At 10:50, Roy came upstairs with his phone and stopped when he saw me standing beside two packed suitcases. My husband was behind me, holding a third. Earlier that day, after months of insisting we could not afford to leave, I had found a small month-to-month apartment within our budget. It meant our down-payment savings would grow more slowly, but I had finally realized that saving money was not worth surrendering every ounce of privacy and dignity. When Roy asked what was happening, I reminded him of his own words: “The door’s wide open if you don’t like it.”
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