n Sacramento, my former husband, Howard, stood across from me with his hands folded neatly in front of him. He looked calm. Too calm.
Before turning away, he placed a small envelope in my hand.
“There’s three thousand dollars on this card,” he said evenly.
“It should help you get by for a while.”
That was it.
Thirty-seven years reduced to a plastic card and a polite sentence.
He didn’t shout. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t explain.
He simply turned and walked out of the building without looking back.
I stood there alone, the envelope shaking in my fingers, my chest tight as if the air had been pulled from the room.The Card I Couldn’t Bring Myself to Use
I never touched that card.
Not because I didn’t need the money.
But because it felt like accepting pity.
I went home to a small rented room on the edge of the city. The walls were thin. The heater barely worked. In winter, the cold crept into my bones. In summer, the air felt heavy and stale.
I survived however I could.
I cleaned offices at night. Watched parked cars for tips during weekend events. Collected bottles and cans early in the morning before the streets filled.
Some days I ate once. Some days not at all.
There were nights when hunger curled inside my stomach so tightly that sleep felt impossible.
And still, I never used that card.
It sat in the back of a drawer, wrapped in a piece of cloth, like something sharp I didn’t dare touch.
I told myself I wasn’t proud.
The truth was worse.
I was hurt.
That card felt like proof that, after a lifetime together, I had been reduced to a burden—something to discard neatly and forget.
Five Years of Quiet Decline
Time didn’t heal anything.
It wore me down slowly.
My body aged faster than my years. My joints stiffened. My back ached. Some mornings, standing up felt like climbing a hill with no end.
My children visited when they could. They left small amounts of money on the table and kissed my cheek before rushing back to their own busy lives.
I never told them how dizzy I felt some days. Or how often the room spun when I stood up too quickly.
I didn’t want to be another worry.
Then one afternoon, my body finally gave up.
I collapsed outside the door of my rented room.
When I woke up, I was in a clinic bed with white walls and the sound of machines humming softly.
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