I was thirty-five years old when I married a seventy-two-year-old man.
No, I didn’t love him at first.
I simply didn’t see another way out.
I grew up moving from one foster family to another, and from a very young age, I learned what it felt like to pack your suitcase and be sent to yet another stranger’s home, hoping that maybe this time they would keep you.
My first husband, Ben, had grown up in the foster system too.
Maybe that was why we understood each other so quickly.
We weren’t rich. I worked in a small store, and Ben was a mechanic. But we had a RPV
modest apartment, an old car, and our daughter, Sophie.
That was enough for us.
Until Ben got sick.
After a year of fighting, I lost him.
I was left with medical debt, a one-year-old daughter, and a life I had no idea how to keep together.
I started working as a housekeeper in the mansion of a wealthy older man named William.
William was seventy-two, widowed, and completely alone.
I cleaned his house, prepared his breakfast, and did his shopping.
But my salary wasn’t enough. RPV
When Sophie got sick, I could barely afford her medication.
Then my landlord gave me one month to leave because I had fallen behind on the rent.
I remember standing in William’s kitchen that evening, quietly crying.