My husband cheated. I packed my kids and drove to my parents’ house. My father opened the door, looked at my three children standing behind me, and slowly closed it. My brother said no space. My sister called me impulsive. I picked up that garbage bag, walked back to my car, and I whispered 3 words..

I looked at my hands and simply said, “Yes.”

Terrell didn’t offer me hollow pity. She didn’t offer a shoulder to cry on. She offered me a lifeline.

“I have a full-time position opening in billing,” she stated, sliding a piece of paper across her desk. “It comes with full medical benefits and a twenty percent pay bump. You start Monday.”

I accepted the position before she could finish exhaling.

Armed with a letter of employment and three pay stubs, I hunted down a two-bedroom apartment. It was situated in a working-class neighborhood that boasted no luxury amenities, but it was safe, heavily patrolled, and geographically perfect—a ten-minute walk to Sarin and Calla’s elementary school, and two blocks from the city bus line that dropped me at Arlo’s daycare.

The apartment was aggressively small. The kitchen possessed exactly one drawer that didn’t jam on its tracks. The bathroom tiles were a nauseating shade of mustard yellow that had likely been discontinued during the Reagan administration.

But it was ours. It was a fortress.