Still, none of it made the practical reality simple. A week after I was discharged, I had to return to the house with Megan and a sheriff’s civil deputy to collect my belongings. I had been dreading it more than I wanted to admit. That house held years of my life in it, not all of them bad, and objects accumulate meaning whether you want them to or not. The crib we had assembled. The photos on the hallway table. The small rituals of daily life that had belonged to me even inside a difficult marriage.
Eric opened the door wearing a collared shirt, as if dressing carefully could change what was happening. He looked at me and then at Megan and then at the deputy standing slightly behind us, and his expression moved through several things before settling into something that was not quite recognition but was close.
“This isn’t necessary,” he said.
The deputy answered without inflection. “We’re here to keep the peace while Ms. Harper collects her belongings.”
Hearing my maiden name spoken aloud like that, naturally and matter-of-factly, in that context, settled something in me. It was a small thing. But small things carry weight. I had existed before Eric. I had been a person with my own name and my own history before I walked into his orbit, and I would be that person again on the other side of this.
