If someone had told me a year ago that I’d

be sitting in the back of a cab, clutching my last emergency $120,

watching my husband walk into a building

I’d never seen before… I would’ve laughed.

Not because it was funny—because it would’ve sounded impossible.

Like one of those “it could never happen to me”

stories you read and shake your head at,

safe in the belief that your marriage is normal enough to never crack in that particular way.

And yet, there I was.

I remember how the vinyl seat stuck to

the back of my thighs through my jeans.

I remember the baby’s warm weight against my chest,

the way her breath puffed softly into my collar like she didn’t know the world had shifted under me.

I remember my own nausea—pure, physical,

like my body already knew what my mind was still refusing to accept.