Thursday night I did something I thought I'd never do.

I asked to borrow money from my Mom.

It was hard for me to ask, and it was hard for her to say no. We ended the call in tears. I've been crying ever since.

I asked because we need it, because Patrick asked me to, because I kept telling myself I was just asking and that the worst thing she could say is no. But family conversations are never that simple.

If I am honest I might say I resent Patrick for all of this: for not managing the money properly, for putting me in this place, for asking me to call my mom, for insisting I do it the day before the remodel and 20 minutes before I was supposed to be back at work. But all this completely overlooks my own part in all this.

He says he knows that he was asking me for something difficult, but I still don't feel he entirely understands. It is an admission of failure, of weakness. It is the shattering of illusions, the disappointment she always thought I'd been hiding. It is her bailing me out yet again and me still not getting it. It's all of that and none of that yet exactly how it feels.

I told him in the days before that he's making me cut the only thing I have left to stand on. And afterwards I told him I had no more self-respect left.

It's funny, isn't it? It's just money, we say. What happened with it these past six years, you might ask. To be honest, I just don't know. I trusted that he did.