Then Mark got a massive promotion at his firm. Suddenly, he was making real money.

And suddenly, the woman who kept his family from falling apart wasn’t good enough anymore. He wanted a “professional.” Someone young. Someone with a degree. Someone he paid.

I stopped coming over. I stopped calling.

My house was completely silent. I didn’t know what to do with my hands anymore. I sat at my kitchen table for hours, drinking coffee, staring at the plastic NANA’S HOUSE letters on my fridge.

Mark didn’t even seem to notice I was gone. He texted me occasionally. Pictures of the kids at the park. Pictures of the kids doing crafts.

Then came the phone call.

It was a Sunday afternoon. Mark called me to ask how long to boil pasta.

“Ten minutes,” I told him. My voice was hollow.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said.

While he was talking, I heard a young woman’s voice in the background. It was bright. Peppy.

“Look what I drew!” my four-year-old granddaughter yelled in the background.

“Oh my gosh, that’s beautiful!” the peppy voice replied.

“I made it for you, Nana B!”

Nana B.

Something behind my ribs folded in on itself. My lungs forgot how to pull air.

“What did she just say?” I asked. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the phone.

“Oh,” Mark said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, the kids couldn’t pronounce Brittany at first. So they just started calling her Nana B. It’s cute, right?”

“She is not their Nana,” I whispered.

“Mom, don’t be weird about it. It’s just a nickname.”

“You let them call a twenty-two-year-old stranger Nana?”

“She’s not a stranger, Mom, she’s our childcare provider. Look, the water is boiling, I have to go.”

Click.

I didn’t cry. The sadness evaporated completely. It burned away, leaving behind a pure, blinding, chemical rage.

I earned this. I earned this by being a doormat. By doing it for free. Our culture does not respect free labor. We only respect what we pay for. He respected Brittany because she handed him a bill at the end of the week.