“Where are we supposed to go?” Lorraine wailed in the background, her voice echoing down the hall. “You’re throwing an old woman onto the street!”
“That,” I said, my voice steady, “is the first practical question either of you should have asked before you tried to steal my home. You had a plan for my apartment, Daniel. Now you’d better find a plan for a motel room.”
“I’ll sue you!” Lorraine shrieked, her face appearing in the camera frame, distorted and ugly. “I’ll tell everyone what a cold-hearted bitch you are! You lured my son into this marriage just to destroy us!”
“Goodbye, Lorraine,” I said. “And Daniel? I’m sending your clothes to your office in trash bags tomorrow. Don’t bother coming back for the rest.”
I turned off the camera feed. I walked back into the living room and sat on the sofa. I looked at the scratch on the floor where Lorraine had dragged her suitcase. I looked at the empty spaces on the walls where my life used to be.
The apartment was quiet again.
It was a cold quiet, but it was mine.
I realized then that people like Daniel and Lorraine don’t take your life all at once. They do it in increments—a key here, a signature there, a robe in the closet. They rely on your silence. They rely on your guilt. But once you take the trash out, you realize how much room you actually have to breathe.
