Kate
SITTING AT THE freshly washed worktable with a notepad and pen, I wrote a list of what I needed for my new life.
1) NO MEN! My life will be greatly improved by their absence.
2) A clean, animal-free (except for Chaucer) house.
3) Food.
4) Money to buy aforementioned food.
Sighing, I considered my needs. I needed Gran to forgive me for not being here when I should have been. One week a year hadn’t been enough. I hadn’t fought Justin the way I should have, the way Gran would have for me. I needed...
5) Forgiveness. Someday.
6) Better decision-making skills!
Seriously, was I absent from school when they taught that unit?
6b) Stop making fear-based decisions!
After Dad died and Mom fell apart, fear had consumed me. I no longer ran toward what I wanted. I ran away from what I feared. Dad was gone. There one minute and gone the next. Stroke. Anyone at any time could disappear, and I’d be left alone. I’d trailed after Mom, doing everything I could think of to keep her afloat. I couldn’t lose her, too. I think that was how Justin wormed his way into my life. He seemed solid and dependable, protective. It took me too long to realize that controlling and protective were two very different things. And solid? Dependable? Not so much.
7) A job. To get money. To buy food.
Doing what, though? I’d only ever done research work for Mom. Cleaning out her office, grading undergrad tests, returning books to the library. Hmm, I did pretty much the same for Justin, minus the research, tests and library. I ran errands, cooked, cleaned, paid bills. Did anyone in town need a personal assistant?
8) Cleaning gloves.
The mold in Gran’s fridge had been epic.
9) Traps, big and small.
Crap, I was going to have to throw out critters stuck in traps, wasn’t I? I thought longingly of the car. Maybe I really should live in the car.
10) Dog food.
11) Every cleaning and disinfecting product they sell.
12) A sleeping bag.
13) A dog bed.
14) A pillow.
15) Chocolate, lots of chocolate.
16) Toilet paper.
17) Shampoo and conditioner.
18) Razor blades.
19) Chips, every kind of chip.
As the list got longer, one thing became very clear. Starting completely from scratch was impossible. Oh, and ten years of having my every move and meal monitored had turned me into an irresponsible teenager given a hundred bucks for food on a weekend her parents were away. Ice cream was a perfectly acceptable dinner, right?
Once I’d completed my list, I collected my dog and headed for town. “Listen, buddy, you have to stay in the car while I shop. Don’t try to hot-wire it and leave me stranded, okay? That is not good puppy behavior.” I left Chaucer with a large rawhide stick and went in.
The pile in my cart grew quickly, becoming precarious. The contents of said cart also put me on the receiving end of some strange looks, but if they thought I was an exterminator with an eating disorder, then who was really hurt? Ten years of low-fat, high-protein, low-carb organic with a side of steamed vegetables may have made me healthy, but it definitely hadn’t made me happy. I figured it was time to give high-fat a try. One hundred million obese Americans couldn’t be wrong.
Third in line at the checkout stand meant I could do a little people watching, all in the name of acclimatizing to my new environs, of course.
20) Wear more plaid.
21) Get good, warm boots.
Shit, I needed clothing for snow. I’d never lived where it snowed. My cold-weather gear was already at its warmth limits, and it was only October.
The cashier was working a sister-wife vibe, but if she liked long-sleeve, high-neck chambray dresses with World War II hair, who was I to comment?
Three-hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty-nine cents of traps, poisons, bleach and junk food sat on the counter, waiting to be bagged. I felt a strange mixture of horror, embarrassment and pure pleasure. Until sister-wife swiped my card and it was declined.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, the card isn’t going through. It says I should confiscate it.” She was gleefully apologetic.
He’d canceled my credit card, the Nutsack. Sure, why not? It wasn’t like I was the one who had cheated. Fidelity should be punished.
I handed her my debit card. There was roughly eight hundred dollars in my checking account. She swiped it, and I waited to see if he was angry or if he truly hated me. Her computer buzzed. I recognized the schadenfreude making sister-wife’s eyes bright while the enormity of what was happening rolled over me. My husband of ten years wanted me broke, unable to care for myself or for the dog he hated. He wanted me... What, on the streets? No, he wanted me to come crawling back to him, to apologize, to suffer for having embarrassed him. Forget about love. Would he treat me this way if he even liked me? I was having a humiliating revelation while sister-wife looked on, taking notes for the retelling.
“I see,” I said, and I guess I did. I saw exactly what I meant to him. I checked my wallet. I had eighty-seven dollars in cash, but I still needed to pick up Chaucer’s food. That meant I had about forty-five dollars I could spend here. Apparently I was also going to need to start selling blood.
I looked up at the annoyed cashier, and then back at the four people waiting in line. Sweat broke out on my forehead.
22) Find a hole. Jump in.
The woman second in line checked her watch. I wanted to run to my car and hide, but I needed traps and food. I stood up straighter and powered through.
“Sorry, everyone. I’ll just be a few more minutes.” My heart raced, pounding in my ears as everyone watched me figure out how to pay for three hundred dollars’ worth of groceries with forty dollars.
Sister-wife watched, but didn’t offer any help. I kind of hated her. “I’m sorry. I’ll need to put a lot of this back.” I pulled out the traps, the big bottle of discount spray cleaner—I could probably cut it with water to make it last longer—the jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. I pushed the bags of chips and cartons of ice cream, the pasta and vegetables, all down to the end of her counter.
“I’m sorry. I can’t get those things today.” I gestured to my much smaller pile. “Could you ring me up for just these items?”
She sighed heavily and turned back to the computer. “I need to void out your original order first.” She hit a few buttons and a long tape spit out. She paused and looked at me before she started scanning. “Can you keep an eye on the total as I go? Let me know if I need to stop?”
My eye twitched. A bead of sweat ran down my spine. I nodded.
After another sigh, she began scanning. She did it slowly, checking after each item to see if she should keep going. The people in line shifted, looking around as though trying to will another checker to appear.
My revised total was forty-one dollars. I paid and left as quickly as possible without actually running.
I put the grocery bag in the trunk and then sat in the car for a while, breathing deeply and wishing I could take back the last twenty minutes of my life. If I’d checked my accounts this morning, I would have known what he’d done. I leaned back and let the tears go. Thirty years old and I couldn’t pay for my own damn groceries.
Chaucer leaned over the seat, resting his head on my shoulder again. After a minute, he