When my sister Ruth finally found me, I was sitting on a twin bed in an upstairs room, my left eye still bruised. Marcus filled the doorway, blocking the exit. Ruth looked at my face and asked the question I’d choked on for months: “Why isn’t she living in the house she bought with Otis?” Marcus didn’t hesitate. He smiled and said, “That house is my wife’s now. And if my mother keeps talking, I’ll hit her again and she’ll wear that color for weeks.”

Weeks passed. My $600 evaporated instantly: $400 for rent, $100 for food, $50 for blood pressure medicine, and the rest bled away in endless little expenses—soap, toilet paper, bus fare. I stopped eating three meals a day. Two felt like plenty. Sometimes just one. Grits were cheap. Beans were cheap. I bought day-old bread because it was half-price. I bought vegetables the market was about to throw away because they gave them to me nearly free.

I lost so much weight my clothes hung off me. Dresses that once fit now draped like rags. I punched new holes in my belt so my pants wouldn’t slide down.

Two months after I moved into that room, Marcus appeared without warning. He pounded on my door like he had the right.

“Mama! Open up!”

When I opened it, he stepped inside without greeting, eyes scanning the room with disgust—my old clothes, my thin body, my shaking hands.

“I need you to put your name on this,” he said, pulling papers from his pocket.

“What is it?”

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