Chapter 2

2

Life after the divorce was harder than I imagined.

The lack of money wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that I didn't know how to be myself anymore. After being an accessory for five years, I was thrown back into the world like a crashed computer that had been wiped clean.

I didn't know how to write a resume. If I put “Stay-at-home mom” on there, HR wouldn't even give me a second look. I didn't know how to socialize. Every time I opened my mouth, I started talking about “My husband,” “My son,” or “My mother-in-law.”

For five years, I had turned my entire existence into a footnote for someone else.

I rented a tiny studio in a grimy part of town for five hundred dollars a month. It didn't have a single window. I had to keep the lights on even during the day. The bathroom was shared with the whole floor, and the kitchen was shared with three other families.

On my first night, the couple next door fought all night long. They screamed, threw things, and then made up in a loud, messy cycle. I lay on my thin mattress staring at the mold stains on the ceiling until dawn.

I wasn't just tired; I was terrified of falling asleep. When I slept, I dreamed of my old home. I smelled the pot roast in the kitchen and saw my son’s little feet as he crawled on the floor. Waking up to this empty room felt a thousand times worse than insomnia.

Logan kept our son. He wouldn't let me see him. He blocked my number and told the security guard at the preschool not to let any “suspicious people” near the gate.

I sat in a coffee shop across from the school three times just to watch him from a distance. I saw his grandmother lead him inside. He looked thinner. His round face had gone sharp, and he kept his head down while he walked.

Once, he tripped and scraped his knee. He just sat there on the sidewalk, blowing on the wound himself. I gripped my paper coffee cup so hard my knuckles turned white. I knew he wasn't happy in that house. But without me there, nobody cared.

I walked back to my rental crying. I splashed cold water on my face for ten minutes. I looked in the mirror at the woman with red eyes, dull hair, and a defeated expression. I looked like someone even I would hate.

“Shannon,” I whispered to my reflection. “If you keep going like this, you’re actually going to die.”

The next morning, I put on my cleanest old shirt and headed to a job fair.