What I felt instead was hollow, as if something essential had been scooped out of me and taken away.
Ten years had ended with a sentence, and there was nothing left to argue with.
In the morning, I counted the money.
Five thousand dollars.
The lawyer’s transfer had already gone through—efficient and impersonal.
I did the math automatically, the way I had always done.
Motel rates.
Food.
Gas.
It would last a few weeks if I was careful.
Two, maybe three.
I went to a grocery store down the road, the kind wedged between a dollar store and a nail salon in a strip mall, and bought the cheapest things I could find.
Bread.
Peanut butter.
Soup.
I stood in line watching the total climb on the screen, my stomach tightening with each dollar.
I had paid for medications that cost more than this in a single month.
I had never once kept track.
Now every cent mattered.
The days blurred together.
I slept in short bursts, waking whenever the heater kicked on or someone slammed a door nearby.
During the day, I sat on the bed and stared at the television without turning it on, listening to the hum of electricity in the walls.
I thought about calling Daniel.
Then I dismissed it.
There was nothing left to say.
I thought about calling friends I hadn’t spoken to in years.
Then I realized I wouldn’t know how to explain what had happened without sounding like I was asking for something.
I had spent too long being the one who handled things.
Asking felt foreign.
Anger came in waves, sharp and sudden, then receded just as quickly.
It hit when I thought about the word service, about how easily my life had been categorized and dismissed.
It hit when I imagined Daniel sleeping in the room where I had woken up every night to check on Margaret.
But the anger never stayed.
