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He didn’t even give them to me himself—he had me served by a solicitor, like I was somebody he was suing. Just some strange man who rang the doorbell and then handed me paperwork that ended my life as I knew it.
I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I called Christopher over and over but his number went to voice mail again and again. Finally, after five hours of me blowing up his phone, he called me back.
“Listen, Lily—there’s no point in arguing about this so don’t start.” His voice had been clipped and impatient over the phone—as though my demanding to talk about the surprise divorce papers was a huge inconvenience for him.
“But…but I don’t understand—why are you doing this?” My voice was hoarse from crying by then and my eyes were red and raw.
“There’s nothing to understand—we’ve been growing apart for some time now, so we’re getting a divorce.” He said it with such finality, as though I had no say in the matter.
And as it turned out, I didn’t. The divorce hearing was only a few days after I got the papers. I should have gotten a lawyer but I was still in shock—also, I didn’t have the money for one. Christopher and I had never kept separate accounts—we didn’t need to since I didn’t have a job. But the cash in the shared account was getting extremely low because he hadn’t put anything into it for a long time.
I realized afterwards that I should have done whatever it took to get some legal representation. But honestly, I don’t know if it would have made a difference. Because the judge just happened to be one of Christopher’s golfing buddies.
The divorce was granted immediately and I got nothing. You always think you could at least get alimony if your husband dumps you, but that wasn’t the case for me. The Honorable Judge Donavan—or “Judge Don” as his buddies called him—awarded almost everything to Christopher.
My ex got the house, his nice new Range Rover, the boat he’d bought himself, and all our assets. All I got to keep were the clothes on my back and the beat-up minivan we’d dubbed “Mom’s taxi” years ago when the kids were still in school.
The judge even had two policemen escort me back to the house and stand over me while I packed my things—like I was a criminal who might rob the place! I only had an hour to cram as much as I could into a duffel bag and get out. They hadn’t even let me get into the safe that Christopher kept behind one of the pictures in my bedroom. I had tried to explain that there were some important documents and jewelry in there that belonged to me, but they weren’t having any of it.
“I’m sure your ex-husband will mail you anything you left behind,” one of the officers told me sternly. “Now please get moving, you have to leave the premises in the next five minutes.”
As I pulled out of the driveway with barely five hundred dollars in my pocket and a duffel bag full of clothes and a few knickknacks the kids had made me for Christmas and Mother’s Day, I saw Christopher pulling in with a locksmith’s van right behind him. My ex-husband got out of the car and a slim, young blonde that couldn’t have been a day over twenty, slithered out to stand beside him and hang on his arm.
I should have gotten out and shouted at him—or at least demanded my things from the safe. But the sight left me numb. As distant as he had been, I hadn’t dreamed that he’d been cheating on me—especially not with a woman young enough to be his daughter!
As I drove away, my last sight was of the two of them cuddling on the front lawn while the locksmith changed the locks so there was no possible way I could ever go back to my old life.
To say I cried, cussed, raged, and felt betrayed once the numbness wore off is an understatement—but what could I do? I had no money for any kind of legal representation and the deed was already done. The divorce was final and I was out.
After over twenty years of marriage in which I never cheated once and worked my behind off to make a nice home for him and his kids, not to mention sacrificing my own chance at education and a career, Christopher had kicked me to the curb.
I’d been living in my car ever since. Five hundred dollars doesn’t last long in this economy and unsurprisingly, Christopher had cleared out the joint account and shut it down, so there was no money there. I wasn’t about to throw away the little I had on hotel rooms, so I did my best in the minivan.
No, I didn’t call the kids to ask for help. I was determined to make it back on my feet and start over. I’d been going to job interviews for weeks now…but having a twenty year gap in my resume made it almost impossible to get any kind of employment. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to hire a washed up, middle-aged mom whose only work experience was babysitting and making smoothies at Jamba Juice over twenty years ago.
Last week I had even resorted to selling plasma for gas and grocery money but you can’t do that too often—not if you want to keep on, you know, living. You can’t?—
My morbid thoughts were interrupted by a strange, twinkling light I could see through the windshield. I leaned forward, wiping at the dirty glass with the sleeve of my coat. What was that? It wasn’t just one light now—it was dozens—hundreds, and they were all different colors. Tiny, twinkling lights—blue, pink, green, gold, silver, red, orange…I saw them winking among the trees, down in the blackness of the forest.
At that moment, as I concentrated on the lights, something strange happened to me—something that hadn’t happened in a very long time.
My birthmark started to tingle.
It’s a weird shape, my birthmark—it almost looks like a tiny spider, no bigger than my pinky fingernail. The eight legs are no thicker than eyelashes and it sits at the top of my forehead, right under the point of my widow’s peak. I felt self-conscious about it when I was younger so I always wore bangs, but it had gotten lighter as I aged.
I tore my eyes away from the twinkling lights for a moment and pulled down my sunshade instead. It had a lighted mirror on the underside and I switched it on to study my reflection.
The narrow mirror showed a tired looking, middle-aged woman with gray streaks in her short brown hair. I hadn’t had the money to dye it in some time and it looked messy and unkempt.
I had bags under my brown eyes—which were bloodshot. It’s almost impossible to get good, restful sleep when you’re living in your car. You feel too vulnerable—anyone could look in and see you and decide you don’t belong and ought to be towed. Or worse, someone could break in and hurt you. I’d been sleeping with one eye open for weeks and it showed on my haggard face.
I used to be pretty.
The thought drifted through my mind like a sad little bubble. I still had the same delicate features—the cute little nose and full lips that Christopher had claimed he’d fallen in love with the first time he met me. I have slightly pointed ears too—he used to call me his “Little Elf.”
But now there was nothing left of my beauty—or my youth. It had all been used up—wasted on a man who threw me away like garbage the minute I was done raising his kids.
I tried to push the painful thoughts out of my head and concentrate on my birthmark instead. It was tingling more than ever—in fact, it was almost itching by now.
