I didn't have a destination.
At first, I simply walked away from the Vance home.
The wheels of my suitcase rattled over the uneven pavement, and the rain kept finding its way beneath my collar.
I passed windows glowing with warm light.
Behind them, people were eating dinner, watching television, or moving through the ordinary routines of their lives.
I wondered how many of them had ever stood outside a door they could no longer enter.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
For a moment, I thought Ryan might have changed his mind.
I pulled it out too quickly.
It was a bank notification.
My available balance was $50.14.
I read it twice.
Fifty dollars and fourteen cents.
That was what remained after Ryan closed the joint credit accounts and Eleanor made sure the small account I had relied on was emptied.
The number looked ridiculous on the screen.
I had spent four years managing a household where the cost of one piece of furniture could have covered my living expenses for months.
I knew how much money went into maintaining the Vance home.
I had kept track of grocery deliveries, household supplies, and the smallest purchases Eleanor wanted recorded.
She once expected me to account for a carton of eggs that had cost a few dollars.
I had done it.
I had written the amount down, checked the receipt, and made sure the figures matched.
I never imagined that one day I would be the person with no money to account for.
I put my phone away.
The screen was cracked from a fall a couple of weeks earlier, and the damage made the streetlights look broken when they reflected across it.
I had meant to replace it.
There had always been something more urgent.
There had always been another household expense, another errand, another request that somehow became my responsibility.
Now I had no household to manage.
I also had no savings worth mentioning.
My degree from Cornell had once seemed like the beginning of a life full of possibilities.
I had graduated magna cum laude with an English literature degree, leaving a small coal town in West Virginia with more hope than money.
My grandfather had given me his old copy of John Keats before I left.
I had carried it through college in the same olive-green suitcase I was dragging through Boston that night.
The book wasn't in the suitcase anymore.
I had left it among my things at the Vance home, along with most of the belongings that couldn't fit into the bag.
I didn't know whether anyone would keep it.
I didn't know whether I would ever see it again.
The thought bothered me more than it should have.
Maybe because the book had belonged to someone who believed I could make something of myself.
Maybe because, in the years since leaving West Virginia, I had become so busy meeting other people's expectations that I had stopped asking what I wanted.
The rain grew heavier.
My shoes were thin, and the cold had begun to settle into my feet.
I had chosen them because they were practical enough for household work and neat enough for the occasions when Eleanor expected me to accompany her.
They had never been intended for a night outdoors.
I kept walking anyway.
I considered calling my parents.
My mother was in the hospital, and her heart condition had become serious enough that every new worry seemed dangerous.
My father was working overnight shifts at a warehouse that supplied auto parts.
He was already carrying more than his share.
If I called, he would tell me to come home.
He would find a way to get me there, even if it meant losing sleep or missing work.
That was exactly why I couldn't call.
I didn't want him to imagine me standing in the rain.
I didn't want my mother asking questions from her hospital bed.
Most of all, I didn't want them to hear the truth in my voice before I could find a way to make it sound less terrible.
I told myself I would contact them when I had a plan.
It was a poor excuse.
I knew that even then.
But I kept it.
I tried to estimate how far my money would go.
A meal would take a little of it.
A bus ticket would take more.
A motel room might cost everything I had, and even then I would only be buying a few hours of safety.
I had no job waiting for me.
I had no apartment.
I had no friends nearby whom I could call in the middle of the night and ask to take in a woman with a suitcase.
The people I knew through Ryan belonged to his world.
I couldn't bear the thought of calling one of them and explaining what had happened.
Some would sympathize.
Others would repeat the story at dinner parties.
I could already imagine Eleanor's version.
Catherine had been unstable.
Catherine had been unable to fulfill her duties.
Catherine had left of her own accord.
I had spent years trying to keep her from describing me that way.
Now I realized she could tell whatever story she wanted.
I had no power over it.
By the time I reached the area near the Back Bay Fens, my legs had begun to shake.
I found a municipal bus shelter with a metal bench and glass panels that offered some protection from the weather.
I pulled the suitcase beneath the bench and sat down.
The metal was painfully cold through my clothes.
I tried to tuck my feet beneath me.
My toes had gone numb, and when I moved them, they answered with a deep ache.
I drew my knees toward my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
The wind came through the gaps in the shelter.
I leaned forward and rested my forehead against my knees.
For a while, I didn't think about Ryan or Eleanor.
I didn't think about the divorce papers.
I thought about staying warm.
That was all.
I told myself I only needed to make it until morning.
In the morning, I could find a place to charge my phone.
I could look for work.
I could decide whether to go back to West Virginia or try to remain in Boston.
I repeated those possibilities because they gave my mind something to do.
But every time I imagined the morning, I came back to the same question.
Where would I sleep?
The rain beat against the shelter roof.
Cars passed through the wet streets, their tires sending water across the curb.
I watched their headlights move through the darkness.
I had spent years in rooms where the temperature was controlled, where fresh towels appeared without anyone needing to ask, where a meal could be prepared at any hour.
I had mistaken access to those comforts for security.
They had never belonged to me.
I had simply been allowed to use them.
The distinction was clear now.
I was cold.
I was frightened.
And I had no idea how long I could remain there before the weather became more than I could endure.
I looked at my phone again.
The battery was nearly gone.
There was no one I wanted to call, and even if I had someone in mind, I didn't know what I would say.
I put the phone away and closed my eyes.
I tried to remember my mother's kitchen in West Virginia.
The old table.
The smell of coffee.
My father's work boots beside the door.
Those memories usually comforted me.
That night, they made the distance between my old life and my present one feel impossible to cross.
I pressed my hands together beneath my coat.
I had spent years worrying that I was too sensitive, too sad, too easily hurt.
Ryan had called me difficult without using the word.
Eleanor had made my depression sound like a personal failure.
I had started to believe that if I could just become more useful, more cheerful, and less demanding, I might finally earn a place in their family.
Sitting alone in that shelter, I understood something I had avoided for a long time.
I could have worked twice as hard and still never been enough for people who had already decided I was not worth keeping.
The realization didn't make me feel strong.
It made me feel empty.
I lowered my head again.
The rain continued.
I didn't know what I would do when the sky began to lighten.
I only knew that I couldn't stay in that shelter forever.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: A Piece of Paper Kept Slapping Against My Leg, and the Words Printed on It Were Strange Enough to Make Me Look Twice
My Husband Asked Me to Sign Two Papers, and Before Midnight I Had Lost My Marriage, My Home, and Almost Everything I Owned
Part 2 of 12
