Chapter 2 - The House That Grew Bigger at Night
By the fourth day, I had developed rules.
Rule number one: never eat because you're bored.
Rule number two: never eat a full portion if half can make the hunger quiet.
Rule number three: don't turn on unnecessary lights.
I didn't know whether electricity was expensive enough to matter.
I simply knew I had no money to pay for anything.
Rule number four was the most important.
Never let anyone know.
That rule came from fear more than logic.
I didn't know what happened to children whose parents abandoned them.
Movies had filled my head with frightening ideas about strangers arriving with clipboards and taking children away.
What if I got sent somewhere terrible?
What if Mom came home and blamed me?
What if she said I ruined her life?
So every morning, I made my bed.
I brushed my hair.
I washed my face.
I tried to keep the house looking normal.
Normal became my disguise.
On Day 5, Mom called.
Not because she was worried about me.
She wanted help finding an email.
“Sydney, can you go into my office?”
I stood in the hallway holding the phone.
“Okay.”
“Turn on the computer.”
Her voice was cheerful.
Behind her, I could hear laughter and music.
“Where are you?”
“Lake Geneva.”
“Oh.”
“It's unbelievable here.”
I opened her laptop.
“What do you need?”
“A reservation confirmation. Search ‘Bellavista.’”
I did.
While the email loaded, my stomach growled loudly.
Mom heard it.
“Was that your stomach?”
I froze.
“Maybe.”
She laughed.
“Go make yourself something.”
“There isn't much.”
“Sydney.”
Her tone changed.
That warning tone.
“I told you not to be dramatic.”
“I'm not.”
“Did you spend all the money already?”
“No.”
“How much do you have?”
“Eight dollars.”
“What did you buy?”
I told her.
She sighed.
“You should have bought smarter.”
Something inside me burned.
“I bought bread and rice.”
“Exactly. You have food.”
“For a month?”
“You're turning this into something bigger than it is.”
I stared at the computer screen.
She had just spent more on one hotel room than most people earned in a week.
I knew because the reservation was right there.
€780 per night.
I didn't fully understand the conversion, but I knew it was hundreds of dollars.
One night.
Hundreds.
I had twenty for thirty days.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Can you send me money?”
Silence.
Then laughter exploded in the background.
Someone called her name.
Mom covered the phone briefly.
“Sydney, I have to go.”
“Please.”
That word came out before I could stop it.
A long pause followed.
“There's food in the house.”
“No, there isn't.”
“I cannot deal with this right now.”
“Mom—”
“You're eleven, not five.”
The call ended.
I stood there holding the phone.
That afternoon, I cried for the first time.
Quietly.
I sat on the kitchen floor with my back against a cabinet.
I didn't sob.
I didn't scream.
I simply cried because I finally understood that my mother wasn't confused.
She knew.
She knew I had almost no food.
She knew I was alone.
She knew I was scared.
And she was choosing the vacation anyway.
That realization hurt more than hunger.
By Day 8, the bananas were gone.
By Day 10, I had started measuring rice with a coffee scoop.
By Day 12, I had two dollars and seventy-one cents left.
The bread had started growing tiny green spots.
I tore away the moldy sections and ate what looked safe.
Then I began feeling dizzy.
I told myself it was because I wasn't sleeping.
The nights had become unbearable.
Every sound woke me.
Once, around two in the morning, someone knocked on the front door.
Three sharp knocks.
I sat frozen in bed.
Then again.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I didn't move.
A man's voice called, “Delivery!”
I hadn't ordered anything.
I held my breath.
Eventually, footsteps moved away.
I didn't sleep again that night.
The next morning, I found a package on the porch.
It belonged to the house across the street.
The delivery driver had made a mistake.
I nearly laughed.
Then I nearly cried.
That was what fear did.
It turned ordinary things into threats.
School was out for summer, which meant there was no teacher watching me each day.
No cafeteria.
No counselor.
No adult automatically noticing.
Mom couldn't have chosen a better month to disappear.
Or a worse one.
Depending on who you asked.
On Day 13, I went to the grocery store again.
I bought two cans of generic soup.
One package of noodles.
One apple.
I stood at the checkout counting coins.
The same cashier was there.
Her name tag said MARIA.
She looked at my coins.
Then at me.
“Where’s your mom today?”
My chest tightened.
“Working.”
The lie came quickly.
Maria nodded slowly.
“You're doing the shopping?”
“She works a lot.”
“How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
Her eyebrows moved slightly.
Not enough to be obvious.
But I noticed.
“That's a lot of responsibility for eleven.”
I forced a smile.
“I'm independent.”
The word tasted strange now.
Maria put my groceries into a bag.
Then she quietly added two granola bars.
I stared.
“I didn't pay for those.”
“They're samples.”
They weren't.
I knew that.
She knew I knew.
But neither of us said anything.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
Maria watched me leave.
That evening, I ate half a granola bar.
It was the sweetest thing I had tasted all week.
I saved the rest.
By Day 15, half the month was gone.
Mom sent photographs every few days.
Venice.
Florence.
A mountain.
A restaurant table covered in food.
That one stayed on my screen for a long time.
There were plates everywhere.
Bread.
Pasta.
Meat.
Desserts.
My mother had captioned it:
We ordered way too much! Couldn't finish half of it 😂
I stared at the photograph until my vision blurred.
Then I deleted the message.
Not because I hated her.
I didn't.
That was the difficult part.
I still loved her.
Children don't stop loving parents the moment parents fail them.
Sometimes we love them while learning not to trust them.
Those are different things.
On Day 17, the internet stopped working.
I panicked.
I restarted the router.
Nothing.
I unplugged it.
Plugged it back in.
Nothing.
I called the company.
The customer service representative asked to speak to the account holder.
“My mom is traveling.”
“I need authorization.”
“Can you just tell me what's wrong?”
“There's an overdue balance.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“I can't disclose account information to a minor.”
“But I need the internet.”
“Have your mother call.”
I thanked her and hung up.
I called Mom.
Voicemail.
I texted.
No answer.
That night, I couldn't watch television because most of our channels required streaming.
The house became even quieter.
I sat at the kitchen table and wrote in my notebook.
DAY 17.
Money: $0.43.
Food: rice for maybe 4 days. One soup. Noodles. Half granola bar.
Then beneath it:
Mom knows.
I underlined that twice.
For the first time, I wondered whether I should call the police.
I picked up my phone.
Typed 9-1-1.
Didn't press call.
What would I say?
My mother is in Italy and I'm hungry?
Was that an emergency?
I didn't know.
I erased the numbers.
On Day 19, something happened.
I was carrying trash outside when I saw our neighbor, Mrs. Turner.
She was around sixty, with silver-blond hair and the kind of posture that made her look taller than she was.
She was watering flowers near her driveway.
“Sydney?”
I stopped.
“Hi.”
“Haven't seen your mom lately.”
My mind raced.
“She’s traveling.”
“Oh?”
“For work.”
Another lie.
“Where?”
“Europe.”
Mrs. Turner's watering hose lowered.
“For work?”
“Yes.”
“When is she back?”
“Soon.”
“Who's staying with you?”
My throat tightened.
“Aunt Melissa.”
I didn't have an Aunt Melissa.
Mrs. Turner stared at me.
Just long enough.
Then she smiled.
“Well, tell her I said hello.”
“I will.”
I hurried inside.
My hands shook.
That night, I realized something.
My lies weren't protecting me anymore.
They were protecting my mother.
That thought stayed with me.
On Day 21, hunger won.
I stood in the pantry staring at flour.
I tried mixing flour and water because I had once seen someone make dough.
I cooked it in a pan.
It tasted awful.
I ate it anyway.
Afterward, I became sick.
I spent nearly an hour sitting on the bathroom floor.
When I finally returned downstairs, someone had left something outside our door.
A grocery bag.
Inside were bread, apples, peanut butter, canned soup, crackers, cereal, milk, and eggs.
There was no note.
I looked across the street.
Mrs. Turner's curtains moved.
I carried the groceries inside.
For the first time in weeks, there was real food in the kitchen.
I should have felt relief.
Instead I felt shame.
Because someone knew.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
I ate soup slowly.
Then I went to the window.
Mrs. Turner was standing in her living room.
She saw me.
Neither of us waved.
The next morning, there was a knock.
This time, I answered.
Mrs. Turner stood on the porch.
She wasn't smiling.
“Sydney,” she said gently, “I need to ask you something.”
My heartbeat increased.
“Okay.”
“Is there actually an Aunt Melissa?”
I said nothing.
Mrs. Turner looked behind me into the empty house.
Then back at my face.
Her voice became softer.
May you like
“How long have you been alone?”
And for the first time in twenty-two days, an adult had asked me the question my mother never had.
