The first thing anyone saw was the coupon, crumpled and shaking in a French-manicured hand under the flickering lights of an American supermarket.

“Guys, you won’t believe this,” a girl whispered into her phone, angling the camera toward the front of the line. “Lady is holding up the register over a literal dollar.”

The woman at the front slammed the coupon on the conveyor belt. “Your sign says buy one, get one free,” she said, voice sharp enough to cut plastic wrap. “My coupon says an extra dollar off. That means I get both for half price.”

Behind her, carts squeaked, people sighed. A kid in a Dodgers hoodie groaned loudly. Somewhere near the gum rack, a baby started crying.

“Ma’am, I’ve already tried it three times,” the cashier said, cheeks flushed, fingers hovering over keys. “The scanner won’t take it. The coupon expired in March.”

“It’s July,” someone muttered.

“It’s not the register, it’s the coupon,” the cashier added helplessly. “I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

“I want you to honor it,” the woman snapped. “That’s what honest American businesses do. Let me speak to your manager.”

Three people automatically pulled out their phones. This was the kind of drama the internet loved—a living, breathing “Karen” meltdown in aisle three.

Two lanes over, sixteen-year-old Charlie shrank behind a display of canned soup, wishing the earth would swallow him. Of course she’s trending, he thought. And of course she’s my mother.

Cora inspected the coupon again like she could will it back into validity. Her hair was scraped into a messy bun, her T-shirt advertised a charity 5K from six years ago, and her cart was full of store-brand cereal, dented canned goods, and the cheapest ground beef on sale. As far as Charlie could tell, she had “small-town frugal mom” tattooed on her soul.

A tall man in a navy polo appeared from the back, the word MANAGER glinting on his name tag under the harsh fluorescent lights. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“She’s not honoring my coupon,” Cora said, jabbing a finger toward the cashier. “Your sign says one thing, my coupon says another.”

The manager took the coupon, glanced at it, then looked at the growing line behind her. He forced a tired smile. “It’s expired,” he said, “but we’ll honor it this once. Go ahead and give her the discount.”

Charlie’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Leo had just sent a link to a brand-new video: KAREN FREAKS OUT OVER ONE DOLLAR!!! – CALIFORNIA.

The thumbnail froze on his mother’s face.

Perfect.

By the time they reached the parking lot, the late afternoon sun over the San Fernando Valley was hot enough to melt asphalt. Cora loaded bags into the trunk of their faded hatchback, humming to herself, pleased.

“See?” she said. “All we had to do was ask. Saved a dollar. Little things add up.”

“Yeah,” Charlie muttered, staring at his sneakers. “The whole world knows.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

As they pushed the cart toward the corral, Charlie’s little sister, Maya, tugged on Cora’s sleeve. “Mom, can we get the key lime pie next time?” she begged. “The one in the bakery? It’s our favorite.”

“Not for that price.” Cora snorted. “I can make it myself for half that cost. Maybe less if I find the right coupons.”

“You always say that,” Maya grumbled.

“And I’m always right,” Cora replied. “You think rich people stay rich because they pay full price for everything?”

Charlie glanced back at the automatic doors, where a group of teens walked out laughing, one of them holding up a phone, replaying that moment at the register. He caught a glimpse of his mother’s raised voice, the manager’s tired eyes, the little text overlay: POV: YOUR MOM JUST LOST IT OVER 1 DOLLAR.

He slid into the passenger seat and stared out at the endless strip malls and palm trees lining the California boulevard. Somewhere not far from here, people’s moms planned charity galas and drove clean Teslas, not ancient hatchbacks that rattled when they hit forty.

Those moms sure as hell didn’t trend on TikTok for arguing over expired coupons.

The next morning, Charlie rolled into school on his ten-speed bike, the one his mom found at a yard sale and “fixed up” with a milk-crate basket zip-tied to the front. The American flag outside the high school fluttered in the warm breeze as students spilled across the lot, backpacks slung low, iced coffees in hand.

He was halfway to the bike rack when a girl stepped into his path.

“Hey, knock it off,” she snapped at someone behind him, then turned back, cheeks flushed, dark curls bouncing. “Nice wheels, Charlie. Think I could get a ride sometime?”

It took him a beat to realize she was teasing, not actually asking. Gigi Hartman, in her designer sneakers and perfect eyeliner, smiled like life was a movie and she was the lead.

“Uh,” he said brilliantly. “Yeah. Sure.”

Behind her, Heather, all gloss and attitude, lifted her phone. “Y’all,” she said. “Look who rode to school in on his ten-dollar bike with his mommy.”

She held up the screen. It was his mom, in the grocery store, in full coupon-warrior mode. Someone had added siren sound effects and a giant KAREN stamped across the top.

“Caught in 4K,” a boy in a letterman jacket hollered.

Gigi’s laugh faltered. She glanced between the video and Charlie, something complicated flashing in her eyes. “Okay, that’s enough,” she said quietly.

Heather rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Come on, we’re going to be late for auditions,” Gigi told her friends, looping her arm through Heather’s and pulling her toward the auditorium. “Last spring musical of our high school careers. I’m literally crying.”

“Who are you auditioning for?” Heather asked, already filming herself for her story. “I’m thinking of switching things up this year and auditioning for the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“Oh my God, I’m literally dead,” another girl squealed. “Obviously Gigi’s auditioning for Dorothy. She’s always the leading lady. Save the weird roles for the freaks and geeks.”

The double doors swung shut behind them, leaving Charlie on the sidewalk with his bike, the echo of laughter hanging in the warm Los Angeles air.

Leo materialized at his side, earbuds dangling. “Yo,” he said. “Your mom is something else. Like. Part of me wishes I’d been there when she went full coupon combat mode.”

“There are plenty of kids recording,” Charlie muttered. “You want a front row seat, just open your phone.”

Leo winced. “Ouch. Too soon?”

Charlie didn’t answer.

At dinner, the little apartment smelled like lentil soup and bargain-bin spices. Cora set chipped bowls on the folding table that doubled as their dining room, craft station, and occasional desk.

“This again?” Charlie asked, looking down at his spoon.

“Beans and rice are a superfood,” Cora said, dropping shredded cheese from a clearance bag onto each bowl. “Protein, fiber, cheap. What more could you want?”

“Chinese takeout for once,” Charlie said. “Sushi? Pizza that doesn’t come from a frozen box? Anything that wasn’t bought with a coupon and scraped out of a can?”

“Takeout,” Cora repeated, like the word tasted sour. “You mean hella too much money?”

“Please never say that again,” Charlie groaned.

Maya reached for the roll of paper towels and grabbed air.

“Emergency!” she announced dramatically. “We’re out.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Cora said, hopping up. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a neat stack of napkins with a very familiar green mermaid printed on them. “See? Who needs paper towels when your Aunt Susan dumps her glove compartment at every family dinner?”

“You stole Starbucks napkins?” Charlie said.

“Rescued,” Cora corrected. “They were going in the trash. Waste not, want not.”

“Mom,” Charlie said, his voice cracking with something sharper than embarrassment now, “why do we have to be so cheap all the time? None of my friends’ parents do this. Their moms don’t argue over coupons or steal napkins or cancel the Wi-Fi.”

“We didn’t cancel it,” Cora said calmly. “We just… borrow Roger’s. He gave us the password.”

“I have to stand in the corner of my room pressing my phone against the wall to get one bar,” Charlie shot back. “Their parents order food with apps and buy chairs that don’t fold up.”

He kicked the metal leg of his chair for emphasis. It wobbled.

Cora’s smile faded. Her eyes went somewhere else for a second, past the beige walls and the flickering overhead bulb, back to some small rented house in the middle of the country where the lights went out every other month.

“Charlie,” she said softly, “you know how we grew up. There were nights your grandma and I lit candles because the power company cut us off again. There were weeks when dinner was whatever we could stretch between paychecks. She used to laugh and make shadow puppets on the walls so we wouldn’t be scared.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve heard it a million times.”

“The most important things in life can’t be bought,” Cora said. “You can’t put love on a credit card. You can’t coupon your way into being safe. But you can be smart. You can be careful. That’s all I’m trying to do.”

“Yeah, well, money can buy food that doesn’t make me want to vomit,” he muttered. “And real kitchen chairs. And cars that don’t rattle down Ventura Boulevard like they’re going to fall apart.”

“Clean off your face,” Cora said quietly, passing him a napkin. “You’re a young man, not a barbarian. And stop talking about your life like it’s the worst thing in America. We’ve got a roof. We’ve got food. We’ve got each other.”

Charlie didn’t say what he was thinking—that sometimes “each other” felt like the biggest problem of all.

Across town in a gated neighborhood perched in the Los Angeles hills, crystal chandeliers sparkled over marble floors. At a table set with more forks than Charlie had ever seen outside a restaurant, Gigi stared at her reflection in the window, city lights glittering behind her.

Her father’s chair was empty. Again.

“You know the gala downtown is next month,” her stepmother Vivian said, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her designer dress. “And your birthday falls right before it. Perfect timing. We’ll rent out the Four Seasons ballroom, hire that double Michelin-star catering team from New York—”

“I told you what I wanted,” Gigi interrupted. “Just a movie night. With you. Maybe Dad. Maybe one or two friends.”

Vivian’s laugh was brittle. “I won’t be in town. And can you imagine the optics if we didn’t throw something extravagant? Carl is on three charity boards. People expect us to show up a certain way.”

“What about what I expect?” Gigi’s voice trembled.

Vivian pretended not to hear. She reached over and tugged at the waistband of Gigi’s dress. “Suck in your stomach,” she said under her breath. “Those curves are going to pop a stitch.”

Gigi stared down at her plate, appetite gone. She would have traded every chandelier in the state of California for one night of beans and rice at a wobbly folding table with a mom who didn’t care what “optics” meant.

Back in the Valley, Leo sprawled on the floor of Charlie’s room, a controller in his hands, an old TV balanced on a milk crate.

“Dude, you have no idea how good you’d have it at my house,” Leo said, his in-game character respawning. “My mom just got me this whole new setup. Triple monitor, gaming chair, LED lights, the works. She orders DoorDash like it’s a hobby.”

He glanced at Charlie’s walls, where posters were held up with tape reused so many times it had turned gray. On the nightstand, a school yearbook was open to a page dog-eared so hard it barely closed.

Gigi’s photo smiled up from the paper. Seventh-grade braces, big eyes, messy ponytail. Charlie had tucked a concert ticket stub between the pages like a secret.

“Oh my God,” Leo groaned. “You still have that yearbook picture by your bed? That is borderline creepy. You gotta get rid of that thing.”

“Just shut up and pick your character,” Charlie muttered, cheeks burning.

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “Wait,” he said. “Gigi’s birthday is coming up. You finally going to give in and get her something?”

Charlie swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You can’t show up empty-handed, man. She’s loaded. If you show up with, like, a paper flower, she’s going to use it as a coaster for her iced latte.”

Charlie thought of his wallet, with the twenty from washing Aunt Susan’s car and the five his uncle had slipped him at Christmas. He thought of the jewelry store at the mall with its glittering displays and prices with too many zeros.

“There are ways to be romantic on a budget,” Cora said later that night when he mentioned it, carefully neutral, not prying. “Your grandma used to string beads on fishing line and your grandpa thought they were the fanciest necklaces in all of Ohio.”

She dumped a jar of mismatched beads on the table, the plastic and glass clicking together like rain on a roof. “We could make something.”

Charlie hesitated.

“You think a girl like Gigi wants a handmade bracelet?” he asked.

“I think girls like to feel thought of,” Cora said. “The rest is marketing.”

They spent an hour threading bright beads onto thin cord, choosing colors that reminded him of the way Gigi dressed—turquoise and silver and a single tiny gold star in the center. In the warm kitchen light, it looked less like a craft project and more like a piece of him he was brave enough to show.

By morning, he’d talked himself out of it.

Uncle Dave showed up the next day in a car so shiny it practically blinded the neighbors. He leaned against the hood wearing sunglasses and a watch that could have paid their rent for a year.

“What is going on with your hair?” he said the moment Charlie opened the door. “We gotta get you some product, man.”

“Dave.” Cora sighed, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Still showing up uninvited, I see.”

“What?” he said, tossing his keys and catching them. “A guy can’t visit his favorite older sister and make sure the walls haven’t collapsed on her and her son?”

He looked around the apartment with the faintly disgusted curiosity of a tourist. “Seriously, Cora,” he said. “You got to stop living like it’s 1998. We are not two scared little kids watching Mom cry over unpaid bills anymore. You can loosen the death grip on the coupons.”

“You say that like it was all bad,” Cora replied. “We had Mom. We had laughter by candlelight. We survived.”

“And we agreed we’d never live like that again,” Dave said. He slung an arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “How’d you like to shake things up this summer, kid? Come stay with me. Heated pool, private movie room, a fridge that auto-orders food when it’s low. You won’t have to reuse napkins.”

Charlie’s heart lurched. He looked at his mother, at the stack of clipped coupons on the counter, the thrift-store sofa covered in a quilt she’d sewn from old T-shirts. Her expression was carefully blank.

“Really?” he asked.

“Not going to happen,” Cora said immediately. “He’s still in school, and—”

“And he’s suffocating,” Dave cut in. “Come on, Cora. You can’t keep him wrapped in bubble wrap forever. Let him see another side of life.”

“Can we at least order Chinese tonight?” Charlie blurted. “Just once?”

Cora’s mouth opened, then closed. “Fine,” she said. “Chinese. But only because I have a coupon.”

At Gigi’s birthday lunch the next week, the restaurant staff carried out a cake that cost more than Cora’s grocery bill for a month. Gigi’s friends squealed as sparklers flared, phones high, everything documented in perfect lighting.

Charlie hovered near the edge of the patio, bracelet in his pocket, hands sweating.

“Happy birthday, Gigi,” he said when he finally got close enough. His voice came out thin. He cleared his throat. “I, uh… made you something.”

He held out the bracelet.

Gigi’s face lit up. “You made this?”

Before she could touch it, Heather leaned in. “Oh my gosh,” she said loudly. “Did a kindergarten class make that? That’s adorable.”

Laughter rippled through the group.

Charlie’s hand snapped back as if he’d been burned. “You’re right,” he muttered. “It’s stupid. You deserve something better.”

He turned away, stuffing the bracelet back into his pocket. His chest felt like it was full of static.

“That was mean,” Gigi hissed at Heather, but the moment was gone.

“She’ll get something actually nice from her dad,” Heather said, unbothered. “Assuming he remembers he has a daughter.”

“He’s out of town,” Gigi said quietly. “Again. He planned some big party, but I don’t even want it. I’d rather just watch movies on someone’s couch.”

Leo, who had appeared behind Charlie like a mischievous shadow, perked up. “We could go to my place,” he offered. “We got the setup.”

“We’re renovating,” one of the other girls said quickly. “My whole house is a mess.”

“Yeah, uh, my dad’s dealing with a plumbing issue,” another chimed in.

“Charlie would love to host,” Leo announced. “Right, man?”

Charlie felt every muscle in his body lock up. He imagined Gigi stepping into his apartment, seeing the thrifted furniture, the taped-up posters, his mom’s jars of buttons and beads and saved twist ties.

“Yeah,” he heard himself say. “Sure.”

Cora went into full mom-overdrive when he told her.

“Your friends? Here?” she said, eyes wide. “For a party?”

“It’s not a party,” he muttered. “It’s just… people. Watching movies.”

“I’ll make snacks,” she said, already pulling mixing bowls from cabinets. “We’ll do popcorn—bulk kernels cost way less—and maybe pigs in a blanket if I can find the hot dogs on sale—”

“Can you not tell them that?” Charlie blurted. “About the sales and stuff?”

She paused. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll… keep it classy.”

By the time Gigi and the others arrived, the living room had been transformed in the only way Cora knew how. Colorful paper chains looped from the ceiling, made from old grocery store circulars cut into strips. Pillows were piled on the floor, candles flickered in mismatched jars, and a hand-lettered sign on the wall read HAPPY BIRTHDAY in glitter glue.

“It’s giving Salvation Army vibes,” Heather whispered as she stepped inside, heels clicking on the worn linoleum.

Gigi trailed behind, eyes soft. “I think it’s sweet,” she said. “Hi, Ms. Cora.”

“You must be the birthday girl,” Cora beamed. “Come in, come in. I made brownies. They’re a little… rustic, but they’re chocolate, so that’s what counts.”

The brownies were cut into uneven squares on a chipped platter. The lemonade came from a big plastic pitcher.

“Do you have soda?” one girl asked.

“Oh, shoot, I forgot to pick some up,” Cora said. “But here’s a cool trick. If you add a little water to the lemonade, you can stretch it and make twice as much.”

She filled plastic cups two-thirds of the way, topped them off from the tap, and passed them around.

Heather took a cautious sip and tried not to make a face. “Interesting,” she said.

“Wi-Fi password?” another girl asked, pulling out her phone.

“Oh, it’s Roger’s,” Cora said cheerfully. “Our neighbor. You just have to stand near that wall to get the best signal.”

“So you don’t have your own Wi-Fi?” Heather said, incredulous.

“We did,” Cora said, “but his works just fine. Why pay for two?”

“The internet works great in Charlie’s room,” Maya piped up. “If you lean toward the window.”

Charlie wished the folding chair would swallow him.

An hour and two board games later, Heather stood abruptly. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I tried. But she made us play Hungry Hungry Hippos. The board game. I feel like I time-traveled.”

“It’s fun,” Gigi protested, but her friends were already grabbing their bags.

In the hallway, Leo whispered, “Dude, we tried.”

Charlie didn’t answer. He just stared at the door closing behind them.

Later that night, shoulders hunched, duffel bag at his feet, he looked from his mother to his uncle’s idling car.

“I’m going to stay with Uncle Dave for a while,” he said.

Cora went very still. “Is that what you really want?” she asked.

He thought about lemonade stretched with tap water, about grocery-store napkins, about his mom trending as a “Karen.” Then he thought about Uncle Dave’s pool and car and the way people’s eyes lit up when he pulled into a parking lot.

“Yes,” he said.

She swallowed. “Okay,” she said softly. “My door is always open. Don’t forget that.”

He didn’t look back as he climbed into the leather seat.

At Dave’s place, life slid into something out of a music video. Charlie got new sneakers, designer T-shirts, a fresh haircut. Katie, Dave’s impossibly pretty girlfriend, smiled at him like he’d suddenly become visible.

“You clean up nice,” she said, taking a selfie in front of Dave’s silver sports car with Charlie in the background.

“Girls like security,” Dave told him over takeout sushi, gesturing with a pair of chopsticks. “They like knowing you can take care of them. Money provides that. It’s not complicated.”

Charlie nodded like he understood.

He posted a photo of himself in front of the car. The likes rolled in faster than any picture of his homemade bracelets ever had.

By the time he showed up at school again, people barely recognized him.

He dropped his backpack next to Gigi’s table at lunch, sunglasses perched on his head, a chain glinting at his throat.

“What’s up, ladies?” he said, too loud.

Leo choked on his milk. “Yo,” he said after he stopped coughing. “Your uncle actually hooked you up. I see you, bro.”

Gigi blinked. “You look… different,” she said carefully.

“I’m throwing you a real birthday party,” Charlie announced. “My uncle’s place. Part two. Pool, DJ, food, drinks, everything. Way better than last time. You in?”

Heather squealed. “Yes,” she said. “This is the sequel we deserve.”

Gigi hesitated. “It might be nice to just hang,” she said. “No dress code. No photographers.”

“Exactly,” Charlie said, missing the point. “Just us. And my uncle’s sound system.”

“Did you give your mom my card?” Gigi asked quietly once the others had moved on to dissecting weekend plans.

“Yeah,” Charlie lied. “She loved it.”

The card was still wedged under his mattress, unread.

The night of the party, the house glowed like a resort. Lights shimmered across the surface of the pool, music thumped, and a hired bartender handed out fizzy drinks to kids in swimsuits who filmed everything for their stories.

“Way better than your mom’s place, right?” Leo whispered.

Charlie laughed, but it felt hollow.

“Hey, everybody,” he shouted into the mic Dave had insisted on providing. “You having a good time?”

Cheers rose around him.

He turned to Gigi. “Ready for your surprise?” he asked.

A butler—yes, a real one—appeared at his side with a velvet box on a silver tray. Charlie opened it with a flourish, revealing a delicate charm bracelet sparkling under the string lights.

It was everything his homemade one was not: expensive, perfect, impersonal.

Gigi stared at it, then at him. “It’s… beautiful,” she said slowly. “Anyone with money could buy this.”

He frowned. “You don’t like it?”

“I prefer the guy who made something from scratch,” she said. “With beads and string. The one who didn’t care if his folding chairs matched.”

She closed the box and pushed it back toward him. “You can keep it,” she said. “Just like you kept the card you told me you gave your mom.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, throat tight.

“You never gave it to her,” she said. “I asked. She said she’d never gotten a card from me. That’s when I realized you were more embarrassed by her than grateful. That you’d rather trade her in for a sports car and a pool.”

She turned away. “Enjoy your party.”

“Hold up,” Leo said under his breath. “We haven’t even had cake yet.”

She was already gone.

A few minutes later, the universe decided to turn up the volume on Charlie’s lesson.

“Has anyone seen a Katie?” a voice called from the front of the house. A guy in faded jeans and a T-shirt stood in the doorway, looking around. “Katie? You’ve been ghosting me for two days. What is this place?”

Katie went pale. “Chad, I told you not to come here,” she hissed, hurrying over.

“Oh,” Dave said, strolling over with a drink in his hand. “So this is the Chaz you’ve been texting?”

“It’s Chad,” the guy said. “Who are you?”

Charlie felt his stomach drop as the scene unfolded: accusations, denials, the truth spilling out under the glow of pool lights. Katie had two boyfriends. She liked the presents and the rides and the rooftop restaurants. She liked security. Just like Dave had said.

She just hadn’t specified from whom.

By the time she stormed out, both men staring after her, the party’s energy had curdled.

“You all right, kid?” Leo asked.

Charlie didn’t answer. He was thinking about his mother sitting alone at their kitchen table, clipping coupons under a too-bright light.

At the school musical the next night, the auditorium smelled like dust and hair spray. Students fluttered backstage in costume, jittery with nerves. Gigi, in green makeup as the Wicked Witch of the West, paced in circles, mouthing her lines.

“You’re going to kill it,” Charlie told her, hovering near the curtain ropes. He’d volunteered for stage crew, a safe place to hide.

“Break a leg works just fine,” she said, but she smiled.

In a quiet moment while the orchestra tuned, Charlie reached into his jacket and felt paper crinkle. He pulled out Gigi’s card.

Dear Cora, it began.

He read every word: how Gigi had felt seen and loved at that messy little party, how the handmade decorations and watered-down lemonade had made her feel more at home than the Four Seasons ever had. How her own mother had died, and she’d been walking around with a hollow space inside her ever since. How, in Cora’s tiny apartment with its mismatched chairs and coupon-laced jokes, that space had felt a little less empty.

By the time he reached the line about trading all the money in the world for one more day with her mom, his vision blurred.

He looked up.

Through the crack in the curtain, he saw the front row: Vivian, stiff in her designer dress, scrolling through her phone; Dave, distracted, checking his watch; and Cora, perched on the edge of her seat, eyes bright, programs clutched in both hands.

She looked proud.

Of him.

Of being there.

Of everything.

Something inside Charlie shifted, like a puzzle piece finally clicking into place.

The next morning was Mother’s Day.

Cora woke expecting silence. Instead, she walked into the living room and stopped.

Paper flowers hung from the ceiling, crafted from old coupon inserts and grocery flyers. String lights—borrowed from Dave before Charlie moved back the night before—twinkled around the window. On the table, instead of beans and rice, sat a spread of desserts: key lime pie from the bakery, cupcakes from the fancy shop downtown, even a box of chocolate-covered strawberries.

Charlie stood in the middle of it all, holding a card.

“I sold some of the stuff Uncle Dave bought me,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “The watch, the sneakers, the chain. I figured this was a better investment.”

“You did all this for me?” Cora whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. “And I’m moving back. If you’ll still have me.”

She pulled him into a hug so tight he could barely breathe.

“I got a card for you, too,” he said, handing it over. “And this time, I want you to read it.”

The handwriting on the front wasn’t his.

Dear Cora, it said. Thank you for such a fun birthday…

Cora read it once, then again, eyes filling, hand pressed to her mouth. When she finished, she looked up at her son.

“You lied,” she said, voice shaking. “You told me you weren’t ashamed. And all this time…”

“I was an idiot,” he said simply. “I thought money made people worth more. I thought I’d rather have a mom who threw galas and hired caterers than one who rinses out Ziploc bags. But last night, watching everyone, reading what Gigi wrote… I realized we’re rich where it counts.”

He gestured around the small apartment. “I’d rather stand in the corner chasing stolen Wi-Fi with you than have my own password and be alone.”

Cora laughed, tears spilling over. “That’s good,” she said, “because Roger changed the password again, and I was going to make you go over and ask for it.”

Someone knocked.

Gigi stood in the doorway, clutching a small bouquet of grocery-store flowers and a tub of ice cream already sweating in the California heat.

“Ms. Cora,” she said. “Happy Mother’s Day. I, um… didn’t know if it was weird to come by, but I wanted to see you. And I brought backup dessert.”

“Come in, sweetheart,” Cora said. “We’ve got plenty.”

They ate pie and ice cream off mismatched plates, laughing when drips landed on their fingers. No one cared that the chairs didn’t match or that the decorations were made from sale papers. The room felt full—of noise, of gratitude, of something neither money nor coupons could buy.

Outside, in the same country where some people measured worth in credit limits and gala invitations, a single little apartment in the Valley hummed with a different kind of wealth.

Not the kind you flaunted on social media.

The kind you felt in your chest when your mom squeezed your hand, when a girl who’d grown up surrounded by everything admitted she’d never felt more at home than in a place where nothing was new and everything was loved.

Charlie looked around and thought, for the first time, that maybe he’d been wrong about what made a life “cheap.”

Maybe, in a world obsessed with dollars, the richest thing you could do was exactly what his mother had been trying to teach him all along:

Hold on tight to what can’t be bought. And never, ever let go.