I began to feel claustrophobic in my own house. I shared our cat’s fevered desperation to find an open window, a door left ajar, a precious opportunity to escape and go…where? I am afraid that I will pull this house apart, I wrote in my journal. And then it will be winter and I’ll be outside, freezing. The thought of leaving Lucy made me feel physically ill. To abandon my best friend in the world? Unbearable. But then I was already gone. The parallel narrative of my secret, imagined other life was always swallowing my attention, the life in which I was single, vibrant, liberated.
