why did you save this?”

Her smile became uncertain.

“Mom said you couldn’t pick us up anymore because she didn’t have money to pay you.”

My heart sank.

Ruby continued.

“So I saved my tooth fairy money. And what I earned helping Grandma. Now we can pay you, and you can come back.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

Then I remembered her question from the video call.

*How much money do you cost, Aunt Micah?*

The coins I’d heard rattling beneath her blanket.

She’d been trying to save enough to buy back the afternoons we used to spend together.

I gently placed my hands around hers.

“Ruby, listen to me.”

She looked up.

“I never took care of you because someone paid me.”