The medical bills piled up like a mountain, and I had no choice but to sell our three-bedroom house. That was the house with creaky stairs he used to joke would collapse under the weight of all the kids we dreamed of having.

Packing everything into cardboard boxes was heartbreaking. I cried as I folded his shirts and wrapped up our memories. When I handed the keys to a smiling young couple, my sobs came so hard they gave me a migraine. I had nowhere else to go, so I moved into my late grandmother’s old apartment—a small, tired unit on the second floor of a building that always smelled like boiled cabbage and lost hope.

Rent-free, at least. The floors creaked like old bones, and the walls were so thin I could hear my neighbor’s alarm buzzing every single morning at 5:30. It wasn’t much, but it was a roof over my head, and I held onto it like a lifeline. I kept telling myself it was just temporary—until I could stand on my own again.