
Rebecca Gayle Howell (ed.)
et al.
Published online:
18 May 2023
Published in print:
07 March 2023
Online ISBN:
9780813197418
Print ISBN:
9780813182438
Contents
Chapter
The Night after You Lose Your Job
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Pages
226–227
-
Published:March 2023
Cite
Kuan, Debora, 'The Night after You Lose Your Job', in Rebecca Gayle Howell, Ashley M. Jones, and Emily J. Jalloul (eds), What Things Cost: an anthology for the people (Lexington, KY , 2023; online edn, Kentucky Scholarship Online, 18 May 2023), https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813182438.003.0096, accessed 14 May 2025.
Extract
You know sleep will dart beyond your grasp. Its edgescrude and merciless. You will clutch at straws,wandering the cold, peopled rooms ofthe Internet, desperate for any fix. Avapor of faith. An amply paid gig, perhaps,for simply having an earnest heart orkeeping alive the children you successfullybore. Where, you’d like to know,on your résumé do you get to inserttheir names, or the diaper rash you lovingly curedwith coconut oil, or the white lies you musteredabout the older man in the cream-coloredtruck that glorious spring day, who hung his headout the window and shouted, “Coronavirus!”while you were chalking unicornsand seahorses in the drive? Wheredo you get to say you clawed throughtheir night terrors, held them through their sweatygrunting and writhing, half-certain a demonhad possessed them, and still appearedlucid for a 9 a.m. meeting, washed, combed, and collared,speaking the language of offices?At last, what catches your eye is posted large-font and purple: a local mother in searchof baby clothes for another motherin need. Immediately your body is charged,athletic with purpose, gathering diapers,clothes, sleep sacks, packing them tightly in bags.You tie the bags with a ribbon and set themon the porch for tomorrow. Then you standat the door, chest still thumping wildly, as ifyou have just won the lottery—and so you did, didn’t you?You arrived here, at this night, in onepiece, from a lifetime of luckand error, with something necessary to give.
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