Then Elliot’s phone buzzed on the table.
He looked at it but didn’t pick it up.
It buzzed again.
“You can answer that,” Amber said.
“It can wait.”
“What if it’s important?”
He looked at Lily trying to stretch a strand of cheese from her slice to her plate.
“So is dinner.”
Amber studied him.
“People probably don’t tell you no very often.”
“More often than you’d think.”
“You’re a billionaire.”
Lily’s head snapped up.
“A what?”
Elliot closed his eyes briefly.
Amber couldn’t help it.
She laughed.
It was the first real laugh she had made in days.
Lily stared at him.
“Do you have a billion dollars in your house?”
“No.”
“In a giant safe?”
“No.”
“Do you have a swimming pool?”
Elliot considered the question.
“Yes.”
Lily nodded as though this confirmed everything.
“I knew it.”
Even Amber smiled.
The tension at the table broke.
But Elliot did not ask how Amber had become poor.
That mattered to her.
Most people wanted the explanation immediately, as though poverty were a crime and every defendant owed the jury a complete timeline.
Elliot waited.
Eventually Amber offered pieces herself.
She had been working reception and scheduling at a medical office until the company changed shifts.
The new hours began before Lily’s school program opened and ended after it closed.
The neighbor who had helped with childcare moved away.
Private childcare cost more than Amber could earn during the extra hours.
She tried switching shifts.
She tried finding another parent to trade days.
She tried asking management for two weeks to arrange something permanent.
It didn’t work.
Then she missed two shifts.
Then she lost the job.
Since then, she had walked across town for interviews because bus fare mattered when every dollar had two jobs.
That morning, she had interviewed for a warehouse office position.
“They liked me until they asked whether I had reliable childcare,” Amber said.
Elliot’s expression tightened.
“What did you say?”
“The truth.”
“And?”
“They said they needed someone with complete flexibility.”
Lily was focused on her pizza now, unaware of how carefully the adults were talking around her.
Elliot leaned back.
“Do you want advice?”
