If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be crouched in the backseat of a taxi, clutching my last emergency $120 while watching my husband walk into a building I’d never seen before, I would’ve rolled my eyes.

I wasn’t the dramatic type. I didn’t snoop. I didn’t spiral.

But there I was—coat wrapped tight around Nicole’s stroller, Micah’s spare snack bag digging into my ribs, my stomach rolling like I’d swallowed something sharp.

And it all started with yogurt.

Not fancy yogurt. Not imported, probiotic, grass-fed yogurt. Just the cheap vanilla kind with a little green dinosaur on the lid. Micah adored it. Every time we passed the dairy section, he’d curl his tiny fingers into claws and growl, “Rawr!”

The last time I reached for it, Michael slapped my hand away.

“He doesn’t need that, Florence,” he muttered. “We need to save.”

The way he said we, you’d think I wasn’t already stretching pasta into three meals, hand-washing secondhand baby clothes, skipping lunch so the kids could have fruit instead of crackers.

But control never announces itself. It seeps in.

After Nicole was born, Michael suggested I stay home “just for a while.”

“Micah’s almost three. Nicole’s a newborn. They need you, Flo. Daycare would cost a fortune.”

He wasn’t wrong. I was exhausted. Breastfeeding felt like running a marathon every day. My body didn’t feel like mine yet.So I agreed.

At first, we were fine. Friday night pizza. Laughter in the kitchen. Early mornings that felt soft instead of tense. I did freelance design work during nap times—enough to afford small things, enough to feel like I still existed outside of diapers and dishes.

Then Nicole turned one.That’s when the spreadsheets appeared.

Michael would sit at the kitchen table, laptop open, muttering about inflation and “long-term security.” He started saying things like, “Just until we stabilize.”

Stabilize what? We weren’t unstable.

When I mentioned a toy car Micah had loved—an updated version for his birthday—Michael shook his head.

“He’s turning four. He won’t even remember it.”When Nicole’s winter coat grew too tight, I waited for a sale and showed him the link.

“She’ll be fine with layers. Why waste money?”

Eventually, I stopped asking.

Then the debit card disappeared.

“I’ll hold onto it,” he said over coffee one morning. Casual. Like he was offering to carry my purse. “It’s easier for tracking.”