My daughter Emma is seven. She has a piggy bank shaped like a unicorn. It sits on her dresser. Every week, she puts a dollar in it. Sometimes two dollars if she helps with the dishes. She has been doing this for two years. She has one hundred and forty-three dollars. She knows exactly how much because she counts it every Sunday. She is saving for a bicycle. A red one with a basket and a bell. She saw it at a store downtown. She sat on it. She rang the bell. She said it was the best bicycle in the world. The bicycle costs three hundred dollars. She is one hundred and fifty-seven dollars away. She counts her money every Sunday. She does not lose count. She does not give up. She is seven. She is better at saving than I am. I have a different kind of savings. A college fund. I started it the week she was born. I put money in it every month. A hundred dollars. Sometimes two hundred if I had a good month at work. I work in construction. I drive a crane. I lift steel beams into the sky. I make good money when there is work. When there is no work, I make no money. The college fund has been sitting for seven years. It has twelve thousand dollars. Twelve thousand dollars for a college that costs sixty thousand. I do the math every month. I am fifty-seven thousand dollars away. I do not count my money every Sunday. I count it every month. I do not like the number I see. Emma's mother left when Emma was two. She moved to Florida with a man she met at a gym. She sends a card on Emma's birthday. A twenty-dollar bill inside. Emma puts the twenty dollars in the unicorn. She counts it on Sunday. She is one hundred and thirty-seven dollars away now. Then one hundred and seventeen. Then ninety-seven. She is getting closer. I am getting further. The week it happened, there was no work. The crane was down. The part was backordered. The job was stopped. I sat in my apartment. Emma was at school. I looked at the college fund. Twelve thousand dollars. I looked at my bank account. Eight hundred dollars. Rent was a thousand. I was two hundred dollars short. I called my brother. He was short too. I called my father. He was retired. I called a friend from work. He was also out of work. I sat on my couch. I looked at the ceiling. I did the math. The math did not work. I opened my laptop. I didn't know what I was looking for. A job. A loan. A miracle. I scrolled through nothing. Social media. News. The same things I scrolled when I didn't want to think about the math. I had a bookmark I'd saved a long time ago. I don't remember saving it. I don't remember why. I clicked it. The site loaded. I looked at it for a while. I had never gambled before. Not once. I played poker once at a friend's house. I lost twenty dollars. I never played again. But I was sitting on my couch with eight hundred dollars and a rent payment that was due and a daughter who was saving for a bicycle she was one hundred and thirty-seven dollars away from. I found an active Vavada mirror. I deposited two hundred dollars. Money I didn't have. Money that should have gone to rent. I told myself I'd play for an hour. I told myself I'd stop when I lost. I told myself a lot of things. I played blackjack. It was the only game I knew. I learned it from a book my father had. A book about card counting. My father never used it. He just liked the math. I played slow. Twenty dollars a hand. I lost the first five. Down to a hundred. I lost another three. Down to forty. I was losing the way I expected to lose. The way the math said I would lose. I was down to forty dollars when I got a hand. A pair of eights against a dealer five. I split. First hand: a three. Eleven. I doubled. Got a ten. Twenty-one. Second hand: a ten. Eighteen. The dealer turned over a ten. Fifteen. Drew a nine. Twenty-four. Bust. I won. My balance was eighty. I played another hand. Forty dollars. I was dealt a nine and a two against a dealer four. Eleven. I doubled. Got a ten. Twenty-one. The dealer turned over a ten. Fourteen. Drew a seven. Twenty-one. Push. I stayed at eighty. I played another hand. Forty dollars. I was dealt a natural blackjack against a dealer six. The dealer turned over a ten. Sixteen. Drew a nine. Twenty-five. Bust. I won. My balance was a hundred and twenty. I was back. Not winning. Not losing. Just back. I played another hand. Sixty dollars. I was dealt a pair of nines against a dealer three. I split. First hand: a ten. Nineteen. Second hand: a ten. Nineteen. The dealer turned over a ten. Thirteen. Drew a ten. Twenty-three. Bust. I won. My balance was two hundred and forty. I played another hand. A hundred dollars. I was dealt a seven and a four against a dealer two. Eleven. I doubled. Got a ten. Twenty-one. The dealer turned over a ten. Twelve. Drew a ten. Twenty-two. Bust. I won. My balance was four hundred and forty. I played another hand. Two hundred dollars. I was dealt a pair of tens against a dealer six. I stood. The dealer turned over a ten. Sixteen. Drew a nine. Twenty-five. Bust. I won. My balance was eight hundred and forty. I played another hand. Four hundred dollars. I was dealt a nine and a two against a dealer five. Eleven. I doubled. Got a ten. Twenty-one. The dealer turned over a ten. Fifteen. Drew a nine. Twenty-four. Bust. I won. My balance was sixteen hundred and forty. I cashed out. Every cent. I closed the laptop. I sat on the couch. I looked at the ceiling. I didn't move for a long time. The money hit my account two days later. Sixteen hundred and forty dollars. I paid the rent. A thousand dollars. I put two hundred in the college fund. I put four hundred in savings. I had forty dollars left. I went to the store downtown. The bicycle was there. The red one with the basket and the bell. I put a deposit on it. Forty dollars. I told the man I would be back with the rest. He said he would hold it. Emma came home from school. She put her backpack down. She went to her room. She counted her money. One hundred and forty-three dollars. She put a dollar in. One hundred and forty-four. She came out. She said she was one hundred and fifty-six dollars away. I said she was closer than she thought. She didn't understand. She went to do her homework. I sat on the couch. I thought about the bicycle. The deposit. The forty dollars that was now holding a red bicycle with a basket and a bell. I thought about the college fund. The two hundred dollars I added. The twelve thousand two hundred that was still fifty-seven thousand eight hundred away. I thought about the hand that brought me back. The run that came when I was down to forty dollars. The same number as the deposit. The same number as the hold on a bicycle my daughter was saving for. I still play sometimes. Once a month. On the nights when I do the math and the math doesn't work. I find an active Vavada mirror. I deposit fifty dollars. I play blackjack. I lose most of the time. That's fine. That's what the math says. But sometimes I win. Not like that night. Small wins. A hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars. I cash out immediately. I use it for the college fund. For the bicycle. For the things my daughter saves for while I save for her. Emma counts her money every Sunday. She is getting closer. The bicycle is waiting. The man at the store calls me sometimes. He says the bicycle is still there. The red one with the basket and the bell. I tell him I know. I tell him we are getting closer. I tell him my daughter is seven. She has a unicorn piggy bank. She puts a dollar in every week. She does not lose count. She does not give up. She is better at saving than I am. But I am learning. I am learning to count. To wait. To play. To win. To put money in a fund that is fifty-seven thousand dollars away. To put a deposit on a bicycle that is one hundred and fifty-six dollars away. To sit on a couch and do the math and know that the math is not the only thing. That sometimes there is a hand. A run. A mirror. A way to get closer. One dollar at a time. One spin at a time. One Sunday at a time. Emma counts. I count. We are getting closer. We are always getting closer.