Twenty minutes later, we walked out of that house carrying our hastily packed bags. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. If I’d looked back, I might have broken down completely, and I couldn’t afford to break down. Not yet. Not while my children needed me to be strong.
The impossible task of rebuilding from absolute devastation
That night, driving to my mother’s house with Lily and Max asleep in the backseat, I felt the full weight of what had just happened settle over me like a physical burden. My mind raced with questions that had no good answers, scenarios and fears that multiplied in the darkness.
How could Stan do this to us? What had I done wrong? Had I been a bad wife? Had I let myself go the way Miranda suggested? Should I have tried harder to be someone different, someone more exciting, someone who kept his attention?
What would I tell people—our friends, our neighbors, our extended family? How would I explain that my husband had simply decided one day that he was done with us and brought his replacement home like she was a new piece of furniture?
Most terrifyingly: How would we survive financially? I hadn’t worked outside the home in years, having made the decision to stay home with the kids when Max was born. What kind of job could I get now? Would it be enough to support us?
When we arrived at my mother’s modest ranch house in the suburbs, she opened the door in her bathrobe, her face immediately creasing with concern when she saw us standing there with our suitcases.
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