Domonic cleaned out his dad's fishing tackle and surprised his mom by picking up the yard. He watched while his sisters careened around on their bikes, making sure they didn't veer into traffic. When the chains slipped off the bikes after one too many screeching halts, Joey sat on the stoop to fix them.
"You could line up your kids against mine, and yours would be better-behaved," Dave told Christina in late August at their last formal meeting.
"I really honestly believe that's because Joe's been with them the whole time," she said. "I told him, 'If you get a job and the kids start messing up, you're back home.' "
Angel ran over, waving the Barbie doll Dave had given her. "Her shoes come off! Her shoes come off!" she squealed.
"She's pretty," Dave said, inspecting the Barbie solemnly. "But not as pretty as you are."
Angel glowed.
Christina shared her smile. Though she was working at least 50 hours a week, she was more relaxed than she'd been in years. She had received a raise at the auto-parts store in April, to $12.31 an hour. With overtime, she took home about $2,400 a month, enough to splurge on a cable package and high-speed Internet for the old computer Dave had given them.
When Dave presented her with a binder of spreadsheets, Christina hugged it to her chest. On her own, she'd never been able to plan her budgets ahead; if she had money at the end of the week, she spent it. Now she knew exactly how much she needed for upcoming bills. With school starting, she saved up to buy each of her children three new outfits at Wal-Mart. Joey wore a World Wide Wrestling T-shirt, so new the creases still showed. Corie twirled to show off her favorite dress, purple with a plaid pleated skirt.
Christina even found an extra $60 so Joey could join the high school golf team. "It feels great," she told Dave and Mark. "No stress, man. I love it."
A few months earlier, Mark might have tried to push her to do more, perhaps save a fixed amount from each paycheck. Now, he just nodded. He didn't even press her for details on a job Joe had said he might be starting soon, with a relative's construction crew.
"Different people put value on different things," Mark said. "I've thought about it a lot the past few weeks. Getting that house, having that van, having that family -- that's enough for them.
"And when I think of how we do it -- a $340,000 home with a huge mortgage, two fancy cars, working all the time -- maybe we're the ones that got it wrong."
