Frozen Pizza Thursdays

I didn’t know we were poor. Not at first. Not when my parents worked nights, mom waitressing, dad cooking, both of them slipping in and out of the house like ghosts putting in long shifts at the edge of the world. I remember loving the nights at my grandma’s house more than anything — the smell of coffee and old linoleum, the warm yellow lamp in the corner. I didn’t yet understand that I missed my mom. I only knew that she wasn’t there.

Frozen Fridays — that’s when I figured it out. Payday. The one night every two weeks where a small feast appeared: frozen pizzas, sometimes even a bag of chips if the week hadn’t been too tight. I didn’t know it was a luxury. I didn’t know this wasn’t normal everywhere. I only knew that the kitchen was warm and my parents were happy for an evening.

When I got older, I learned the shape of money like learning the shape of a hidden river — by noticing where it pooled and where it ran dry. The neighborhood near the golf course had ranch houses with brick facades and smooth lawns. We had an 1860s German farmstead, wood heat, winter rooms walled off like sealed tombs. I felt embarrassed then. Now I feel the opposite — those kids never had the old apple tree, the leaning barn, the childhood steeped in prairie rust and wind-weathered boards.

I ate my frozen pizza and thought nothing of it. Childhood, like money, is only measured in hindsight.