After my husband learned he was about to receive an inheritance, he looked at me and said, “Pack your bags, I do not need you anymore, I am rich now.” He pushed me out of our tiny apartment in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago and filed for divorce the very next day.
I did not scream or beg him to reconsider, and I did not throw things or curse his name. I picked up the pen, signed every page he placed in front of me, and walked out with my suitcase while he laughed behind the door.
My name is Eliza Monroe, and until six months ago I believed loyalty could hold a marriage together even when love was fading. I was thirty two years old, working two jobs to keep our lives afloat while my husband, Preston Gallagher, chased dreams that never paid the rent.
Every weekday I woke at five thirty in the morning in our drafty two bedroom apartment on the South Side. I worked as a front desk administrator at Harborview Family Clinic, and in the evenings I did remote bookkeeping for small companies because Preston’s so called startup ventures brought in almost nothing.